totally okay |lrh|

0.4

Indigos POV,,

"Aren't you dying right now?" Eve whispers, staring at me with raised eyebrows and skeptically narrowed brown eyes. Her cheeks are flushed red and her forehead is sweaty; I know look just the same. It's 95 degrees out again, not that its uncommon. The ballet studio, which is on the second floor of an ancient, air condition-less building, is sweltering hot, worse than a sauna.

"I'm fine," I say, even though I'm itching to pull the sweat-soaked t-shirt from my body and simply dance in my black leotard and pink tights like the other girls. But my leotard has a pretty low back and if I take my t-shirt off, everyone will be able to see the fresh, violently purple bruise stretching from shoulder blade to shoulder blade, the injury I can't easily explain away. They've already asked about the thick Band-Aids on my knee and foot, which I blamed on a tripping and running into the corner of the coffee table at home. They believed me just like they always do, but they're sure to get suspicious if they see the bruise.

Eve shakes her head and wipes some sweat from her forehead. "I don't know how you stand it," she says. "It's hot enough as it is!"

"Maybe I'm cold-blooded," I say, trying to make a joke out of it to divert her attention a bit. "Maybe I'm secretly a lizard and I just never told you because I didn't want you to judge me."

"Oh my gosh, Indie. You are actually such a dork," Eve says, rolling her eyes. "You didn't say anything that ridiculous in front of Luke yesterday, did you?"

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"Indie, I swear, if you say anything like that on your date today, I'm—"

"Indie and Eve! Having a nice conversation back there?" Our ballet teacher's voice cracks loudly through the studio. Everyone's heads swivel in our direction. I think I blush, but my face is already so red and hot that probably nobody can tell the difference.

"Yeah, until you interrupted it," Eve mutters, sure to keep her voice low so only I can hear it. I have to bite my bottom lip to keep from laughing aloud.

"What did you say?" snaps Madame Bircher, her eyes narrowing.

"Nothing, Madame Bircher," Eve says.

"Good. Indie, come back to center. Let's try your solo one last time before rehearsal ends."

None of the other girls says anything, but I can already feel their disappointment and boredom as I walk past them to the center of the floor. Madame Bircher cast me as, the lead, for our production of Swan Lake. I get cast as the lead a lot, so it wasn't really that big a deal; everyone expected me to sail through rehearsals easily, just as I've done in years past. But this year, for the first time in a long time, I've been having trouble with one particular bit of choreography—the 32 fouettes in Odile's solo. A single fouette, on its own, isn't that hard, but I simply can't do 32 of them in a row the way the show requires. Madame Bircher knew I couldn't do it when she casted me, but she thought I'd be able to master it by the time the show came. Well, the show's only a few weeks away now, and I still can't do it. I can do 30 pretty consistently, but I haven't once managed to get to 32. And everyone in the class is tired of watching me spin on one foot and then fall over, tired of watching me try and fail, tired of watching me attempt to do something I'm not sure I'll ever be able to do. Even Eve is tired of it, though she'd never say that to me outright.

I take my position at the center of the floor with disappointment already heavy in my stomach. Not a particularly good feeling to carry around when you're trying to turn yourself 32 times as fast as you can.

"Prepare," Madame Bircher says.

I take a deep breath and glance at the clock hanging on the wall above the door as I place my pointe shoe-clad feet in fifth position I straighten my back as much as I possibly can. 2:50. At least I'll only have to embarrass myself for ten more minutes.