Which is located in the back of the building.
It’s a metal door with a trick handle. You have to jiggle it and push at it just so to spring it open; it’s something that none other than Poe discovered the first year she was here with me.
The metal door thuds open and I step out into the September night, which is slightly chilly but nothing I can’t handle.
I wedge a rock between the door and the jamb before I take off running through the concrete pathways and cut through the grass clearing toward the campus brick fence. Propping my feet on the gaps, I climb and cross over to the other side.
When I get down, I start running again.
From here I have about ten minutes to make it to the St. Mary’s bus stop, which will take me where I want to go. I run through the woods that line the back of our campus and reach the bus stop just as the bus is pulling in.
The inside is empty except for a woman who’s sleeping in the fourth row. It’s slightly scary, traveling in an empty bus at midnight, but I have no other choice, do I?
I show the driver my bus pass — I bought it over the summer with my own money, thank you very much — and then I’m off again.
It takes about thirty minutes to reach my destination.
Back to my own town, Bardstown.
My heart always flutters when we cross that line, from St. Mary’s to Bardstown, the town I grew up in and the town I adore.
The town in which I fell in love for the first time.
The town in which I fell from grace.
When the bus pulls in at my stop, I thank the driver and get off.
So far things have been okay, slightly risky but nothing illegal.
This next part that I have to do is sort of a felony.
I mean, it’s not as bad as say, stealing someone’s car and drowning it in the lake — which I have a little experience in — but it’s still pretty bad.
Because as I said, I have no other choice, do I?
I pull out a pin from my hair and jam it into the lock on the door, twisting it in a precise motion. When the door clicks open — which I knew it would, I enter.
Into the Blue Madonna, my old ballet studio.
The place where I spent years and years training to be a ballerina.
Until they kicked me out.
Honestly though, kicked out is a harsh term.
They didn’t kick me out, per se. They gave me a choice to leave and I took it.
By they I mean my teacher, Miss Petrova, who once upon a time was super proud of me and my talent.
She looked very sad when she said, “Parents are worried, Callie. They think you’d be a bad influence on their kids. I’m really sorry. You’re one of my star students but girls are pulling out because they don’t feel safe around you and I don’t know what to do. I’m at a loss here.”
So I told her that I’d leave.
See? She gave me a choice and I took it.
I left.
Because the girls — some of whom I’d danced with for years – and the parents didn’t feel safe around me. Because of what I did.
Because of what my broken heart made me do two years ago.
I don’t want to dwell on what I did and what happened after and how I came to be at St. Mary’s instead of being sent to juvie.
The time will come for me to remember.
But for now, I’m here to dance and I will.
I’m here to fulfill my dream, the only dream I’ve had since I was five years old. Of going to Juilliard and dancing for the New York City Ballet Company one day.
When I left the Blue Madonna, my dream of Juilliard was sort of hanging in the balance. Miss Petrova’s a Juilliard alumna and she was going to give me a great recommendation letter when the time came. And getting in there is so difficult and competitive that I needed that letter.
But after everything, I didn’t think she’d give that to me and so I stopped thinking about it. I’d stopped expecting to end up at Juilliard. In fact, I’d started to look into other dance programs, like the one they have here at Bardstown Community College.
But then over the last summer, something changed.
Something sprung back to life.
I wanted that dream again. I wanted to at least try to have that dream.
So I decided to make an audition video for Juilliard after all. The applications for next fall are due by November and I’m doing it. I’m going for it.
That’s why I’m here. To try.
I shed my dress in the bathroom to change into my leotard and my practice tights that I brought with me in my bag and get ready to practice.