The Embrace by Vivian Wood

8

“Okay, everyone? Can we all come to the center of the room for a minute?” Bas shouts.

I turn around in the dance studio, making eye contact with Ella as we both head over across the hardwood floors. Bas is standing in the middle of the room with an expectant expression on his face. He puts his hands on his hips and swings his gaze around the room.

“All right. I know that a lot of you have been whispering about what you think the fall ballet should be. I know traditionally we have usually done a lighter ballet which will leads us into doing the Nutcracker at Christmas. But I think that we need to expand our resume a little bit. Test our boundaries. So that's why I think that we should do a modern dance interpretation of Romeo and Juliet.”

Immediately, everyone starts whispering to the ballerinas beside them. But Bas claps his hands together and ends the chatter.

“Roles will be selected based on talent. I will email the Alexander version of the ballet to all of you. Study it. Prepare yourselves. We will rehearse scenes four and five nonstop for the next two weeks. At that point, I will hold rehearsals and roles will be handed out.” He pauses, arching a brow as he looks around the room. “There is no room in this company for good enough. No room for coasting. There is only room for excellence and showmanship. Are we all on the same page about that?”

A smattering of people agree with him out loud. The rest of us, including myself and Ella, look at each other with a great deal of uncertainty.

Bas isn't worried about our feelings though. He raises his hands and shoos us back to our barres. “Go on. Back to where you were. Starting with this class, we're going to work through the routines very slowly. Step-by-step…”

I bl0w out a breath. “Welcome back to the barre.”

Ella arches a brow in my general direction but I just shake my head.

“This week… I swear, God is testing me.”

Ella giggles a little and takes her place beside me at the barre. For the next hour or so, we go through a series of stretches and then do a few combinations. Nothing that raises my heart rate much, honestly.

I raise my arms and take my place in line to execute an easy combination. A few pirouettes finished with a grand jete. As soon as I finish, I turn to watch Ella. But she only makes it through one move before I hear the most dreaded sound in the entire ballet studio.

As Ella begins her first pirouette, a loud snap echoes through the whole studio.

I get chills at that sound. Every time I’ve heard that exact sound, it’s been a career ender for someone.

I rush over and call her name. “Ella? Ella!”

She is already crying by the time I kneel next to her. She clutches her ankle. I reach out to touch her ankle with gentle fingers and she howls from the slightest touch of my fingers against the back of her foot. On a light skinned dancer sometimes you can tell a tendon injury just from a sudden and spreading bruise. But Ella’s dark skin and reaction to my touch makes me think i should just let the professionals handle it.

Bas pushes several dancers out of the way and kneels down on the other side of Ella. “Are you okay?”

“Call a doctor!” Ella shouts.

His gaze travels down to her leg and he visibly swallows. “Okay. Okay. I need some help, people!”

Bas turns his head and zeros in on a student. “Melanie, can you call 911 please? And Betsy, can you run down to the office and let whoever is in there know that we have a medical emergency?”

Ella starts whimpering out loud. I grab her arm, sliding my hand down to hers. She looks at me, her brown eyes wide with pain and shock.

“Why? Why me?” She whimpers through her tears. “It really hurts…”

I can only grip her arm and mutter that she is going to be okay. I carefully pet her head and shoulder until help finally arrives.

By the time that the ambulance crew is lifting her onto a stretcher, her leg is swollen so badly around the back of her ankle that it looks like there is a grapefruit lodged beneath her slick pink tights. As the ambulance crew leaves with her, I make sure to tell them to take her to the best hospital in the area. I rush after them with Bas right on my tail.

He looks over at me, his eyes filled with concern. “Do you want a ride? I'm going over to make sure that everything is taken care of…”

I nod. “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea…”

It's only when I am getting out of the taxi that Bas hailed that I realize that I'm still wearing my ballet slippers. I hurry to the hospital entrance and look around, trying to decide if my best option is just to wear this pair of shoes out. I guess I don’t have much of a choice, do I?

I try to call Calum, but I get his voicemail several times. That just amps up the frustration and worry that lie just beneath my skin.

I don't get a chance to see Ella at the hospital before they rush her into surgery. Bas brings me a pair of hospital flip-flops which I take with a sad smile. He and I wait together, holding our breath.

“Did you talk to Calum?” he asks.

I shrug a shoulder. “He's not answering. I think he and his brother are supposed to be going out on a boat or something today. I seem to remember him saying that he probably won't be available… I'm glad that Ella is in surgery and not me.”

My mouth turns down at the corners in a slight frown.

Bas nods, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Yeah,” he sighs. “I saw her injury though. It didn't look pretty. It looked like something that ends careers.”

“Fuck,” I mutter. “I don't want to hear that.”

“Are you here for Ella Smith?” A nurse asks.

We both look up and say yes at the same time. Shooting to our feet, we follow the nurse as she leads us down the hall to a private room.

As the nurse ushers us into the room, I see Ella propped up on a bed on one side of the room, a doctor in a long white coat standing at the end of the bed. The doctor sweeps back a lock of her long blonde hair, giving us a staid smile as she continues speaking with Ella.

“No, I'm afraid that probably won't be possible.” The doctor looks at us, narrowing her gaze.

Ella pushes herself up, groggily locking gazes with me. “Dr. Hart is just telling me my prognosis.” She sniffs a little. “She's telling me how I won't dance again.”

My eyes widen and I look to the doctor. “Is that true? She's a ballerina by trade. We all are.”

Bas clears his throat. “Yes, is it true?”

The doctor gives us the same practiced smile. “I was just telling Ella that a lot remains to be seen. But after this type of injury, it is not common for professional dancers to return to the stage. After an Achilles tendon injury like this one, where the tendon stretches and snaps, it is unlikely that the injured party ever regains full use again. Not to the level of a professional dancer, anyway.”

I walk over to the bed and grip Ella's hand, looking down at her. Tears well up in her eyes but she looks away, her throat working.

“I see,” is all she has to say.

“What about physical therapy?” I ask. “I mean, that can't be it for her career. She will dance again eventually. Right?”

I look to Bas and Dr. Hart for confirmation. But I don't see the confidence and security that I am looking for mirrored in either of their gazes. Instead, I see a sadness and a kind of surety there, something that I couldn't hope to see.

Ella squeezes my hand hard. I swallow and return my gaze to hers. Her brown eyes are full of unshed tears.

“That's it,” she whispers to me. “Can you believe it? That was my last practice with the New York Ballet.”

Dr. Hart clears her throat. “Like I said before, we will have to see. Every case is unique.”

Patting the end of the bed, she leaves the room.

I take a deep breath and let it out, uncertain. Ella begins to cry. Bas comes around to the other side of Ella's bed, squeezing her fingers. He looks down at Ella's face. When he speaks, his words are quiet, nearly mournful.

“I’m so sorry that this happened to you. I'm at rather a loss for words.”

Ella nods miserably. Bas pats her hand and steps back.

“I’ll be right back. I should let everyone back at the ballet no that Ella made it through surgery.” He retreats out of the room, leaving me alone with Ella.

I sit down on the bed beside her. She is silent for a long time. She doesn't look at me but she does grip my hands.

“Ella,” I say softly.

She looks at me. I can see the heavy-heartedness in her gaze.

“Nothing is for certain. You can't despair. Not yet. Not ever, really.”

She blows out a breath. But before she can say anything, a nurse comes in.

“Would you like more some pain medication?”

Ella nods. “Yes please.”

While Ella is dealing with the nurse, I slip out and shoot a message to Calum, updating him on Ella's condition. When I head back in the room, Ella has fallen into a light doze.