It's not what I'm trained for. It's not what I practice so hard for. It's not what I aspire to.
But 2nd place is what I take home from the first competition of the season. 2nd place, and Miss Suzume's horrible sneer, and a boatload of brand new insecurities to lose sleep over at night.
I missed 1st place by .25 points. It's worse than coming in last, as far as I'm concerned, the knowledge that I had it right up until the end, but a tiny mistake cost me somewhere along the line. I even know exactly where it all went to shit: I missed a turn. I went for five turns, managed four. To the untrained eye, I didn't make a single mistake.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The bus ride back to campus is quiet. Miss Suzume fumes in the front seat beside the driver. The other girls congratulate me, since I placed higher than all of them, and I smile at their congratulations but goddamn does the gesture feel forced and empty. Like this whole ballet thing.
I would have been so proud of my 2nd place trophy three years ago. Back when ballet was what I loved, rather than...the only thing I can do, I guess, so I've got to do it well.
Now, though, I can't wait to get back to my dorm room so I can shove this physical reminder of my failure right the fuck under my bed where it belongs. Never to be seen again.
There are certain things that you have to tolerate, being a dancer.
The agonizing practices, the long hours, the frequent workouts, the constant dieting, the feeling of never, ever, ever being good enough and the destructive cycle of perfection and punishment, that goes without saying.
But there's also another aspect to it that you might not actually expect.
The feeling that I am always, always, always running out of money.
Dance is expensive. From the get-go, it's expensive. There's lessons when you're young, costumes, entrance fees into competitions and it only adds up over time. I was lucky to get a scholarship into KPAA back in middle school (a little girl from a ghetto foster home can't hope for much else than a miracle), but the scholarship doesn't cover everything. It's competition season, and the fees are steeper than ever, and I need as many first-place victories as I can possibly grab to polish my application to Konoha College of the Arts.
Bottom line? I need a job.
The problem is, I have almost no availability, except on the weekends. After my recitals. It complicates things one afternoon as I sit in my dorm room, my study notes on one side of my desk and the want ads on the other.
Who would hire me? I think, half in amusement, half in despair. A stressed-out, no-time-having ballerina?
I've never had a job before. Seventeen and I've never had a job. Well I guess you could count dance as a job, but it feels more like indentured servitude. I'm not collecting a paycheck for all the hours I spend in the studio, staring at myself in the wall-length mirror criticizing everything about me.
