Even Stone Hearts Break

            Her body was ice. She felt her insides freeze up and she was sure it had nothing to do with the theatre air-conditioning. Her hands were clammy, like she was getting a fever. I am going to be so slippery, I’ll fall and break my neck, she thought. Or worse—crack my skull.

            She told herself to stop worrying, to just dance. She heard another voice in her head, one that sounded strangely like her friend, Alex, saying “Don’t panic, don’t panic.” Easy for you to say, she told the voice. You’re done. “You can do it. Just have fun!” Kit whispered in her head, an image of his firm expression passed through her mind. “Ssshhh, just do it,” another voice said, this one remarkably like her teacher, sounding like a less aggressive Nike ad. She started to tell them to shut up when she stopped herself. Stop having conversations with the voices in your head. You don’t need any more proof you’re going crazy, she thought.

            She remembered first stepping into that studio up on the 22^nd floor. A nice lady said hi to her and gave her her first class card. She looked around: wooden floors, a black and white mural to the side and a number of shining steel poles. A petite woman with a pixie cut came up to her and asked if it was her first class; she answered yes. The woman introduced herself as CD, her teacher, and welcomed her to a world she didn’t know yet she would fall in love with.

            There was a slight ringing in her ears and she strained to hear the announcer read out her name. But she heard it. The stage manager counted under his breath before ushering her in. Everything was dark; the only sources of light came from the faint pin lights on the ceiling. I didn’t want this; this was not in the plan, she muttered to herself. I wish I didn’t pass. Maybe I would’ve been better at this next year.

            But by then, she couldn’t do anything about it. She placed herself into position and waited.

            She’d been dancing since she was three, but this was an entirely different thing. For one, she needed to use her arms. And she’s never used her arms in dancing for anything other than being pretty. She couldn’t climb for shit on that first day. She couldn’t climb even once during those first two weeks, maybe. CD told them it was fine, that they’d get stronger. She didn’t think that was very believable at the time, especially when she felt like her arms were going to fall off every time she tried to lift herself.

            The music started and her body started to move to it unconsciously, the way it always did when she danced, when she was onstage.  She didn’t even know what she was doing anymore. She was just moving. She felt the stage lights on her skin and it felt like home. The music was sad, and she felt sad. It was a song about heartbreak, and in those three minutes, she felt her heart breaking.

            People always told her she was good at emotions when she danced, and that she was particularly excellent at being sad.

            But she wasn’t sad. She just liked sad things. Did that make sense? Probably not. Maybe it comes with being a writer, she thought. Maybe that’s why I can get so sad so easily. Or maybe I’m just wired weird. Whatever it was, she was glad, at that moment, that she could dance her emotions well. Because she wasn’t the best dancer, she knew. Her technique could be improved so much more. She didn’t want to win. She knew she couldn’t. She didn’t even want to compete that day. But she could tell a story. And she did love telling stories.

            She ended her dance and exited the stage. She didn’t register anything until Oliver started squealing “Yey!” in the wings. She snapped out of whatever trance she was in, smiled (inwardly very much relieved it was over) and took position by the curtains to watch her friends dance their turn.

            She remembered filling up that first class card and immediately buying another. The next thing she knew, she’d been wrapping herself around a pole and hanging upside down in the most precarious positions for an entire year. It went by so fast, in a blur of sports bras, tiny shorts, and grip paste. In that year, she’d learned to make peace with heights and momentarily forget her love affair with the floor. She was still scared she’d fly off and crash into a mirror (she tends to have very dramatic daydreams) every time she did spins. She was still not strong enough to lift herself nicely when her feet were off the floor. And she definitely still struggled with hanging upside down so high up. But in that year, she realized CD was right: she did get stronger, a lot stronger. And yet there was still so much room for improvement.

            She sat on her bed the next day, watching a video of her performance with her face in a slight grimace. I’ve had better runs in the studio, she muttered to herself dejectedly, cringing with every trick she saw she wasn’t able to do as nicely as she knew she could’ve. It was true that you are your own worst critic. She wished she could’ve been part of the audience, instead. She loved dancing, but she hated seeing herself dance.

A “ding!” sounded on her computer and she checked Facebook. A smile crept onto her face as she opened the tiny window where she talked to the group of friends that competed with her. She ended up laughing with every comment they typed.

            And she remembered. She remembered why she competed anyway, despite deeply regretting submitting that audition video. She remembered why even if she was alone onstage, it never—not even for a moment, felt like she was dancing alone. It may have been her first solo competition in her entire life (and she hadn’t competed in many to begin with, anyway), but it never felt like she went through it on her own. Reading the side-splitting conversation in that little digital window brought back memories of staying at the studio until the ungodly hours of the night, and going back to said studio on weekends at hours of the morning when she shouldn’t even have been awake. It brought back images of people cheering each other on, in every run, in every rehearsal. It brought back images of faces peering through the curtains in the wings of the theatre, smiling faces encouraging her to keep going.

            It was why her heart did a triple backflip of joy when George’s name was called. It was why she nearly fell off the back of the stage, hopping up and down in excitement when Ronnie was named champion. It was why she was so intensely hoarse beside Oliver, screaming wordlessly at each other’s faces and shaking each other’s arms when Hannah and Nielsen were awarded. It was why she very nearly cried when she saw Kayleen crying. It was why her face ached with a smile that wouldn’t go away.

            Her cousin telling her she was proud even before the competition started, her favorite teacher telling her her piece was well-written and well-danced, her parents beaming at her in pride, her brother texting her in all-caps that she did well. These were the affirmations that made her glad she competed anyway. But the smiles on her friends’ faces, the late nights and the teasing and the communal stress—those were what made competing worth it. It put the emotional storm in her heart that she released when she danced. And it was the reason she danced, because she felt so much; because she loved and she fell in love with everything, easily and encapsulating. And after all, there is no greater agony than falling in love.

            Maybe she was sad. Maybe it’s a predisposition, an influx of feeling that funneled into melancholy. But going to class every week, talking and laughing and suffering physical pain with people she had come to regard as family, reminded her that even if she was sad, she definitely wasn’t lonely. It reminded her why she danced; why she danced anyway.