ONE

The second it happens, I know my life is over. I feel the bones break. I literally hear them crack into pieces. As soon as my body hits the floor, my whole world falls apart. My future collapses – dream by dream, goal by goal – right before my eyes.

One missed step and it’s all over. It’s as simple as that.

One missed step.

—

Scorching January sunlight pours in through the windows of the studio. It bounces off the wall of mirrors, making me squint as I dance across the floor. Chassé, pas de bourrée, glissade, jeté.

‘Stretch that back knee in your jeté, Luca,’ Miss Gwen barks from her white plastic chair up the front of the room.

And again, to the left. Chassé, pas de bourrée, glissade – as I push off from the floor, I squeeze every muscle in my body, making sure my legs hit a perfect split in mid-air – jeté.

‘Better.’

Better, she says. Never ‘good’. No matter how hard I try in class, no matter how many competitions I win, nothing I do is ever ‘good’ in Miss Gwen’s eyes. To be honest, I don’t think it’s even in her vocabulary.

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