“What color tutu do you want to wear?” said Mom a second time, rooting through my closet for the perfect costume. She plumped her hands on her hips, waiting for my reply, a reply, anything. She had a vexed look, straying from the animation that always danced in her hazel eyes. No matter, I knew how I was making her feel; the wrinkles in her face hardened with each second that went by. She turned back to the closet to make conversation with my tutus, sounding like the Mad Hatter babbling to his pot of tea. If I wouldn’t talk to her, they would.

“It doesn’t matter,” was all I could muster out. I had to say something, or people would think she was going mad. She wouldn’t care if people thought she was crazy as the Hatter; she was fearless. I was not. This was the day that had made my stomach bubble and churn all night. I listened in to the growls, hearing a faint “Double, Double, toil and trouble.” Something wicked was brewing.

My throat was hurting. It always hurt when something I didn’t want to happen was going to happen anyway. Screw Mary’s feelings, right? The sides of my throat continued to squeeze themselves together like a ketchup bottle. One squeeze too hard and I’d be squirting red paste everywhere.

“How about this one?” she asked, holding up my favorite tutu of them all, the pink one with the fake rose petals frozen in space inside each layer.  I felt like a fairy princess in this enchanted circle of transparent fabric with nature and space as my kingdom. I nodded without making any eye contact with Mom. I couldn’t let her see my once enthusiastic love for the small ballet trinket; she would figure out my weakness. She would know she had won.

She guided my legs between the small waist of the skirt, my arms holding onto her for support, her soft pale skin and strong bones gliding against my palms. Determined was she to dress me up as the perfect Prima Ballerina at age five. Beneath my tutu was an off-white leotard and pale pink tights, neatly tucked between my baby toes because they were still too long for my legs, beginning above my navel all the way down to my wiggling toes. Gliding on one floppy ballet shoe after the other, she tied the string that rested upon the knuckles of my size three feet, restricting the freedom to wiggle as I please.

“There,” she said, exhaling a sigh fit for a giant. Her breath was warm, but gentle: the BFG, but beautiful. I considered giving in, letting her carry me in her palm bigger than my entire body over hundreds of miles of green grass and autumn leaves to this new place, but something inside, a troll moaning in hunger in the darkness of my mind, was pounding between my gray-blue eyes. I pouted my lips, gaze dropping to the floor, and crossed my legs in such an unnatural way that whenever I mimicked it in public, my friends would always give me weird looks and say, “How are you doing that?” It was a habitual stance for me, the pressure building between my bones, almost like they were about to give way or crack. It made me feel safe, somehow. Knowing that if I twisted one more inch, my bones would split, and I was the totalitarian who controlled it.

Mom snatched my left hand dangling at my side, untwisting my pretzel legs and releasing the pressure. My legs became cold, the warm current transferring before was told that it could flow no longer. They felt bare, going up against the world with no protection. I had to start walking unless I wanted to be dragged across the carpet like a newly dead in a body bag. The cause of death: rug burn.

She buckled me in the backseat of the tan seven-seater minivan, the belt strangling the thoughts of flight right out of my head. The plush seats were stained with the smell of milk and ridden with Ritz crumbs in every crevice. They stuck to my tights like I was their mothership as I transformed into three different sitting positions: cross-legged, the heel-squisher, and upright child’s pose. No matter how I sat, my legs went completely numb, covered in cracker dust. Good first impression! The cracker dust girl. Too bad I couldn’t sit on my head and numb my thoughts of a strange place full of strange people terrorizing me. That would’ve been worthwhile.

The tires screeched like four banshees, licking their lips at the smell of fear as we arrived at the gates of my childish Hell: towering glass doors that weren’t even kind enough to be transparent, leaving me to ponder what lay ahead on the other side. I could already hear the monsters in the back of class screeching my name, the walls caving in, grabbing at me. They were ripping my tutu, grasping at my throat, tearing my heart and soul in two. I closed my eyes, but they were still there in my head. Those monsters always were. My throat was throbbing.

My hand shook as it got ready to push the button on the side of the car to activate my automated chauffeur. I called him Jeffrey, to make things less awkward, of course, because we couldn’t get rid of him, being a part of the car and all. I wonder if that’s how Mom felt now. She kept looking back at me in the rear view mirror with wide eyes as my quivering hands picked the cracker crumbs out of my tights. She bit her lip every time I put one in my mouth.

After turning off the car, Mom approached the open door to escort me to those intimidating doors. The right side of her bottom lip was bulging red like a blood blister.

“You ready?” she asked, presenting her hand at my side like I was the next heir to the throne with her as my subject. I gawked at her determination to send me away for a straight hour, like she wanted me gone. Maybe I was tormenting the kingdom, destroying the castle, and she needed time to rebuild the broken walls? But I was the princess, how could I be so unwanted? I couldn’t believe how easy it was for her to give me up to the care of someone she didn’t know. She appeared almost ecstatic for me to disappear. I retreated to my pretzel position in my seat, better safe than sorry. Jeffrey’s job didn’t sound too bad right about now.

But, there was a flicker.

It didn’t shine too bright, nor did it burn too weak.

It gave no odor, but I could feel it, sense it.

In her eyes, those small hazelnuts creased by the years of motherhood, I saw a glimmer that welcomed me to come closer.

I felt my legs begin to loosen. Though I never gave the command, they untwisted themselves from the pretzel lock. I held my breath, but the pressure did not desert me. The warmth kept flowing. The numbness stopped tingling. Air seeped into my throat and felt liberating. I breathed out.

I took her hand and floated my way out, dipping my ballet shoes out the side of the car until they found ground, the black tar bubbling in the heat of early July. She squeezed my hand, and I squeezed it harder back. We trudged through the rising heat waves to the glass reaper that lie ahead of us, awaiting my judgment.

Taking the bull by the horns, I tugged. A burst of frigid air sent a chill down my spine, signaling the hairs on the back of my neck that it was time to rise for the judge. We strutted over to the front desk, and I let Mom do the talking, as usual. She did the talking, I did the dancing, it was a great gig we had going on for a while. Of course I had to go ahead and screw it up.

“Down the hall, first one on the right,” said Becky at the front desk, a young, female version of Jack Nicholson. Here’s Becky! As we started walking to the door, my stomach groaned and pierced my side like barbed wire. Maybe it was Becky’s face, a joker’s smile that continues to stain my memories today. Poor Becky. I began to feel around for Mom’s hand to squeeze once more before I had to go, but it was preoccupied, rotating the door handle and pushing my limp form into the room alone. I turned to face her, maybe grab her hand, tell her I wanted her to stay, to fend me, to ease me, to advise me, to reap me.

But she was already closing the door, biting her lip again.

I discovered myself standing front and center, only inches away from a lofty figure resembling Jack Skellington, but with flesh, strong muscles, and maybe a beating heart. Her eyes were gray, her hair black. A Russian name is what comes to mind, but it didn’t matter, I would never have to say it anyway.

Wearing a black leotard with nothing but ballet shoes with ribbons up to her knees, she was in perfect shape for The Bolshoi Ballet’s production of Swan Lake. The skeletal creature was the only figure between myself and my reflection burnt into in the wall crawling mirror. I glanced around to size up my class, only two rows of four girls like me, but already friends with each other. One girl caught my eye, whispering some little spell into her friend’s ear. She perked up and glanced my way, releasing a chuckle through her curled lips. I scratched at my throat, pulling at my skin. Why couldn’t I breathe anymore?

We began in first position at teacher’s orders, grasping the point barre as to not lose our balance. Everything was about balance. Go figure. We continued to the center of the wooden floor, or maybe it was fake wood, I couldn’t tell. My view rose to the mirror as I felt something tugging inside of me, a pressure I was familiar with but couldn’t seem to comprehend with all this adrenaline pumping. It wasn’t the kind of pressure that made me feel comforted, it was different. Unsettling. Oh no.

I froze in my pirouette, or my attempt at a pirouette. They’re difficult for a child, especially one with a full bladder. I stared at my scarlet reflection in the mirror, locking my gaze on my eyes and nothing else. I closed my eyes, shielding my face with my hands, as everyone halted by their ear’s command with my teacher as the captain.

I had to look. I had to open my eyes. I had to confront-and I did.

In the raised bubbles sprinkling the wood, I saw the banshees’ evil faces scorning me. Hundreds of Mr. Hyde versions of my teacher and my classmates erupted in a new set of cackles each time a tear joined the puddle on the floor.

What happened next was blurry; all I remember is a flustered group of mothers rushing me to the bathroom like I was on my way to the ER. Thank God no one brought red flashing lights with them. The mother hens in their fight mode helped me find replacements for my favorite tutu that was now detailed with colorless lightning stains and a loss of dignity. I knew exactly where it was, that so-called dignity of mine: splattered across the wooden ballet floor. I threw that tutu out when I got home.

Clean up on aisle four!

After this incident, I never set foot in a dance studio again. My mother didn’t force it either. That made me happy for many years. . . but, I never did see that same fire in my mother’s eyes again. Not that she wasn’t proud of me in my accomplishments today, she was, she is. I think it was more than just her fire that I saw that day. A charred  reflection, the fire within me that died that day. I was vulnerable and let it consume me. Now, the candle’s out.

Looking back now, I wish I never let that liquified, whooping monster stop me from returning to ballet. I love to dance and do it often in the privacy of my room behind closed doors, a pressurized room where I can let go. A place where my throat never hurts and my legs never pretzel-ize.

But, fear is my spartan foe. My devilish antagonist. He who writes my story using the pen with my name on it. And I let him.

One day, I hope I get the courage to take back what has always been mine and write my own story for a change. A story worth telling.

Until then.