En Pointe In Pieces, A Short Story

Nicole trained and practiced and performed. The only time she ever felt truly herself was when she was upon the stage. In the ballet world where she lived, she was a legend. Taking as many lead roles as she could, Nicole brought the audiences to tears of sorrow or joy with her flowing steps in 'Swan Lake', 'Romeo and Juliet', 'The Nutcracker', 'Giselle', and 'La Sylphide'.

Her small town fame spilled over into the next town and the next until avid amateur ballet watchers would come to watch her dance her heart out on the wooden blocks of her pointe shoes. When Nicole turned 18 her life changed dramatically. When Nicole was 18, she was scouted.

The prim woman looked about in her early 40's. Completely unaware of her presence in the audience, Nicole had taken the stage to perform a choreography of her own composition. She spun, she leaped, she twirled and arabesqued, she performed her revoltades and her rond de jambes, her grande jetes and sissonnes, ending with a picturesque fifth position pose that had the whole auditorium on its feet before the music had even come to a complete stop. Impressed, the scout waited for the end of the show before personally approaching Nicole and offering her a position with her ballet company.

News travelled fast in her tiny town. Nicole's face was soon branded on the local newspapers, she and her mother were interviewed, Nicole's wallflower status at school blossomed into a quasi-celebrity status overnight. All of a sudden, Nicole's ballet fame exploded over into her scholarly reputation. This did nothing but make Nicole uncomfortable as for many years she'd kept the two strictly separate. Not even her friends had seen her perform. As far as she was aware no-one at her school had ever seen her perform.

~oOo~

This, however, is where she was wrong. She was wrong because there was a school-mate that had seen her perform. His name was Christian. As he had a younger sister, he'd often been dragged along to her ballet recitals. When he was a child he'd paid no mind to the silly girls on the stage, they were boring and they danced to boring music, and to top it all off, they had cooties. But as he'd matured he came to notice a particular dancer that stood out in her group pieces.

She was a mousy brown haired girl with baby fat still clinging to her face. Suddenly, there was a reason to come to the recitals, the glazed look in his eyes transformed into one of rapt concentration whenever she came on stage. Even when his parents decided he was old enough to stay at home and look after himself whenever a recital was on, he'd find a way to join. His secret longing to watch the mysterious beauty on stage came to an end, however, when his sister decided to quit ballet. At the ripe age of 9, of course his petulant little sister could make decisions for herself, could ruin his dreams.

Christian would never admit to enjoying watching the ballet out loud for fear that his friends would tease him or his parents would question his sexuality, so instead he learned how to sneak out, how to lie to his parents, how to trick his friends into thinking he was somewhere when he wasn't. It wasn't until he turned 16 that he discovered that the ballet dancing fantasy girl went to the same school as him, more than that, was in the same grade as him!

He'd noticed one day in assembly- an occasion he regularly skipped to spend sleeping somewhere in the school's many hideouts- a girl with a tight brown bun and impeccable posture sitting a few rows in front and to the left of him. Curiosity spiked within him, he refused to believe that he'd simply not seen her this entire time. Maybe she'd just transferred to his school? Maybe she wasn't the girl? 

After a short talk with one of his friends he soon discovered that she had neither just moved to his school, nor was she a ballet dancer. His friends, by no means popular or with connections, assured him that the girl- Nicole- was a chemistry brain, not a ballet dancer. Not only that, but the more he tried to push the subject of Nicole, the more he was rebuffed. She wasn't worth his time, she didn't date, even the whispers that she was lesbian.