En Pointe In Pieces, A Short Story

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Ever since childhood, all Nicole had ever wanted was to be like Pierina Legnani. The name, ballerina, the legend. From the moment she could walk, she trained. At first it had been something her mother had put her in just to get a few hours to herself, but it wasn't long before Nicole fell completely and totally in love with the elegance, line and poise of the ballerina.

Nicole wasn't very good at first, she was a clumsy child with genetic chubbiness that led her teachers to smile and shake their heads as they watched her try to pirouette around the ballet room in her pink leotard, her translucent white skirt spinning about with her. In their minds she'd never make it much further past grades and school shows, her tubbiness and her short frame did not make her fat in any way, but it certainly did not make her a prime candidate for the dream of her young life- becoming a prima ballerina.

Unlike other girls, Nicole's dream to be a ballerina didn't end when she reached 6 years old or so, nor did it end when she turned 9, or even 15. Nicole was driven day and night by her dream to be a ballerina. The famous faces of ballerina's through the ages lined the walls of her powdery pink room, from the pure prima's like Anna Pavlova, Sylvie Guillem, Eva Evdokimvoa, Cynthia Gregory and Yvette Chauvire, to the true spirits of ballet, the prima ballerina assoluta's: Alicia Alonso, an inspiration as she was sight impaired; Alessandra Ferri; Alicia Markova; Mathilde Kschessinska; Galina Ulanova; Maya Plisetskaya... the names go on and Nicole could recite their life stories and most famous roles in ballets.

Yes, Nicole truly wanted to be a ballerina. She wanted to be the best. She wanted to be a prima assoluta. She worked towards her dream day after day, praciticing in her cramped room, week after week, year after year, from ugly duckling to tall, graceful swan. Her teachers had been put to silence and shame as they watched Nicole turn into the ballerina they never could be.

Of course, Nicole wasn't a robot, she felt the hormones that other teenagers felt, the pressures and the zits that came with growing up, she wanted to fit in and have a boyfriend, but no matter what, ballet came first. Although not a loner, Nicole was hardly the centre of attention at her school. Her close group of friends conisisted mostly of intellect-driven girls, girls with a plan. Boys never paid much mind to them as they sent out a stand-offish vibe, a cool collected coldness that billowed out around them in a protective shield.

If her friendship group and passion weren't enough to deter boys, then her physique did. Nicole's extreme drive to be the perfect ballerina gave her the slim, verging on too skinny, appearance, which inevitably meant no boobs. Her shoulder length brunette hair was always pulled back into a tight ballerina bun, complete with classic netted bun-holder. She walked like a royal, spine pin-straight, shoulders back and head held high, set upon a graceful neck.

Nicole waited for boys to ask her out and when they never did she decided to be proactive, taking the bold approach and asking boys out instead. Threatened by her confidence at their young, immature age, she had been rejected over and over until her pragmatic- albeit heartbroken- self took control and she threw herself deeper into her practice, distilling her teenage pain into the choreography.

Because Nicole didn't dance for the school, she had no reputation for her brilliance on the dancefloor. Suspected, but never questioned, Nicole's luminous ballet skills remained in the dark ignorance of her peer's. Her one other talent, her one academic talent, was her affinity for chemistry. This, instead, was her reputation at school; the local scientist, the grade’s nerd, the near-anorexic chemical genius. By this time in her school-life though, she'd learned to tune out to the teasing and the smart remarks, like her friends, words simply didn't bother her. In fact, if anything ruffled her, be it a particularly toxic insult or a fight with her mother, she'd simply used the anger or shame and distilled it into something else. She turned it into energy to dance harder, to exorcise her pain through her leaps and twirls, to feel the catharsis of the completion of a difficult choreography.

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