A Wright Christmas

It had been hard enough to balance life and dance when I lived here. I’d made time for Isaac, and that was about it. My heart panged when I thought about him, and I forced myself to look out the window as we passed through Piper’s neighborhood.

Isaac Donoghue had been my first everything. My first love, my first kiss, my first…time. He’d taken my heart wholly and completely, and I wasn’t so sure that he’d ever given it back.

I hadn’t seen him since that day sixteen years ago when I got on that plane to make my dreams come true. He’d encouraged it, even convinced me to go to New York. I couldn’t say I regretted it, but I still wished that there had been a way to have both.

Now, I was going to be home for a month, and our circle was too small not to run into him. A quick smile darted to my face in anticipation. Would it be so wrong to hope to see him again? Even if I knew nothing could come from it? He had his own life, and mine was back in New York.

But he was still Isaac Donoghue. The boy who had changed my life. The boy I had loved unconditionally. The boy who had let me go.

“Here we are,” Piper said, killing the engine once we were in front of her one-story white brick house in Tech Terrace. She’d gotten it for a crazy steal right out of college and spent the last six years renovating it. It helped that her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Bradley, had work part time in college for Wright Construction, the biggest construction company in the US.

I carried my dance bag inside as Piper carted in my suitcase.

“You’ll be in the back bedroom on the right. Blaire recently abandoned it for the bonus room because she—quote—needed the natural light for her Instagram pictures.” Piper shrugged. “Anyway, it has a connected bathroom.”

“Thanks, Piper. I appreciate you putting me up. Your house is way closer to the studio than Mom and Dad’s.”

“Yeah, I should have considered that when buying this house. It would be convenient to be farther south, so I’d be closer to the winery,” she contemplated. “But at the time, I was only thinking about proximity to the bar scene.”

I snorted. “And since when has that changed?”

Piper grinned. “It hasn’t.”

“Okay, I’m going to get ready. You’re sure I can use the Jeep? I don’t mind catching an Uber.”

Piper waved her hand, already walking into the kitchen and popping the top off a Mexican Coke. “By all means. Blaire should be home soon, and if there’s an emergency, I can always ping Bradley.”

“Are you two still a thing?”

“No,” Piper said. I arched an eyebrow. “What? We’re friends.”

“Uh-huh,” I muttered and then headed into the back room to change.

After being in travel clothes all day, it felt right to get back into tights and a leotard. Sleep beckoned after such an early flight, but I had my fitting for the Sugar Plum Fairy costume, and I couldn’t miss it.

I put street clothes over top of my dance garb, grabbed my bag, and then headed out to the Jeep. It took me a few minutes to get used to the hulking beast of a car. I’d learned to drive on my dad’s hooptie—a truck that took too much force for me to be able to open the driver’s side—so I always crawled in from the passenger. This should have been easier than that old hunk of junk, but it was still intimidating. After carefully backing out in the road, I got the hang of it and drove to the new Buddy Holly Hall downtown.

With the creation of the new performing arts center, the Lubbock Ballet Company had moved from their longtime space on 34th Street, where I had first been introduced to ballet, into the new facility. I was anxious to see the building, which had been modeled off of the NYC Ballet studios that I was used to. A slice of the city in my hometown.

I parked out front of the massive complex and ambled in through the studio entrance. The artistic director, Kathy Brown—who had just been a budding director when I danced here as a kid—was supposed to meet me here, but I was still a few minutes early. I headed down the row of studios. My heart soared when I saw the enormous rooms with ballet barres lining the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that faced equally large mirrors. This did indeed feel just like home. Most of the rooms were empty, save for a baby ballet class taught by a high school–aged student. I continued forward until I found what I was looking for.

In the studio were a handful of advanced students—one Black girl at the front with her partner, a fair-skinned young man with red hair and freckles; a Latina girl gossiped in the back with two white girls; and another brown male dancer stood off to the side, idly doing rond de jambes on the floor. Honestly, I was surprised there was this much diversity. When I had been here, I’d been one of the only non-white dancers.