I looked around to see names on cubicles that held totes and various articles of clothing. Not about to infringe on anyone’s personal space, I continued across the room when I saw a door open and two dancers emerge with towels wrapped around their bodies, others around their hair. Grabbing a towel off a stack on a table, I slipped into the shower room where I found several curtains already pulled across stalls, steam coiling toward the ceiling as hot water pounded sore bodies. Stepping to the left, I found an open stall along the outer wall, dropped my bag onto an unoccupied bench, and unzipped it to pull out my toiletries case. Setting it down, I quickly began to strip, modesty one of the first things a dancer learns wasn’t a luxury afforded when performances required quick costume changes. Hanging my towel on a hook, I grabbed the bottle of shampoo out of my bag, pulled back the rather flimsy curtain, and turned on the faucet.
Stepping beneath the hot spray, I tried to ignore the fact the accusations rang true. It had stung when Alek suggested someone younger could dance rings around me. But in all honesty, I’d not given the taunt another thought the moment I’d stepped onto the stage. I wasn’t sure what it said about me, but the second the music had started, I’d been lost in the magic of the dance, totally oblivious to those around me.
It was only as the last note sounded, when my feet landed without a sound on the oak floor that I returned to the real world. For the first time in years, the faces of the people around me weren’t showing expressions of derision at the poor pitiful dancer who’d fallen from the pedestal. Granted, I wasn’t seeing the exultation I’d grown accustomed to when I was the lead in one of the best companies in the world, but I did see awe mixed with envy in the eyes of my competitors.
Pouring a generous amount of shampoo on my palm, I began to work it into my hair. Having pulled back a bit from the spray, the water no longer muffled my ability to hear, and I became aware of a hushed whisper coming my way.
“Can you actually see Yuri allowing her in? After what she did? She’s a fucking cheat!”
Someone was clearly badmouthing me, which really should have been expected, but it hurt me regardless. I didn’t seem to matter that I had worked so incredibly hard to make myself a better person. No one ever seemed to see that. They saw me as the same person I was, way back then. I used to care what people thought. I’d thrived on positive attention. But I was used to the negative now. I’d moved past caring what others thought of me a long time ago. I’d had to in order to survive.
“She was the best dancer out there though.”
“That doesn’t matter! She’s a hot mess and will drag the rest of us down. This theater doesn’t need a bad rep.”
Ever so slowly, being hurt started to transform into something else. A burning-hot anger. How dare these people judge me when they didn’t even know me?
“She was so fucking jealous when she wasn’t chosen to be the lead she made sure the prima was injured—”
“That’s not really fair. They could never prove she actually did anything—” a third voice offered only to have the first cut off any defense of me.
“Get real. I don’t need proof. Everyone knows she did it or at the very least arranged for Lara’s so-called accident. You know who she was screwing, right?”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Take off those rose-colored glasses,” the leader suggested in a voice that dripped derision. “What it means is all Miss Bitch had to do was whine to her mob-connected boyfriend, and what do you know? Lara’s legs are shattered, and we all know that’s as good as a death sentence for a prima ballerina. Clara Simyoneva would have been more merciful if she’d gone ahead and put the poor girl out of her misery as she never was able to dance again. Who does that shit? What would drive someone to that? She’s a fucking diva bitch—”
I was shaking so hard I had to press my palm against the tile to keep my knees from buckling. Their conversation brought back the months of whispers, the thousands of accusations I’d endured, the looks of pure hatred that still had the power to follow me into my nightmares. Granted, I’d not been permanently damaged like Lara, but that didn’t mean I’d not spent the past years in pain.
I’d had to make the choice to allow the dark to take me to the depths of hell or find the strength to claw my way out.
No one gave a damn I was innocent or that I’d walked away from an extremely lucrative career. I’d traded the spotlight on center stage for a bare bulb illuminating a cement garage floor.
And how did that work out for you? No matter how many showers you take, your name is still being dragged through the mud. What are you going to do about it?
The voice in my head was annoying but, by God, it was honest as well. I was done cowering and attempting to let the hatred slide off me. I needed to stand up for myself. To make these people see I wouldn’t be pushed around.
I slammed the shower curtain open and grabbed hold of my towel before stepping forward with anticipation and rage coursing through my veins. “Why don’t you ask me, rather than talking shit behind my back like a little bitch?”
I was surprised to find myself looking at Bella — one of the women I had danced with earlier. She’d given me a huge hug, telling me I danced like an angel, and now she was talking about me. Only little bitches did that.
At first, Bella looked a little shocked, like she might cower away from me. But then she seemed to realize her companions were staring at us, and she needed to back up her big mouth with more than the vitriol she’d been spewing.
“I think we don’t need someone like you dragging us down. I think you’re bad news. You always have been, and that’s the end of it.”
“Don’t you fucking get it?” I asked. “I’m not that naïve girl anymore. Haven’t you ever made a mistake? Haven’t you ever trusted someone and then discovered they were the devil in disguise?”
My fingers clutched the towel around me as I shook. From fury or shame I wasn’t sure, yet I knew I had to speak my piece regardless of the outcome.
Looking from face to face in the growing crowd, I asked, “Haven’t you grown the fuck up? Or are you still a kid who blindly swallows whatever shit she’s spoon-fed?”
I wished everyone would understand. But of course that wasn’t going to happen. I could hear my babushka reminding me words were not sparrows. It was an old Russian proverb that basically meant once words were uttered, good or bad, they flew away and couldn’t be caught.
I might as well be speaking to a brick wall. Strands of my wet hair slapped against my skin as I shook my head. “Forget it. Believe whatever the hell you want.”
I tried to turn away and walk off. But evidently not content with acting like a bitch, Bella deliberately pushed against me, almost knocking me down as my feet slid across the wet floor. I sucked in a deep breath, not wanting to act like a fool, but it was too late for any rationality. Anger raged within, and it was slowly eating me up alive.
I spun back, clenching my fists, ready for a dance of another kind if that was what she wanted. Unlike the leaps and twirls we’d done on the stage that barely had me breaking a sweat, I was prepared to knock her the fuck out. But before I could get so much as a return shove in, Yuri walked into the room — the choreographer and co-owner whom I needed to impress. I really couldn’t get into a catfight right now. Not when I hadn’t even signed the contract yet.