Calore Dance Academy// Red Queen AU

Chapter 12

I step out onto the stage, wearing a fraudulent smile.

With the blinding lights above, faces in the audience are obscured shadows, but there's no debating whether eight-hundred individuals are gawking at me or not. Seated in comfortable red-velvet seats, they watch my every breath, hissing thoughts at one another.

Deciding to pretend none of them are there, Cal included, I bring up my chin to the doors at the top of the theatre, past the steep incline of the seats, to the afternoon sun slinking through the entrances.

Soon after I focus my attention on the natural light, though, the doors glide shut, almost of their own accord. To spite me. The rest of the theatre near-black with red exit signs, the stage is what lights up the room, what all eyes are drawn towards.

Were the doors shut for the other dancers? I don't recall.

Still, I watch the panel of wall as the audience watches me. They're aware I'm special, and I'd bet most of them are bewildered that I made it this far, wearing my pretty little ballerina get-up. I might be a maid, but the smart ones are analyzing my figure—the lean muscles on my body, my thin arms and bony chest—and predict there's more going on.

The wall serves me kindly, grounding me to the earth. Over the years I've learned where to look when I couldn't bear looking at my judges. Places that made my judges believe I had all the confidence in the world, even when I didn't. I've always found the back wall a comfort in that way.

"State your name," Cal's father says. I'm glad Cal didn't decide to step in yet again and take his father's line. With the man's solemn voice, the whispering grinds to a halt. I'm half-tempted to roll my eyes at the line.

Though I've seen it before, fell on it, in fact, the platform is larger now. It might be the difference in lighting—because yes, I'm sure the doors were open before. The sturdy floorboards are like an island, a bright speck of light in perhaps an infinite crowd of people.

With the doors closed, I can hardly make out much of anything besides for those dull exit signs. For all I know, the rows of seats might go on for miles.

I snicker at my imagination.

"Mare Barrow," I say into the black. The lights above me are hot, and they must illuminate about every pore, every imperfection on my body. I keep staring at the one point where the doors were.

The father of Cal emits a sound of contemplation, setting my nerves on edge. Though my heart beats normally. It can be as though I'm dancing for nobody but myself, in front of a nonexistent group of people, if I don't pay them attention. It's a great dance, with great choreography—

"My son says you can dance, Mare Barrow," he repeats my name, and I don't like the sound of it on his tongue. "You did fall from the rafters to audition. So you prove to me you are a decent ballet dancer, and then we'll talk."

I'm honestly shocked nobody laughs at the man. Out of respect or fear, I suppose.

"Very well," I say under my breath, but the theatre might carry sound well enough for him to hear me.

Venturing further, past the centerline, I turn away and face the corner. It's unsettling to not be able to see them, though I can't imagine what they could do to me from their seats.

In an instant, my face melts from a small smile to an open-mouthed frown, a gasp. I make my eyes wreak of sorrow, mourning, just as the melody suggests. A sad, lonely girl. A loss of a lover or father . . . it's hardly relevant. Loss is loss, and it hurts all the same.

The loss of a father who could run and walk down the streets of Manhattan with me; a brother who's gone, dust in the wind; or a passion, cemented bone-deep with no hope of ever getting rid of it.