Until We Break (Formerly Wicked, Wild, Wonderful)

Original Edition: Chapter Sixteen

THE NEXT MORNING, NAOMI MORGAN SLEPT TILL' NOON. Her eyes struggled open against the harsh sunlight, worsened only by what followed when she was finally able to see. The heavy reality that the expanse of her bed comforted nothing where Jessica Kingsley used to be and the cold air that once accompanied her was gone, Riverside's scorching heat its painful substitute. Naomi inhaled deeply and turned on her side, her gulps of air prickly as thorns.

It took her a few futile tries to realize that she still could not move. Doctor Gonzales had said that her wheelchair was only a hospital privilege; there was technically nothing preventing her from actually walking. But Naomi Morgan refused to believe that as she struggled to feel any bone or muscle or anything inside of her. She was crippled, whether the Doctor or her parents or her brother saw it. Something was desperately wrong with her.

That fact seemed natural. But what she was, where she was, would not stay down. There was nothing left for Naomi Morgan as she was now. There was nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to speak to. Naomi Morgan was more alone than she ever thought she could be and she only had her empty room to entertain what was left of her. She watched the squared outline in the wall where her television used to be. She had removed it because Jessica thought it was a distraction.

She saw that her dresser was empty too, as was her night-stand which held only a lamp. In one corner, atop a lonely desk was a laptop and a phone she hardly ever used, even her floor was bare because Jessica said she'd need the space to practice and carpets and other miscellaneous things were all hindrances. Her room, as Naomi Morgan now saw it, was her room now more than it had ever been. It knew quite vividly that she was dead somehow; as if she had always been dead and her parents preserved all her things as if they held memories that they could readily access.

Naomi lacked the strength to roll away so she decided to not move at all and glance at something—anything—happy that she could find in her room. That was when she finally began to notice something out of place. Her closet door was ajar.

She quickly blinked away whatever tears had formed to see that the door was wedged open by a pair of her pointe shoes. Helplessly, she stared. Permanent dirt had curved around the box and scratches were sliced into the soles. They had served her longer than she expected when she thought about all the things she went through. Pointe shoes usually withstood torture for around three weeks but this pair defied those odds.

Despite her sloppy technique at the beginning of the summer, when Jessica died in front of her. Then all throughout her late-night relentless rehearsing in front of her bedroom mirror to materialise a future she was tired of dreaming with Jessica, a girl she never grew tired of seeing. It's survival even lasted until she got her biggest achievement of getting the lead, Giselle, just when things had begun to fall apart.

They followed her through the worst of times, but also the best. The immediate one to come to mind was when her mother caught her bloodily trying to dance in them. She had stopped her and hugged her. 'You are powerful' she told her. Then when she brought them to Ben to be fixed and both of them laughed in his store where indescribable happiness shone through light bulbs and between the gaps in wide-teethed smiles. Then the pointe shoes snapped. And everything changed.

Naomi tasted salt tickle her lips. She sniffled, the thoughts retreating to the unsafe depths of her mind as she felt terrible tears stream down her face. She remained like that for another hour.

*

A knock came to her room door. Naomi did not attempt a thing. It didn't matter. The door creaked open slowly anyway and weighted footsteps came in. Mrs Morgan stood over her unmoving daughter. There was a pregnant pause.