After receiving terrible news about the future of her career, a NYC ballerina becomes a choreographer at a failing male strip club to make some extra cash and spice up her life. What she doesn't expect is to fall for the one man who doesn't want his...
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As I glared at Celeste's office door, wondering what my next step was, something inside me cracked.
I couldn't explain what had broken inside me, only that it had. Was it my heart? My soul? The last thread of sanity I'd been holding to all these years that I'd been a dancer?
Would I ever get to be the Sugarplum Fairy I'd dreamed of since convincing my parents to swap Bollywood dance lessons for ballet?
This promotion was everything. And now, it was nothing.
With my fists curled into balls, I imagined myself rage-quitting. It's what my best friend Maren would do. She'd march back inside Celeste's office, screaming at the top of her lungs, and tell her to shove her decision up her ass like the badass bitch she was.
As much as I tried to be like Maren, my life was...different. My parent's sky-high standards were like wearing lead bangles around my wrists while I pirouetted onstage.
My parents only wanted two things for me: a respectable, well-paying medical career, and a marriage to a South Asian boy from a good family.
I wanted neither of those things, so, in their eyes, I was a failure. They'd never come out and say it, but I knew what they were thinking every time they looked at me. Did we really make all these sacrifices for her?
Yesterday, when I went to my parents house in New Jersey for dinner and told them I'd been made principal, I felt less like the world's most disappointing daughter.
My parents shared a look that seemed...happy. Happy that I'd finally be making a decent paycheck and could support myself.
That one look made my heart soar. It was the first time I'd ever been on the receiving end of their pride when it came to dancing, and I wasn't ready to let that feeling go. How was I ever going to tell them I hadn't gotten promoted afterall?
I couldn't. I couldn't tell them the truth. I'd have to lie to them.
Sure, lying wasn't ideal, but it would spare them and me a lot of hurt. I wanted to be the daughter that fought to make her own life choices and succeed, not the disappointing one who they were too embarrassed to tell their friends about.
I swallowed the burn of tears in my throat and forced myself to return to the studio. Even though I felt betrayed and cheated by Celeste, I couldn't rage quit.
As I glided through the halls, I swallowed my pride, or what was left of it, and stopped at the studio where Maria was starting to work on her Nutcracker solo. I watched her for a self-deprecating second. Her form was technically perfect, and her neck was as long as a swan's. She deserved principal just as much as I did. But knowing she deserved the promotion didn't stop the hurt.
Maria noticed me staring like the last kid to get picked in dodgeball and waved in my direction. "Hey, Tan!"
I waved back. The taste of stomach bile coating my tongue. "I just heard the good news! Congrats!"
