The one in the center of the balcony - that’s the one I want.

I weave my way through men carrying briefcases and big cloaks and women in clunking stilettos and fur coats. I hear laughter and shouting from nighttime city walkers I accidentally bump into. I see red lipstick smudged on the faces of those who don’t know what they’re walking past: the most old fashioned yet gorgeously grand theater in the world. I shuffle up the stairs of the building quickly before the bustling nature of the city distracts me. 

I always seem to get distracted from what’s important. 

The rain of the brewing storm hits the theater roof with force as I walk inside. Sorry for getting rain and mud on your red velvet floors… I want to say this to the tall guy at the ticket counter, but I don't. Instead, I smiled foolishly after scanning my ticket and hurried through the crowds towards the entrance to the actual theater. I tear off my gloves and let my warm palms grasp the cold metal of the golden door handles. Eagerly pulling them open with both hands, I'm reminded of the things that make sense again. The rows of seats, soft red and velvet, are all perfectly straight and angled to ascend into the climax, staggered carefully so that each quiet figure of a person yearning to be front and center gets an equal vision of what could have been. The light shines on the stage, illuminating every detail of the fuzz on the red curtains, the smoothness of the floor, and soon, the actresses who I will be envious of for the next week. The light will cast shadows on all of us in the audience until we’ve forgotten the tragedies and tribulations that await us outside of these doors. How can I remember that I am the empty space between freedom and loneliness while watching someone dance more freely in front of a sold-out house than I ever could even in the privacy of my own room? 

I hug my itchy sweater around my torso and walk up the stairs to the balcony seating - the seat in the center of the balcony. The thud of each step of my boots onto the red carpeting sound throughout the entire grand theater, and I can’t help but feel content with the fact that it’s a packed house with so little sound that the thud of my shoes is audible. All of the balcony seats are full with people sitting… waiting… smiling. I take my seat in the center, careful not to bump into anyone too forcefully as I shuffle my way through, muttering “sorry” and “excuse me” about every five seconds. 

No one really seems to care. 

The woman next to me is knitting as I move around in my seat to get comfortable. She’s knitting with no signs of stopping anytime soon. She is an older woman, but her fingers move quickly as they loop the needles under, through and up… under, through and up. 

It’s a red blanket, I think to myself… or a sweater? The yarn is pulled tight and her creation has no holes. I try not to stare, but end up catching eye contact with her. She smiles at me for a moment, then continues. 

“The stockinette stitch,” she whispers breathily in my ear, smiling with pursed lips. I jump a little at the sensation of her breath blowing against my neck, but l smile and nod to be polite before turning my focus back to forward. The woman keeps knitting. 

Things are quiet. I wonder when she’ll stop knitting. 

She looks like she could go on forever.

All of the sudden, Tchaikovsky sounds from the speakers above, covering our bodies in sheets of eighth notes, arpeggios, and accents like a blanket. I sit still with my gaze focused ahead on the transparency of the light on the stage, the deepness of the warm red of velvet curtains, and the height of the old pillars daring to block my view as I let the layers of crescendos, diminuendos and fortes climb inside me like a gateway. 

Sounding as fragile as a glass figurine, the chilling sound of a single violin strum fills the theater just as the curtains begin to peel open. 

Under my thigh, my phone lights up. 

I inhale sharply.

The woman to my right is still knitting.

I shift onto my left hip to fanagale my phone out from underneath me. 

A chilling D minor chord progression climbs into my ears. 

The woman is still knitting. 

I press my thumb into the power button on the side of my phone, holding it close to my face.

How do her fingers manipulate the needles like that?

A decrescendo from the piano accompaniment of the violin narrows my attention slowly and softly back towards center stage. 

I power my phone off and shove it back under my thigh. 

The red curtains are fully open now, and the decrescendo has reached its own climax: silence.

The woman to my right is still knitting. 

And now, there is a beautiful dancing woman on stage.

The show is starting. 

Nova floats on the tip of her pointe shoe; she is still. Her strong physique is enough to keep her long legs from collapsing into the stage, and the light blinds her eyes - fire dancing in her dilated pupils. Her shoulders push her arms above her head and her fingers turn slightly inward, twisting slowly. The ballet bun she wears pulls the skin lining her face so far back that Nova can already feel the wetness swelling in her eyes. Every muscle in her body is tense, and it’s this moment that she likes the most: the silence right before the glass vase hits the ground with a clang, shattering into a million pieces of hidden shards that she’ll eventually step on. It’s the silence in between the acknowledgement of falling and the reality of crashing. It’s the anticipation and thrill that keeps Nova’s wide eyes focused on the blinding lights ahead of her, and it’s that same feeling that eventually tilts her body forward into an arabesque. Then she spins and she jumps, and she performs the best grand derriere she ever has, all with a blank expression. She feels her white dress caress her skin as she turns her 8th pirouette when her pointe shoes hit the end of her toes, screaming to be free. But it's the silence that consumes her even in a grande theater that implies nothing will ever be quiet like this again. 

Keep going.

She walks off the stage with a blank expression when she’s done, brushing past backstage crew members distracted by their own conversations through their headsets. Everything in her body is still tense, held beneath a surface that she knows is beautiful. Nova knows people stare, and that makes her smile only briefly before she’s consumed by the tension once again, for she knows how to keep the separation still and the tension from spilling out of her like a waterfall. Nova can hear the faint sounds of applause from outside her tiny dark dressing room, but her attention is more focused on the peeling strips of paint outlining her mirror. 

Someone should touch up on that soon. 

This is the way it goes. There are moments when time pushes her forward; there are moments when she can fly in front of a crowd with every muscle in her body clenched and people clap. There are moments when she can control everyone’s eyes and everyone’s minds to her beauty and only her beauty: her hair - the way it’s lack of curl make the pieces falling out of her updo frame her face like a curtain on a window, her dress - the gown of an angel moving briskly in ways you can only imagine, but not act out, and her eyes - gallons of pooled ponds that didn’t get the chance to crescendo into waterfalls. Everyone deserves the opportunity to crescendo - Nova hopes her eyes say this to the timid souls locking eye contact with her in the audience, clenching the side of their chairs as if they want more. 

These are the moments where time pushes Nova forward, but there are just as many moments where time creeps through her, brushing past her bones, creating the chilling false sense of a gust of wind when really nothing is moving at all.  

That is this moment, Nova thinks to herself as she touches up with Lavender hair spray to smooth the top of her tightly pulled bun, then applies another coat of nude lipstick into the crevices of her lips.

She glares at the peeling paint, kicking herself for allowing the reminder that these moments linger: these moments when you hear faint applause in the background, all for a part of yourself you didn’t mean to create. These moments when all you want to do is stare at the wall in hopes that the time tickling your organs will melt into truth and spill out your front for everyone to see. 

And then you will spread all over the floor.

And then you will wonder how you got there. 

And then you will wish that you had ripped the peeling paint off the wall and painted it over with a roller. 

Someone should touch up on that soon.

- - - 

Nova left the dressing rooms without conversations with the other dancers, but to her misfortune, she was not able to get by Ms. Blanchet.

“Bon travail! Bon travail!”

The tiny French lady claps quietly just as Nova’s hand is seconds away from turning the knob of the backstage door, commencing her nightly escape. Ms. Blanchet’s dangling gold earrings bob up and down, and her long dress shimmers even in the dim light of the backstage environment. She continues excitedly, “Gorgeous as always, Novalee!! You have come such a long way, not even just with postures, but with your presence and elegance.”

Nova smiles awkwardly, but cringes at the thought that Ms. Blanchet thinks she needs this conversation, for she knows she did well, she knows she’s elegant, she knows - 

“You know, I always thought you lived up to that name of yours. NOVA. What a gorgeous name,” Ms. Blanchet gestures with her hands towards the sky, her earrings almost making a full flip as she exclaims, “NOVA is a star! A bright star that comes from a place of abounding energy, and it stays that way forever because that is what NOVA means and -”

“Actually,” Nova cuts in, “it is temporary… the energy of the Nova bursts and then goes away.”

Nova smiles, then quickly realizes Ms. Blanchet is not amused. Her teacher’s eyebrows furrow downwards and Nova retreats, “I’m just saying, if you wanted to know the proper definition of the-”

“Your talent is forever, Nova.”

“I know,” she responds quietly, looking down at her sneakers and tights. Conversations like these are the reason Nova likes to sneak out the backdoor. 

“Why are you in such a hurry to leave, Nova?”

Great.

Nova’s eyes harden as Ms. Blanchet stares deeper into her; Nova can’t take her eyes off the glittery eyeshadow surrounding Ms. Blanchet’s upper lid. 

“Listen,” Ms. Blanchet reaches her hand out to Nova’s arm. Nova tenses as Ms. Blanchet asks, “Have you talked to Dr. Reid?”

Nova smiles and looks down before looking back up at Ms. Blanchet with a face that she hopes conveys - why would I?

Ms. Blanchet sighs, seeming to get the message and continues,

“Look, Nova, you come here, and then you go. You show up to practice, then you go, all with the same blank expression on your face. I’ve known you for a long time now, but I barely really know you at all. Your dancing is gorgeous, but sometimes it looks … it looks tense, ok? It looks like you are holding in and-”

“I am fine. I don’t want what you are offering.” Nova says blankly, re adjusting her dance bag on her shoulder as Ms. Blanchet’s grasp on Nova’s arm tightens. 

“I’m not offering. I’m telling you to do this for your own good, for your own performance.”

Nova lightly shakes her arm away from her teacher’s grasp, looking up to the ceiling for a loss of a comeback. Ms. Blanchet notices her fidgeting and discomfort, so she softens her voice to a more gentle tone to say,
“No one can dance like they are free if they are being held down by other things, ok?”

Nova nods, keeping her eyes cold and her mouth straight, careful not to let anything move her face too much before she responds,

“Thank you. Goodnight.”

And with that, she turns the knob of the door she so eagerly wanted to exit through ten minutes ago. While she wasn’t excited to get back to her dorm with Ida, she would’ve done anything to avoid talking to Ms. Blanchet about Dr. Reid. Nova walks out the backdoor, quickly meeting up with a sidewalk towards the campus of the University of Paris. There isn’t a large crowd hanging out on the streets this late during the week, so Nova pulls out her phone and headphones as she walks. She unlocks her phone and opens Safari to look up her name.

Nova.

Requiem by Feure fills her ears through her headphones, each note making her feel more at peace with the streets she walks down. 

Search results load, and the first one that pops up she reads quietly to herself,

“a star that temporarily beams an extraordinarily bright light, then slowly fades back into the abyss it emerged from”

She smiles, but not out of contentment. 

It makes her smile in a way that a performance like tonight’s does: she flys and she soars and she lengthens and crescendos, but then she walks back to university at night in the silence of the streets, alone, with no one except the critters emerging from the cracks in the sidewalk. 

Nova reads it again: a star that temporarily beams an extraordinarily bright light, then slowly fades back into the abyss it emerged from.

- - - 

Nova shuffles up the steps of her housing building of Chrysanthemum, her tote bag growing heavier and heavier on her right shoulder. She pushes the door open, her blonde hair hanging in her face. The headphones jammed into her ears are now playing the Marriage of Figaro, the background to her next solo. Nova knows it by heart; by no means does she need practice counting out the notes and rhythms and bars, but the headphones send a message to the late night study-ers in the halls of the dorm building. 

There’s one thing Nova never explicitly tells people: she hates unnecessary conversations. 

Nova grasps the door knob of her room and creaks it open to reveal her two person dorm: one half - simplistic and barren, the other half - fully alive with LEDs, succulents, striped bedding, colorful posters of foreign drama films like Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and lots of decorative items colored in gold. There on the flowery bedding sits Ida, typing away on her laptop. She immediately perks up from her hunched over position when she sees Nova enter.

“Hey - you’re back! How’d it go?” Ida asks eagerly.

Nova makes eye contact with her and nods, forcing a little smile.

“Good.”

“I’m sure you did great.” Ida starts fidgeting with the frays of her bedding before continuing, “you’ve been practicing so much.”

Nova sets her ballet bag next to her bed, kicks her Ugg boots off, and starts delayering herself from all the jackets that had kept her warm on the walk home. She catches Ida eyeing her, so Nova replies, “Yeah.”  

Ida sighs. Nova pretends not to notice and walks into the bathroom to throw pajamas on. 

“Ok, well, I’m gonna go to bed now. In the morning maybe we could go down for coffee? You could tell me more about the show?”

Nova smirks under her breath as she pulls her plaid pants on and shoves her feet into her slippers, but then gathers herself before walking back out into the mainroom. 

“Okay.”

Ida’s eyebrows raise and the corners of her mouth tilt upward. She pulls her big, curly dark hair behind her head and begins her nightly braiding, but this time, quicker than usual. 

“Great! That’s great! Ok, we can go around eight.”

Nova climbed into bed and turned her light off before any further conversation could occur. Her face nuzzled into the fabric of the pillow; maybe if she curled up tightly enough, she could disappear into the bed. Maybe if she curled up tight enough and pushed her face into her pillow hard enough, she wouldn’t have to go to Sky’s Coffee tomorrow morning.

If her fingers grasped the frays of her simplistic, boring bedding tight enough, maybe she wouldn’t have to go pretend to be a random “businessman’s” daughter two blocks down from the University tomorrow. 

Ugh, that’s tomorrow. 

Maybe she wouldn’t have to manage the breath she holds and the words she chokes back. 

There it is again: the tension, the holding, and then the release. Nova exhales, then sits up and looks across the room to Ida’s bed. Ida is tying off her long braid, then closes her laptop and sets it on her nightstand. She turns off her lamp and turns over in her blankets.

“Ida?” Nova breaks the silence, her accent cutting sharp into the still atmosphere of the room. 

“Yeah Nova?” Ida replies mid yawn. 

Blankly, Nova states, “I just remembered I have early rehearsal tomorrow, so I can’t go to coffee with you.” 

Nova lays back down and cozies up back into the depths of her pillows and blankets. There’s the silence again - the stillness. A gross sense of satisfaction creeps through Nova as she thinks to herself please fall asleep before she responds please fall asleep befo-

“Goodnight, Nova,” Ida’s quiet, tired voice fills the room. 

Something in Nova tells her to respond, but nothing comes out. She breathes into her pillow and doesn’t move as the muffled sound of Ida tossing and turning takes up the silence once again. Nova rolls over and faces towards Ida’s side of the room, her eyes landing on the long dark braid hanging off Ida’s bedside. She closes her eyes in an attempt to go to sleep, but something lingers in her mind, causing her to frown into the still abyss of the room. Only then does Nova feel a slight sinking in her stomach as she thinks to herself, 

Ida stayed up to wait for me to get back. 

Ida stayed up to wait for me and I didn’t even say goodnight. 

“Goodnight,” Nova whispers into her pillow. She doesn’t know why. 

“Goodnight,” She says it a little louder this time. 

No reply.

Ida’s snoring. 

“G o o d - n i g h t” Nova mumbles under her breath. She winces at the sound of her Russian accent. The way her tongue coils in with the annunciation of certain syllables and emphasizes letters she doesn’t mean to. 

Ida’s snoring gets louder. 

There’s another thing Nova never tells people: sometimes she hates herself. 

It’s early, but she’s used to this. 

Nova’s wearing black chic boots, flared striped pants and a jacket patterned with white and brown flowers. Her hair is out of the tight updo from last night, wavy and flowing behind her as she struts down the streets of Paris to the Bleu Blanc Rouge building. The streets agree with her more at this time in the morning than they do during the bustling prime hours of the evening. The tiny touristy shops align the narrow sidewalks, showcasing windows of polished trinkets and classy antiques that make the ambience of the city feel even more unreasonably perfect. The cobblestone street sandwiched in between the right and left sidewalk sits in silence: no tire screeches from taxis, no pedestrians J - walking, and no parallel parked cards jamming the road. 

It’s 6 AM. It’s early. It’s cold. 

It’s thrilling. It’s exciting. 

Briskly marching to her destination down the sidewalk, purposefully pounding her boots against the pavement for the clunking sound effect, Nova shakes a smile off her lips and slips the postcard out of her pocket to read it over once more:

Mr. Tomás Jacques

Get the front desk person, too 

6:15 AM

You are Janet Jacques. 

Make it quick and don’t linger

“Don’t linger,” she mocks out loud in her best French accent, pulling her bag higher up on her shoulder and grabbing her hair behind her head to tie it into a low ponytail. 

“Hello,” she sings.

The tip of her tongue pushes against her lower teeth.

“Hello, hello, hello.”

Her lips tighten and she lets her jaw and nose do the rest. Her pointer finger pinches against the postcard, and Nova feels all the parts of her that were slouching over bundles of comforter and pillows just a few short hours ago come completely alive with anticipation. Her breathing quickens. Her legs pick up the pace. 

The French ones are always her favorite. 

Clearing her throat, Nova pushes open the double doors to the stall beige and bland building of the Bleu Blanc Rouge corporation. The inside is quiet and serious, perhaps made to look intimidating. The marble floors and tan carpeting lead her to the front desk where a woman with glasses and long silky auburn hair sits, seemingly sketching something on a notepad. She looks up immediately as Nova enters.

“Bonjour Madame! Comment puis-je être utile?” Her dark red lips linger around each vowel for a second too long, Nova thinks to herself - or maybe she’s just having too much fun with this. 

The corners of her mouth flip up, and Nova’s lips purse into a wide smile before exclaiming,

“Oh hello hello! Ah, I-I believe I’ve found myself to be lost…”

Lips tightened.

Tongue pressed to teeth.

Perfect.

Yeah, Nova’s definitely having too much fun with this. 

The red haired french lady widens her eyes in surprise,

“Oh! You are English! How beauuuuutiful! An English French lady lost in the Blue Blanc Rouge. HA!”

Nova squints her eyes and forces a smile with teeth; she finds that if she does this for a long enough period of time and makes high noise sounds from the back of her throat, it offers the illusion of a polite laugh. She replies with her French accent,

“That’s me! Oh, but you must think such a disaster of an unfamiliar, early riser like myself. Allow me…” Nova comfortably shakes her gloves off of her hands, tucking them into her jacket pocket before offering her hand across the desk.

“I’m Janet Jacques, daughter of Mr. Tomás Jacques. I came back to this country, er, here, rather,  because I - um..” Nova taps her heel aggressively, blicks rapidly, and pushes her bottom lip in as she looks up to the ceiling. 

“Ohhh darling!” The red haired woman starts with sympathetic eyes towards Nova, reaching her arm - which is covered in gold bracelets up to her elbow -across the desk to land a hand on Nova’s. Nova cringes as she feels the cold metal touch the hand on her skin, but nonetheless, doesn’t break character.

“I am… I am sorry, madamé, I -” Nova puts her face to her jacket sleeve, simultaneously noticing that her tongue placement and annunciation was worsening from her improvised breakdown.

Maybe I should’ve practiced the French plus the crying on the walk home last night, she thinks to herself. Nova inhales deeply before continuing, 

“I wanted to find my father. He was not returning letters, or emails, or gifts, and I was told he worked on this street, but I don’t kno-”

“Madame, cry no more, for you are at the right place. Mr. Tomas Jacques, you say? Well he is right up on the fifth floor,” the woman says excitedly, rubbing a comforting hand on Nova’s as she continues,  

“Normally I would not send just anybody up there, but I have a feeling he would be more than ecstatic to see his little girl after so long.”

Nova forces small tears to escape her eyes and roll down her face.

“Oh!” Nova exclaims, “embarrassingly” wiping them away quickly before graciously thanking the woman. Nova pulls her in for a hug and runs her hands over the back of the lady’s smooth black suit as the lady grunts in surprise, but immediately returns the hug with the same warmth. Thin strands of strawberry colored hair tickle the insides of Nova’s nose as she inhales with satisfaction, not just with herself, but with the situation, because if you squint hard enough… if you lean in close enough, you realize there are things that simply are and there are things that are imagined. Nova prefers what simply is -  this is the image of a beautiful red haired thick accented French lady hugging a lost English-French woman who just learned that she is in the same building as her father. 

So why should it bother Nova that the next time she walks past this red haired woman, the gloves in her pocket will be hiding her bloodied hands? Why should it bother her that the red haired woman will never know for sure what happened to her colleague on the fifth floor, and why should it bother her that these are the last hours of the red haired woman's life?

It doesn’t bother her, and it never will. 

Because sometimes you just have to think about what simply is. And right now, Nova is hugging the beautiful red haired French lady, running her fingers over the smooth sewed lines of the back of her suit jacket with her nose nuzzled into her red hair. And now, Nova is using her free hand to slyly grab a bottle of chemically-made poison (attached to the postcard) out of her bag. And now, Nova is one-handedly pouring the substances into the drink cup next to the French lady’s computer. When she’s done, Nova is back with her nose buried into the silkiness of auburn hair. It smells of expensive perfume, or maybe that part was imagined. 

Before long, Nova finds herself on the fifth floor of the corporation building, granted permission by the woman seated at the front desk, of course. And before long, Nova finds herself knocking on the door of Mr. Jacques’s office, batting her eyelashes like the ‘dutiful daughter’ Janet is - so it’s not long before everything clenched inside of Nova’s body, everything held in since she entered the Bleu Blanc building, is ready to explode. 

And so it explodes like a forest fire ignited by more wood as the ignorant Mr. Jacques opens the door. He is immediately pinned back onto his desk, and the door is locked from the inside by Nova. Then, a knife is pulled out of Nova’s tote bag and held up to Mr. Jacques’s throat. 

Then, he is screaming. Then, he asks questions. Then, he realizes that the answers to these questions don’t matter, because soon, nothing will matter. 

That’s Nova’s favorite part. 

She pulls herself on top of the man, reaching across the desk to close the shutters (just in case). The man yells and flails underneath her in attempts to grab anything from his desk to fight back with, but his efforts create no success. Nova lets out a laugh from the back of her throat, sticking her pointer finger out and raising it to the man’s lips.

“Shhhhhhh,” she whispers with a smile plastered on her face. 

Mr. Jacques spontaneously grabs her wrist and punches Nova in the stomach with his other free hand, but it’s no use. She huffs out of frustration and pushes herself higher on top of him, pressing the knife even closer to his skin than before. His accent is so thick, Nova thinks to herself as he pleads to her,

“PLEASE NO PLEASE I - I HAVE A DAUGHTER. I WANTED TO SEE HER PLEASE DON’T PLEASE I HAVE A WIFE I -” 

Nova frowns and leans in closer to the man’s face, locks eye contact, and replies,

“I don’t care.”

“RUSSIAN? You’re Russian?! What are you-”

The knife goes into him, just underneath his ribcage. He gasps and little sounds escape his mouth, filling the air with throaty grunts. Nova pulls the knife out and brings her face about an inch away from the man’s; then, she watches. She watches until his open mouth starts to gradually close. She watches until his gasps and grunts fizzle out into pained hums. She watches until his eyes freeze into still marbles staring back at her. 

Then, she sighs. 

Nova takes the elevator back down, then marches past the front desk to see the red - haired lady slumped forward, her beautiful head of luscious locks faced down on her computer keyboard. Nova walks over to the table to see her drink cup empty. 

“Perfect,” she sings to herself. Something makes her linger, though. Nova’s hand, stained with splotches of blood, reaches out slowly to touch the French lady’s hair on the keyboard. She silently caresses the strands between her fingers, then pats it down into the crevices of the keyboard. Before walking away to finally say goodbye to the Bleu Blanc corporation building, Nova catches a name plaque next to the bowl of candies that she didn’t see before on the woman’s desk. 

Claudia

What a pretty name, Nova thinks to herself as she snatches a mint and pops it into her mouth, then continues to walk out of the building just as confidently as she came in. 

Claire de Lune echoes against the walls of the theater as she walks in and shuffles down the aisles towards the stage. Every note sounding through the speakers matches with the movement of a fingertip, arm, or leg of the synchronized dancers on stage.

“You’re late, Nova!!” calls Ms. Blanchet from the front row of seats. 

Setting her ballet bag in a chair in the front row and lacing up her pointe shoes, Nova lies, 

“I’m sorry. I tried to leave as early as I could, but you know how University-

“Excuses aren’t welcome in the theater,” Ms. Blanchet cuts her off, abruptly switching the music off. Ms. Blanchet continues, “neither is chewing gum.” 

She points to the trash can behind the stairs ascending to the stage. The other women on the stage pause, all staring at Nova.

She forces away a smirk and resists, “it’s a breath mint, actually.”

“Trash, Nova! The trash! Then go next to Belle in the second row. ” 

Nova never really had a problem with the fact that the other women in the Ballet Opera were closer with each other than they are to her. In fact, it makes sense in her mind, for Nova is busy with University while these other women don’t have to balance both. 

Nova didn’t even know that there was a Belle in the company. 

Debussy abruptly blasts through the speakers, and yes, thank goodness, it’s only the prelude. 

Ms. Blanchet shouts over the music, 

“Come on ladies! Pas de Basque! Arabesque! Un deux trois!”

Once Nova is on stage in the second row next to Belle, everything from this morning leaves her mind.

“Un deux trois!”

Everything is confined once again and precisely moved from position to position as the lights from the theater gradually produce sweat droplets on her body and the music creeps inside her ears to take her to another world. 

“Eyes on me, Anna!”

In moments like these, Nova loves herself:

The way her lips stay slightly parted, just enough to let air in between small sips… 

“Un!”

The way the air bends her finger tips at the longest point of a posture… 

“Deux!”

The lift in her spine from fourth position to fifth position… 

“Loosen up, Nova!

She doesn’t hear that. 

“Trois!”

The perpendicular figure and ninety degree angles she creates with her body from a tilt… 

“Quatre!”

But it is possible - Nova’s realized - that the reason she loves herself in these moments is because for once she is just like everyone else. 

“Cinq!”

Maybe even better. 

Debussy’s chords pound the stage like boulders falling off a cliff, and the pace of flow between postures and poses picks up as eighth notes turn into sixteenth notes. Arpeggios start to feel more like falling down the stairs than walking down them; here comes the flying. Nova feels every muscle in her body tense and release until her ankles are shaking on pointe. She stretches herself across her space until every part of her yearning body feels long enough to catch the bars of music that so graciously offer themselves to her like an anticipated rainfall to a parched desert wilted by a decade of drought. And then all at once, the decrescendo swallows everything that was just there.  There it is: the falling. The music quiets to a mezzo, then piano, then eventually a morendo - the feeling of the last few seconds before an exhale ends. 

Ms. Blanchet moves her arms rapidly, signaling a close, or rather, a beginning to an end. Eventually, she yells, 

“Break!”

Nova’s classes at University are boring; she wishes she had more to bring to them, and she wishes she got more out of them. International business, dance through the lens of the renaissance era, European fashion, computer science, environmental science - the list goes on, but Nova wishes it didn’t. A sort of beigeness covers the days like a picnic blanket, minus the sweets on top. She watches the same handsome women and men with their arms around each other pass her by each day in the courtyards, in the dining hall, and in the walkways in between classes. Sometimes, it’s almost like she doesn’t really see them. Or maybe it’s that Nova has learned to block them out, like when she goes to fancy restaurants near the Eiffel Tower and gazes into the lives of partners laughing over drinks from her table-for-one. They’re always talking so loudly in the high stools of the city bar, and they’re always wearing dangly earrings and clothing from the finest satin and silk companies in the city. 

Sometimes Nova thinks about what it would be like to sit in one of the high stools of the city bar, or enjoy a candlelit picnic below the Eiffel tower once the sun’s gone down. 

Sometimes, Nova wonders what it would be like to give herself over completely: to condense herself into the size of a pebble and wrap herself into her fingertips to set right down into the palm of another. 

But then, she thinks about how embarrassing that is, how naked that feels. 

And of course, Nova always reminds herself, she’d have to kill them in the end. 

The days remain boring; she wishes she had more to bring to them besides the falling and flying of her own body and conscience and everything in between, and she wishes so badly that she got more out of it in the end. 

Because at the end of the day, Nova can’t even bring herself to say goodnight to Ida.

There’s clapping. And standing. Why wouldn’t there be?! I stand up immediately, my folding theater chair swinging backwards, and I look down from the balcony to see the lower level of audience members roaring in applause, too. Even the older lady to my right has finally set down her knitting needles and red blanket to pay her respect to the talent that lies in front of us: so close, so gorgeously close, yet still so inaccessibly impressive that we all unanimously decided on a standing ovation for just the first intermission. The red curtains close as we all take a seat, and the sounds of the theater transition from applause to varying volumes of murmurs and chatter. I find myself awkwardly fidgeting in my seat, the sound of knitting needles to my right and whispers to my left. My eyes don’t leave the center focus - the stage - for I already can’t wait for it to come back to life again. Intermissions are painful in the way that a hiatus from a television show makes you ponder what could happen next; however, I think I’ve seen this one before, and I think I could guess where this is going, so I frown when I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. 

I let my phone vibrate. 

I don’t make an effort to check it, because I’m here for me. Right now, in this chair, in this theater, in this hiatus of an intermission, I am whole and alive for me. I think about how far this version of myself has deviated from the woman who answers her phone. I think about how this deviation is one I am not necessarily proud of, but one that has been essential for the preservation of soul and self; how can I appreciate who I really am if I am her all the time? How can I protect who I really am if I wear her on my sleeve for everyone’s eyes? The answer is, I can’t, so instead, I save myself for moments like these. I let my phone vibrate.

The woman to my right is still knitting. 

Shhhhh

The intermission is over.

“I actually really don’t want to be here right now” Nova plainly states, but it was no surprise to Dr. Reid who had read over the notes Ms. Blanchet had given her. 

Dr. Reid turns around from her desk where she gathers her notebooks, her dark long hair flowing on the back of her suit jacket, and smiles with sincerity. The two of them lock eyes for a moment before Dr. Reid explains,

“Not a lot of people truly want to be here, it-

“No, but I really don’t want to be here.” Nova says it a little louder this time as she rocks back and forth in her rocking chair, purposefully creating a screeching noise with the chair against the tile floor, twirling her blond hair in her fingertips. Nova purses her lips together into a fake smile for Dr. Reid as the continuous screeching fills the tiny, crammed room. Dr. Reid sighs and smiles back, pulling up a non-rocking chair across from Nova so that the two of them are sitting face to face. The therapist’s room is tiny and quiet, for the only sound was the screeching of the chair and the hum of the fan. Sunlight shines into the room through the two big windows of the office, which were situated on the wall opposite from Dr. Reid’s desk. 

“Your accent is very unique, Nova. Where are you from?”

Continuing her chair rocking, Nova raises her eyebrows, 

“I see you’ve never met any Russian person? Like ever?”

Dr. Reid smiles, as if the answer were a success. 

“Ah, Russia! I used to speak a little before I moved to France. So, what brought you to Paris?”

“Ballet,” Nova mutters. Slumping back into her seat and crossing her arms against her chest, she continues, 

“That’s why I’m here.”

Dr Reid leans forward, 

“Ms. Blanchet?” 

“Da.”

Dr. Reid replies, 

“Pravil’no.”

Nova sits back in her seat again, unamused.

“Your accent is very American.”

Dr. Reid tucks the pencil she was holding into the clip of her clipboard, chuckles lightly, and answers, “I am American.”

There was silence in the room as Dr. Reid retrieves notes and papers from her desk drawers and places them on her clipboard. She skims them over before asking, 

“Why don't we take a look at notes from Ms. Blanchet - does that sound good, Novalee?” 

Nova looked up, eyes wide, staring at Dr. Reid, who was just now getting comfortable in her seat again with the papers. 

“Don’t call me that,” Nova said, her voice strong and accent sharper than ever. 

“Okay,” Dr Reid responds with a calm voice. She crosses her legs over each other and rests her hands on top of the clipboard.

“What do you want me to call you?”

Nova almost smiles.

“Nova.”

Dr. Reid jots it down on her clipboard.  

“Ah, like the star.” 

“Sure, sure” Nova whispers quietly as she re-adjusts her position in her chair. 

This already wasn’t going well. Nonetheless, Nova looks up to see the doctor’s kind eyes looking back at her with another sincere smile.  

It was almost sincere enough to drive Nova right out of the building. 

“Oh, hi!” 

Ida walks into their room around 10 PM, startled to see Nova sitting at her desk at this time in the evening. Nova can’t really tell if it was a good or bad type of startled. She twists in her chair to face Ida, 

“Hi,” she replies. 

Ida continues into the room, sets down her book bag, and begins tidying up her side of the room. 

“I thought you had another show tonight at the theater?”

“No, there’s another one later this week though.” Nova begins to clean up her homework at her desk, making her way to her bed. It’s been a long day of activity, activity she never really wanted to do in the first place, yet still so incredibly boring. She followed her postcard’s order for the day - which quite frankly was the highlight of the past 24 hours-  worked herself intensely at practice, and sat through every required class of the day, all whilst talking to no one. 

Accomplishment?  Solo success?

No, it’s freedom. Or maybe, rather, the beige space between freedom and loneliness. 

There’s an uncomfortable pause in conversation as Ida and Nova rummage through their things to get settled in bed for the night; well, at least it feels uncomfortable to Nova even though this kind of silence dominates the majority of time spent in their dorm room. She feels Ida’s eyes on her back, but continues to untuck her bed sheets, acting like she can’t tell.

“Nova?”

Nova climbs into her bed.

“Yeah?”

“Um, do you think I could, like, come watch your performance this week?”

“You just have to use the QR code on the posters to get to the ticket link. There’s no deadline so it’s not too late.” Nova replies while applying chapstick. 

“Oh yeah, I mean, I know how to do it. I just …” Ida fiddles with her hair then begins to intertwine 3 separate chunks into a braid as she continues nervously, 

“I just wanted to ask you if you would be okay with that.”

Nova stares at her blankly. 

“Like, are you okay with me coming? I mean I just wanted to let you know because I didn’t want you to be surprised if you saw me there and didn’t know I was coming, like I wouldn’t want to make you nervous or -”

“That wouldn’t make me nervous,” Nova cuts her off abruptly, pulling her blonde, long, disheveled hair into a knot on the top of her head. She watches as Ida ties off her braid and looks right at her. Ida’s look was a kind of gaze Nova had never seen on her face before; Ida’s eyes were wide with a tint of both fascination and hesitation, yet her mouth was slightly open in a way that conveyed a sense of marvelization. Nova stared right back at her, but for a completely different reason. 

This seemed like an unnecessary conversation to her, but maybe not so much for Ida. 

“Can I turn the light off?”

Ida instantly snapped out of her trance, responding eagerly,

“Oh yeah, yeah of course.”

Nova switches the light off. 

“So I’ll be there.”

“Ok.”

Nova sometimes wishes she had more creative responses or something to make herself come across as more pleasant. Sometimes she wishes she acted like the people she watches in her classes. 

Sometimes she wishes she talked like the people in the high bar stools at the restaurants in the city. 

Sometimes she wishes she had as much control as the Eiffel Tower, standing above the couples laughing in the candlelit fields past dusk with no questions or thoughts, just height.

“So you feel alone.” Dr. Reid looks at her from across the room, legs crossed, and of course, clipboard in hand.

Nova leans back in her seat, shifting uncomfortably, physically and mentally. 

“I guess.”

Dr. Reid nods, looking around the room before replying, 

“Who do you interact with during the day?”

Nova scoffs. 

“It does not matter who I interact with throughout the day. I will always feel like this no matter who I interact with.”

“Ok, but who do you interact with?”

“My roommate,” Nova almost laughs, “Well, not really.”

“What do you mean by ‘not really’?”

“I don’t actually tell her things, and then I just feel mad at her because I can’t tell her things.”

Dr. Reid writes something down, which annoys Nova. She taps her heel against the floor. 

Dr. Reid continues,

“And why can’t you tell her things?”

Nova thinks for a minute; the answer seems so obvious that she almost can’t explicitly find it. 

“There are certain things you don’t tell people.”

Dr. Reid nods. 

“Right, but what about the other things? You say you don’t tell her ‘things.’ So why not tell her the things you are comfortable sharing?”

Nova rolls her eyes while replying defensively, 

“Like what? Like what I’m doing every second of the day, what I’m eating, what I’m-”

“Nova, I was thinking more like how you’re feeling. Or maybe, how your day was. Or, how a ballet performance went… the small things.”

Nova leans forward, 

“What’s the point in telling someone all the ‘small things’ when you know you will never be able to tell them the things that matter?”

Dr. Reid mimics Nova’s physical position, leaning forward in her seat, too. 

The clipboard’s on the ground now.

“You feel it difficult to make connections with people because so much of who you are is hidden.”

There’s a pause. Dr. Reid watches carefully for a reaction in Nova, who is completely still in her seat. The only movement is the slow rise and fall of her shoulders. 

“Can I ask you something, Nova?”

The hum of the fan sounds through the room. 

“What if everyone knew about the parts you keep hidden… what if your roommate knew, what if Ms. Blanchet knew, what if I knew… what would happen?”

“That would be bad,” Nova laughs uncomfortably. Dr. Reid smiles and eagerly follows up,

“Why?”

“I am not who you think I am.”

“You’ve made that very clear, Nova, yes-”

“No, really. I am, I am a bad person. I do and I like bad things,” Nova shifts again in her seat because all of the sudden, it feels like the back of the chair is pushing thorns into her spine as she speaks.

“I’m not normal.”

Her breath is quickening. 

“I just, I’m good at acting like I am, but really I am not.”

Her vision is getting blurry.

“I can’t stand people, but I wish I could, and maybe I can’t stand people because the majority of them are just so different from me that I just can’t -”

Something gets stuck in her throat. 

Nova sighs, then cringes at the sound of her accent once again.

It occurs to her then that she should go back to the dorm and get to sleep early, for tomorrow morning yet another “businessman” will be killed. 

It also occurs to her then that she’s never said certain things out loud before. 

Mr. Stewart Rouge

5 AM

7th floor

Wear the bulletproof vest

Nova scurries out of the dorm room long before Ida awakens that morning. This one is similar to the last; some man working in a French corporation who isn’t who he says he is. Nova really doesn’t care, but she is feeling extra irritated today, so she brings along her own weapon of choice: an old, rusted kitchen knife from an abandoned drawer from the dorm kitchen. Going into these jobs confidently really never backfires on Nova, but today would be an exception. She struts into the Nanterre building, noting the absence of any sort of front desk security, which only boosted her ego (and excitement) even more. She takes the escalator up to the 7th floor, knife shaking with excitement in hand. To Nova’s surprise as she steps off the escalator, the man is in the halls, outside of his room, and has a gun (which is disgustingly painted gold) in his holster; Only then did Nova realize she left the bulletproof vest on her bed this morning. 

The next thirty minutes are unpleasant, but not in a terrible way. 

Mr. Stewart Rouge, it turns out, was trained in the martial arts field at some point in his life. She learns this when his first move is a hook punch to her neck and side kick to her face. However, lucky for Nova, she was trained, too, and he learns this when she recovers quickly with a knee into his stomach and straight-arm deflections to his next several punches. Nova’s blonde hair flies into her face and mouth as she throws herself into the man, forcing him against a wall, which three different framed pictures fall from with a clang onto the tile floor. Nova pushes the man into the broken glass on the floor and watches as the golden gun flies loose from his holster as his yells fill the hallway. Nova reaches down to grab the gun, but she’s too slow. Mr. Rouge grabs her arm and flips her back down the ground, his hand on her knife.

This could be bad.

He’s on top of her. 

He’s holding her old, rusted knife up to her throat. 

He’s gross to look at, the cuts from the glass pecking at his face. Nova swats at his face with her fists with everything left in her as she struggles underneath him, careful not to let the blade touch her skin. Mr. Rouge is so focused on the knife, and Nova is so focused on her betraying knife, that she almost forgets - the gun. 

If she could just reach it, if she could just grab it - it’s so close, but her arm can’t reach that far. Mr. Rouge grunts as he uses his free arm, the one not holding the knife, to hit Nova’s reaching arm with all his strength. Nova screams in pain, pulling her arm back towards her body. 

Now she’s mad. 

Nova wraps his legs around his torso, shoving the threatening knife towards the sky, using everything in her to flip him over against the wall. She grabs at Mr. Rouge’s face and eyes as he yells out, losing his sense of sight as he struggles on the floor again. She sees him eye the gun and his attempt to reach for it, but Nova jumps on top of him with her rusted knife, which Mr. Rouge had abandoned on the ground. She plunges the knife into his back and holds her breath as his grunts fill the hall; And then he screams. 

So loud.

Nova’s had enough, so she pulls the knife out and finishes the job with his heart. This time, she leaves the knife in and watches him slump onto the floor atop the scattered pieces of broken glass. Nova watches his face, the way a series of expressions fades into blankness. She watches his arms, the way rapid movements and struggle slow into stillness. 

Nova snatches the golden handgun off the floor, just in case, and lets herself fall against the wall until she is fully lying down. 

Then she laughs. 

Then she’s left breathless on the floor, staring at the crack where the wall meets the tile. 

- - - 

After cleaning up, Nova’s back at Chrysanthemum, pushing her dorm room open, ready to relax by herself after that job when - 

“Hey!”

It’s Ida. Her chocolate colored hair is pulled back in a high ponytail, and she’s wearing sweat shorts and a tank top, lounging on her flowered comforter. 

Nova internally panics, grateful that she cleaned up before returning back to the university, but also completely aware that she is holding a bag with a sparkly golden, loaded gun in its depths. 

“Hi,” Nova says back to Ida as she sets her bag on her bed and takes off her jacket to hang over the bed frame. In doing so, Nova accidentally hits her arm, which is already turning black and blue in one spot from her earlier altercation with Mr. Rouge, against her bed frame. She momentarily gasps in pain at the contact, but quickly attempts to erase any signs of a grimace from her face. Nonetheless, it gets Ida’s attention. 

“Are you okay?”

Ida gets up off her bed and walks closer to Nova, who has absolutely no idea what to say. 

“Yeah, I just..”

“Woah! What happened to your arm? It looks like it’s bruised.”

Ida reaches her gentle hand out to touch the inside of Nova’s arm, softly running her fingers over the bruised section between Nova’s wrist and elbow. Nova flinches at the initial touch, so Ida pulls away and settles with just holding Nova’s hand.

“What happened?” 

Her eyes are dark, deep, and kind. 

“You know, Nova, you can tell me things.”

Oceans are swimming in Nova’s eyes, she can feel it. She wishes so badly, so badly that she could say everything, scream everything, but she can’t. It bites at her insides like a lurking parasite that won’t detach itself from its prey; then it occurs to her that she is the only parasite, and she is the only prey. She is the attachment between the two creatures, yet she is the makeup of the creatures themselves. 

Nova turns her face away, which is now showing a lot more expression than she’s comfortable with, and heads towards the door as she feels her eyes confess, tears now rolling down her cheeks. 

- - - 

“I feel like no one really knows me.”

“Right,” Dr. Reid replies, “Because you don’t tell people things?”

“I guess. Well, I can’t.”

Dr. Reid sets her clipboard back down on the ground, which Nova’s come to really appreciate. 

She thinks Dr. Reid can tell.

Dr. Reid folds her arms across her knees and asks, 

“So, what would happen if you did?”

Nova shrugs.

Dr. Reid glances back down at the clipboard on the floor.

“Last time you called yourself a ‘bad person.’ Are you afraid of other people calling you that, too?”

“Maybe.”

Nova hates how small her voice sounds today. 

“What do you think would happen if people thought you were ‘bad’?”

Pausing for a moment before answering, Nova finally responds, 

“Everyone would leave. I wouldn’t get to do the things I'm doing, like ballet.”

Dr. Reid noda.

“Is it worth it?”

“What?”

“I’m just asking you, Nova. Do you think it’s worth it to feel this lonely so that you can keep doing what you’re doing? With people you don’t necessarily even like?”

Nova sits up in her chair.

“I like my roommate!! And Ms. Blanchet. And the other dancers…”

Dr. Reid smiles and tilts her head, questioning,.

“Do you?”

“Yes, I just get frustrated because they will never, you know.”

“Never what, Nova?”

“They’ll never…”

Her breath is quickening again.

“I will always have to be all these different people instead of one whole person all of them. I will always have to hide certain parts of myself, the bad parts.”

She feels her shoulders rising faster than usual.

“It’s just so exhausting to lie all the time.”

Her throat itches. 

“And it’s so hard to feel good and comfortable with people when I know they would hate me if they knew how bad I am.”

Her hands fly to her face as she feels her voice crack. 

“It’s just, it’s so frustrating to talk to people and to want to tell them so many things, to want to tell them everything, but you just can’t. Like today, this morning, I did something this morning and I want to tell people about this morning, and I want to tell people about what I did and how I did it and what it felt like, but I -”

Nova’s eyes well up with tears, and she presses her palm into her forehead as hard as she can, as if she were trying to rub off whatever’s coming over her. Nova’s eyes stay on the ground as she hears Dr. Reid comment gently,

“Yeah, Nova, that would feel really really lonely ro keep that all to yourself.”

“Yeah,” Nova replies at almost a whisper as she lets tears run down her face, still attempting to hide them with the sleeve of her jacket as she stays leaned over in her chair, eyes locked with the floor beneath her. 

“Thank you,” she says under her breath. 

- - - 

Later that night, Nova walks back into her dorm room feeling exhausted. She takes off her long sleeves before walking towards the two beds, one in which Ida is reading peacefully.

“Hi,” Nova says quietly. Ida sets her book down, turning her attention towards Nova.

“Hey,” she smiles. “You look tired.”

“Yeah, I am,” Nova smiles back. It’s somewhat genuine, this time. 

“I got you something,” Ida says, jumping off her bed and heading towards the room’s minifridge.

“Ta da!” she laughs. “I know, not that exciting, but it will help your arm.”

Ida pulls out a bucket of ice, assumingly from the college cafeteria’s ice machine, and a bundle of washcloths from the mini fridge.

Nova frowns.

“The ice machine is in the cafeteria across campus.”

“Yeah,” Ida chuckles.

Nova raised her eyebrows before commenting,

“That’s far.”

“It kinda is,” Ida nods, still laughing.

“Thank you, Ida.”

Ida brings everything over to Nova’s bed, grinning ear to ear in a way that almost amuses Nova. 

“Here, let me help,” Ida says softly as she props herself next to Nova on her bed and wraps a single washcloth in ice, gently placing it on the inside of Nova’s arm on her bruise. Nova takes it from her to hold against her arm, gasping at the coldness against her skin. Ida notices.

“If it’s too cold, you can wait a little bit.”

“No, it feels nice. Thanks.” 

“Yeah, no problem!.” 

Ida climbs off the bed and puts the ice bucket back in the fridge, accidentally knocking Nova’s bag off in the process of doing so. Ida apologetically reaches to grab the bag, which Nova tries to stop, but is too slow with the ice pressed against her arm. 

The golden sparkly gun rattles as it hits the floor, falling from the insides of Nova’s bag.

Nova looks up at the ceiling and sets the ice washcloth on her bed, using everything in her to remain calm and keep her composure.

It’s a toy gun, it’s a fake, it’s for a show… so many stories she could lie with, but still, she curses herself for not remembering to do something with the bag before she left for Dr. Reid’s appointment. 

Nova looks to Ida to analyze her reaction, and then to respond accordingly, but Ida’s face is filled with a kind of unexplainable expression that Nova can’t predict what she’ll say.

There’s the silence again. 

This time, Nova fills it.

“Oh, it’s just a fake-”

“It’s gold,” Ida says slowly. “It’s gold.”

Nova stares at Ida, and for the first time, Ida is completely and utterly unreadable. 

“Nova, I’m feeling kind of tired. I’m gonna go to sleep now.”

Ida moves slower than usual as she climbs into bed. Nova feels like she should say something more.

“It’s a fake, by the way, I mean, I know you kn-”

“I know,” Ida almost laughs, but not in a way that feels light-hearted like her usual. Nova quickly stands up to put the gun back in her bag, still frazzled from Ida’s odd reaction. She slides the bag under her bed when she knows Ida’s not looking. 

“Thank you for the ice, Ida,” Nova says again, hoping for a cheerful response, so she worries a little more when all Ida says is “yeah.”

Nova tries to steady her increasing heart rate as she quickly climbs into bed and switches off the light. She replays the moment in her head over and over again, still pondering over how quickly the dynamic changed in a matter of seconds. 

“You’re coming to the performance tomorrow, right?”

“Of course.”

Nova swallows at the quietness in Ida’s voice. She turns over on her side to face Ida, who is turned towards the wall, bundled in her comforter. 

“You can sit in the front, if you’d like… in the guest area.”

“Okay. Goodnight, Nova.”

“Goodnight.”

Nova falls asleep with the ice pack pressed against the bruise on her arm as her mind circulates through every possible reason for why Ida reacted the way she did. 

Every imagined reason ended badly. 

Nova is surprised when she wakes up to find that Ida is not in her bed. In fact, Ida’s bags are also not on their hangers on the wall. The absence of the normal routine of things sends a feeling of panic through Nova, yet she remains calm as she gets ready. She steps outside of her dorm room and enters the hall when she sees Ida walking towards her. She’s grasping her book bag tightly and her head is down, but still moving quickly.

Nova walks towards her, slightly confused, but also intrigued.

“Hi, Ida,” Nova says as they approach each other. Ida instantly looks up, and only then does Nova see the redness in her eyes and puffiness of her face. 

“Oh, hi, um, I have to go to the room-”

“What’s wrong?” Nova asks instinctively, partially blocking Ida’s ability to continue past her in the hallway towards the room, trying to make eye contact. Ida responds in between soft crying and sniffs, 

“Nova, please-”

“Did something happen?”

“Yeah, well, I just found out that a family member passed away, and I-” 

A gut wrenching sob breaks its way out of Ida’s throat, and she covers her mouth instantly as she hurries past Nova towards their dorm room. Nova turns to watch her leave, stunned to see Ida that upset. She decides to leave Ida alone in the room for a bit, then returns some time later to offer any kind of support she can; Nova hesitates as she pushes the dorm room open about an hour later. She does so quietly in efforts not to  startle Ida, but instead, Nova is the one who is startled. She frowns as she sees Ida looking around Nova’s bed, almost as if she were in search of something. 

“Hi,” Nova says.

“Oh, hi! Hi, I’m sorry I was just looking around, uh,” Ida wipes her face as she immediately retreats back to her side of the room, clearly embarrassed.

“Are you okay?”

“Uh, yeah. I’m just upset about what happened, but you can go, seriously. You can go.”

“Do you want me to go?”

Ida’s face hardens into an expression Nova has never really seen on her before. Ida maintains eye contact and quietly responds,

“Yeah.”

Nova nods. She grabs her ballet bags before leaving with,

“Let me know if you want to talk.”

Nova closes the door and lets go of the situation, but has a harder time letting go of the feeling it gives her as she walks through the city to the theater, or the feeling it gives her as she runs through the dress rehearsal for tonight’s show, or the feeling it sends through her body as she realizes she had left the bag with the golden gun in the room. 

And she certainly was not able to shake the feeling of utter fear and terror that creeps through her body, muscles, and tendons when she walks out onto the stage later that night for her solo to Claude Debussy’s Claire de Lune, forced to read the first and last names on the taped pieces of paper below the seats of the front row guests. 

IDA ROUGE

Nova froze.

No no no no no no-

She read it again.

IDA ROUGE

The last name mocks her.

Mr. Stewart Rouge

The last name is laughing at her. 

5 AM

The last name is punching her in the stomach. 

7th floor

As if it were saying, 

Wear the bulletproof vest

Did you really think you could get away with this?

IDA ROUGE

And there sits Ida in the front row with her name tag. Her features that Nova once characterized as gentle and soft now look as if they had been carved into the complete opposite. Her long brown hair that Nova once thought of as silky and lustrous now looks wild and full with a purpose that threatens the neatness of Nova’s tightly pulled back ballet bun. 

All eyes are on Nova, and the lights shine onto her skin to illuminate her performance, but really they just burn until she starts sweating. She is sweating. She is on pointe and her face is in a grimace because she can’t believe what she’s done. 

Debussy’s progression of chords and rests and quarter notes and eighth notes used to guide her through every breath, posture, and figure of her solo, but now they have her in a chokehold. 

So she dances.

Nova lengthens her body longer than it’s ever tilted, leaped, or leaned and when the soft beginning chords land, so does she. The stage is her canvas, and also her apology. Nova moves through it effortlessly, as if she were already a celestial creature that never really belonged here. Because truthfully, as she performs the postures deeper and fuller than she ever has before, she accepts that she never really did belong here. Nova lifts herself on point for an arabesque at center stage and lets her fingers drift apart from one another as she watches them hover over faces in the audience like untouchable strings of confetti. As she pirouettes over and over and over again, her eyes only land on the piercingly loud, but quiet figure of Ida Rouge in the front row. Nova’s eyes well with tears as Claire de Lune’s crescendo fills the theater, and she lets them stream down her face when she feels her muscles and tendons release and then fall. And now she is falling like a flower from an oak tree, except she is a strange flower because she will never wilt once she hits the ground. Nova forgets everything around her to the broken brilliance of Debussy’s timeless arrangement, but then she’s left with the music. She forgets everything around her, but then she’s left with her. 

And so she dances. 

And eventually, as all moments do, even the ones that send you flying, the song decrescendos, and you fall in a less graceful way once again. 

And only when Nova is in final position, her arms high above her hair, her legs straight and up on pointe, only then does she see that Ida has her bag with her… 

Only then does she see that Ida has brought the golden sparkly gun. 

Sometimes, when things get too overwhelming, you have to focus on what simply is. 

Ida is pointing the golden sparkly gun at the dancer on the stage.

Tears are streaming down the dancer’s face. 

The dancer kills people for a side job.

The dancer just wanted to dance. 

Tears are streaming down Nova’s face. 

She thought she could do it. 

She’s flying. 

BANG

She’s falling. 

Red covers her torso, and her hand flies to her stomach as she falls and hits the stage floor hard. 

The sound of roaring applause fills her ears as Debussy’s music fades out, and she lies on the stage floor as the sharp pain in her stomach dominates every other feeling in her body.

And eventually, as all moments do, this one simmers out. 

The blood trickles slowly, the air runs out, and when she describes it later - dying - she equates it to sitting in an empty theater, staring at a stage gone dark, wondering what the big deal was.

Everyone is standing, and everyone is applauding. I swear it’s louder than anything I’ve ever heard, louder than the roar of oceans hitting boulders, or the sounds of a screeching animal gone mad. I think I see some people crying, but I’m still. 

I’m not moving because,

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” I’m losing my breath. I grasp the sides of the chair for any kind of stabilization. 

I’m sitting in the theater, but I’m not really here. I think I’m dreaming. I must be dreaming. 

WHY IS EVERYONE APPLAUDING?

There are tears in my eyes as I stand up and turn to the people next to me, frantically asking them if they saw what just happened, but they’re too busy clapping. 

I think I’m going insane, but I can’t stop the tears that flow down my face. And before I know it, I’m screaming. I stand up to get a better look, and I know what I saw. 

There is a dancer bleeding out on the stage. 

And before I know it, I can’t control my body. I’m shaking the people next to me, shaking them out of whatever trance they’re in. I’m shaking the woman next to me, the old woman who sits happily with the finished product of a red woven blanket. Her smile instantly turns into a glare of suspicion and distrust as I snatch it away from her and explain to her between hiccuped breaths that someone has been shot. 

And before I know it, I’m running down the stairs of the theater towards the stage with the woman’s blanket in my hand. I’m making sounds I don’t recognize. 

WHY ARE PEOPLE STILL APPLAUDING?

People are staring at me like I’m crazy, but those are the same people who are still applauding, acting as if they can’t see anything. 

“SOMEBODY HELP!!” I scream as loud as I can as I scramble onto the stage towards the dancer, throwing myself next to her and pushing the red woven blanket into her bleeding stomach. My volume is no use in a theater of roaring applause; no one seems to hear me. 

No one ever seems to hear me. I sob even harder as the red of her blood fills the knitted blanket in a way that makes it hard to differentiate which red belongs to whom. I hold it against her stomach, caressing her tear streaked face with my shaking hand. 

She’s beautiful.

I cry. 

“You are going to die,” I whisper inches away from her face as if she doesn’t already know this, as if she isn’t already gone. I struggle to press the blanket hard enough into her stomach to stop the bleeding. 

“You are going to die you are going to die you are going to die,” I can’t stop. I’m pressing it as hard as I can. Blood seeps through the knitted holes of the blanket. Blood seems onto my hands. I cry harder. I cry louder. 

And then, I feel myself being pulled away. A man grabs my arms and pulls me away from the dying dancer, and soon I am being pulled by men in security outfits to the doors of the theater, and everyone in the audience is staring at me. 

And in that moment, I am forced to think about what simply is. 

There is a dying dancer lying on the stage with a newly woven red blanket on her stomach. 

And here is the figure of another woman dying, not in a conventional way, but in a way that precedes a realization that loneliness and dishonesty are the poisons of freedom.