DONE ✔️ (UNDER EDIT)

Chapter Thirteen.

Chapter Thirteen.
************

I stopped hopping and planted the crutches, drawing in a slow breath through my nose and out through my chest and mouth. I should've made the Uber to drop me closer to the store. I'd thought the walk would do me good.

Apparently, I was wrong.

I leaned back against the brick wall, shifting the canvas bag higher on my shoulder and readjusting the crutches until the familiar ache in my knee settled into something manageable.

People streamed past me without slowing. No one stared, but no one lingered either, just passing glances before their attention snapped back to wherever they were headed. Not that I needed help. Still, it was obvious that if I did, no one would stop. Everyone was wrapped up in their own momentum, moving through lives that hadn't stalled the way mine had.

It irritated me more than it should have. The invisibility of it. The fact that no one could see what it took for me just to stand here.

I lifted my gaze and froze.

Through the wide studio window beside me, a line of girls faced a mirrored wall, ponytails snapping as they followed the woman's moves from the front of the room. The beat thudded faintly through the glass—heavy bass, sharp counts. They were clearly learning a new routine, but most of them picked it up quickly, bodies adjusting without hesitation.

Something tightened in my chest. A familiar ache.

I wanted to step inside. To follow the counts, let my body move with the rhythm, let the music drown out everything else. Just for a moment... I wanted to think about nothing but the beat.

I lingered longer than I should have, eyes fixed on their reflections as they moved in sync, the rhythm living in their bodies. Then the awareness crept in.

I pushed off the wall and kept going, not wanting to linger long enough for them to see me staring at them.

That was when I noticed the sign taped crookedly inside the front window.

HELP WANTED
Studio cleaner / class assistant.
Hours flexible.
Enquire inside.

The spark came fast and uninvited. A vivid, dangerous little thing. A version of a life where I stepped into that studio, where I counted beats and corrected posture, where I taught kids how to move through space like it belonged to them.

Like it once belonged to me.

Then my knee flared, sharp and unforgiving, and reality snapped back into place.

I swallowed, shook my head, and turned away.

But not before the name on the building burned itself into my memory.

Timeless Dance.

***

"We'll give you a call once everything's finished," The older gentleman behind the counter said, already turning away, "Shouldn't take more than three days."