disclaimer: I just wanted to read this without the internet :^D
Prologue: Chapter One, Unable to Smile
What do you do when you meet pressure everywhere and all you want to do is just stop up and scream at the top of your lungs? When your days are so stressed and stretched you go from manipulating your brain in the morning to manipulating the limbs of your body in the afternoon?
Because that's what I feel at this particular moment. Expectations everywhere, from everyone. Friends, family, teachers. Why can't anyone see I'm about to collapse in the middle of it all? I can't stand it anymore!
Lily this, Lily that.. It's like I don't have the time to be me. Right now, I just want to run away.
From homework.
From dancing lessons.
From Head Girl duties.
From everybody around me.
From being perfect.
From my solo.
Lindsay Oliver, my ballet teacher, has been so hard on me lately. I feel guilty every time my feet fall from underneath me and she comes over, pulling me up for the umpteenth time.
"You can do it, Evans! Let me see my Lily bloom.."
And I try doing a triple pirouette again.. and again.. and again.. But every time I end up on the floor, or looking like a drunk thirteen-year-old trying to find the way home after a particularly heavy night of partying.
I know she means well, but I just want to let the tears bursting to run down my cheeks let go every time I do something wrong in ballet. I don't want to disappoint Lindsay ... but I do. Over and over again.
All this work doesn't give me many minutes off. Of course, ballet is a part of my leisure time, but nowadays it feels like anything but that. I have been watching friend after friend fade away from me since fifth year, when everything intensified with O.W.L.s and all. Seen the sadness in their eyes when I whispered,
"Sorry.. I have a ballet class that day.. and homework."
And then they started hanging out with someone else. And they became good friends after a while ... and I became the fifth wheel. And they forgot most of the busy, clever Lily Evans.
I'm glad the few friends I have are people I know will stick with me till the end. They are friends I can rely on ... trust. Thank God for them. If they hadn't been there, I don't even dare to thing of what would happen. I would probably be even more of a wretch than I am now.
Lately, I have been trying to avoid McGonagall's looks. Avoid Flitwick's glances, Slughorn's praise. Even Frogley's look of scepticism. I've tried not to be so keen in class. I don't want to be flawless. I don't want to be so clever. I just want people to see me for who I am, not who they think I am, not who they want me to be.
They know I'm here, but if I happened to disappear, or left ... I know they wouldn't miss me. Perhaps they would talk about me for a short while, and whisper amongst themselves about the ballet girl, the Head Girl, the Gryffindor girl. But I'd be nothing more than that. I wouldn't be Lily in their minds.
I used to smile, I used to laugh. I found it easy to reply in a funny way or generally be a happy human being. But at some point that suddenly became very hard. Of course I smile when dancing, but it's just thirty-two muscles in use in my face. I can't put my finger on when that happened, but it probably had to do with all the major changes in my body when I became a teenager. Have you heard about that sort of thing? I suddenly lost control when dancing ... my body just wouldn't co-operate, the technique became impossible. My balance played tricks on me. It took years to get back to where I was ... and all of it because my body decided it was time to turn into a woman. Of course everybody goes through this process, more or less, but I felt it was extra heavy on me.
