Tiny Pretty Things by Sona Charaipotra, Dhonielle Clayton Page A

don’t know why, but I shiver as I watch. Almost like I’m outside in the crisp fall air. I remember that Cassie used to come here, too. The insomniac girl who got in trouble for dancing all night. The girl with the perfect 180-degree grand jeté . The only Level 6 girl to land a major soloist role last year, even above me. I don’t like thinking about her. I want to forget that I even knew her, how goodshe was. And especially that she’s Alec’s cousin.
    Henri lets his hair drop around his face and says things I can’t hear. I don’t like the way he touches Gigi and makes her laugh. I don’t like how his fingers graze a loose curl near her neck. Her voice is light and delicate—it’s too pretty. Henri is eating it up. And if Henri’s eating it up, I worry that Alec will fall for it, too, when they start rehearsing.
    My stomach twists. I can’t remember a time when Alec and I weren’t together. My first memories have him in them, from family dinners when my dad was still around to dance classes and kissing him in the school’s dark corners. It was always just us.
    I take out my cell phone and zoom in on Gigi and Henri with the camera. I click the picture button. The flash is too bright, so I duck and slink away quickly, quietly. I don’t get caught when I do things like this, and I don’t need that to change. I run back to the upstairs to studio C and throw myself into the Snow Queen variation. I do five, ten, twenty pirouettes, but the image of Gigi and Henri races through my head alongside my music.
    I drop down off pointe and pace the room. I scream at my reflection and hope no one hears me. Or sees me breaking down in this glass box of a space.
    I cover my ears and let my head bob on my shoulders, falling into a deep stretch. I try to revel in the pink message and its cryptic cleverness. The powerful way it made me feel writing it and waiting for someone to discover it. How Gigi’s face had fallen, how lucky I was that everyone saw it at the same time. I was probably the only one who spotted the tears in her eyes. I hope she’s cried every night since. That’s not quite true. I hope she goes back to California. She’ll be happier there anyway, so it’s not even that terrible that I want her to leave. It would be better for everyone. The girl is too fragile and sweet and mellow to succeed here. In some ways, I’m just looking out for her. She’ll realize it soon enough. That ballet is too much for her. That it makes you do things. Makes you do whatever is necessary.
    I remember Adele’s advice before my first casting audition. She yanked me out of the pack of petit rats . “You don’t get many shots, peach.” Her hands were in my hair, redoing my bun the proper way with a hairnet. “So when the opportunity comes”—she leaned into my ear—“you’ve got to claw your way to the top.”
    My body relaxes at the memory. Adele would approve. Maybe not of these methods. But of my motivation for sure. I grab my warm-ups and head upstairs to my room. When I open the door, Eleanor jumps from the futon and turns off the TV. I see those old videos of Adele out on the floor.
    “Again?” I say.
    “She has perfect feet, Bette,” Eleanor says. “Arched like bananas.” I can’t even fight the compliment she gives my sister.
    “Can I use your printer?” I ask, wishing I didn’t have to, but I’ve been avoiding my mother, so I couldn’t possibly ask her to send me new ink. I don’t have time to go get more.
    “What for?” she asks, clicking the TV back on.
    “Just a little surprise for Gigi.” My voice lifts an octave with excitement. “Got pics of her andHenri in some compromising positions.”
    Eleanor frowns. “We’re not doing that again, are we?”
    Her words bite and I almost drop my phone. “We are,” I snap, waiting for her to look away from me and apologize for her weakness. To join in on the little fun I have planned, like she’s done a thousand other times before.
    “Uh-huh.