Haven

5. JASMINE

Stepping outside didn't feel any different to being inside. There wasn't much of a breeze, no cold air to smack her awake, but it wasn't hot enough to slow her to a stop either. She followed the concrete streets, watching her feet go forward. The Guinevere Dance School lingered around the corner. She stepped inside, turned a corner. In the changing room, dozens of girls were chattering, bags and shoes strewn everywhere, coats hanging on hooks and jumpers laying on benches. Some of them were stretching, but most were talking and leaning against the cool wall. Claire watched her from the corner. Jasmine put her bag down on a bench and twisted her hair up into a bun, bobby pins clamped in her teeth. A couple of people said hi to her, and she nodded back to them, hands in her hair, working like they did every day. She could do this with her eyes closed. She ripped a hole in her bun net, asked to borrow someone else's, managed not to rip that one. She sat on the floor and pulled on her flat shoes. She stretched out her arms, accidentally touched the warm bare skin of someone's shoulder. She waited until the other girls started to file into the studio. Jasmine was the last to step onto the smooth studio floor. That was where she came alive.

Jasmine had tried to describe what it felt like to Daphne before, but she'd never found the right words for it. It felt elastic, electric, like if she didn't move she could turn to concrete and die. Like all the stretching and strength training and leaps and spins edged her closer to what she was meant to be, not human, just a dancer, just moving, forever.

"A bit higher," the dance teacher told her, tapping her calf. Everyone was lined up at the barre, spaced out just enough to avoid hitting each other. Jasmine tightened every muscle she could, inhaled deeply, and pushed her leg up further. Her thighs burned, but she let them. That was half the fun. 

Her ankles and toes usually hurt straight out of a lesson. She sat on the bench in the changing room and massaged her feet. Claire was watching her from where her own things were piled up. She was stretching out her feet, arching them repeatedly. The ribbons of her pointe shoes trailed along the floor, caught under someone's foot. The room smelt like several different deodorants, all claiming to smell like flowers but only really bringing to mind sickly chemicals. Jasmine threw her thoughts away, focusing only on how every muscle felt. She mentally pulled at every single one, ran her hand only the surface and wrenched away any pain or fatigue. She didn't have any classes tomorrow. She could pull through.

By the time her pointe class was done, she wondered if she'd be able to walk home. Jasmine shut herself into the cubicle, dull muttering coming from behind the closed doors as if she was underwater. She massaged her feet again, examined the new blisters, and the old ones. She pulled a new pair of jeans over her tights, a sweater over her shoulders. She paused at the thought of opening the door. A couple of cubicles over, someone was rustling, probably struggling into their sweatpants at the end of the session. Jasmine eyed herself in the mirror and yanked out her bun. The lock smacked open and Claire emerged from the cubicle, looking sweaty. 

"Oh hey," she said, running her palm over her forehead. 

"Hey," Jasmine said.

Claire slid a bobby pin into a stray strand of hair. "Are your feet okay?"

"Yeah," Jasmine said, feet hot in her shoes, "I'm just not quite used to it as much. It'll be alright in a couple of weeks."

"Do you ice them?"

Jasmine nodded.

"Okay good," Claire watched Jasmine turn to leave. "Take it easy. Tomorrow's meant to be a break."

The coffee shop Jasmine sat in was a little too warm. She'd managed to steal one of the comfier seats, and she reclined tentatively, clutching the cheapest drink she could find on the menu. That happened to be a kids' hot chocolate. The tiny cup was hot against her fingers, but she kept them gripped around, the table just slightly too low to make the lean down comfortable enough to justify putting anything on there. Jasmine stared at her phone, waiting for a message from Daphne, or maybe even her mum at this point. Somebody at least. She didn't want to go home yet, because there'd be nothing to do there either. Her ankles hurt. Jasmine put in some earbuds and used the cafe's dodgy WiFi to watch a video or two, buffering every few minutes. The bustle around her hummed in the back of her brain. It was comfortable, like a blanket she'd forgotten she'd slipped over herself until she got up and knocked it off.