“Your legs need to be straighter, your turns need to look more effortless. Have you gained weight since last week? My God, Piper, get it together. The worst part of the day were your disgusting facials. What were those?! If I were a visitor I wouldn’t even have thought that you have been learning from me for the past seventeen years of your life.” Carol said, rolling her eyes at her.
“Okay, Miss Carol! I’ll work on all of that for next class!” she said to her angered dance instructor as she slammed the door shut behind her on her way out.
Their lesson has gone as it typically would - Piper getting reprimanded because she was not as good as Miss Carol’s best dancer. It was as if it were all Piper’s fault. As if there were something genetically wrong with her that limited her excellence, or at least the excellence that Samantha practically bled. She was the thorn in her side. But Piper held the most perfect facade and kept her outer shell hard. No one could break her down; no one but her own self, that is. The fact of that matter was, dance stopped being a hobby for Piper and it became more of a lifeline. Plenty of people have hobbies that they become attached to. It’s not a hard concept to understand - because when someone finds something that they can do well, the most natural thing in the world is to fall in love with it. Piper’s no exception.

When she heard the last light switch go off from the other room, she knew the only people left at the studio included herself and the secretary. Miss Carol’s secretary received just as much of a beating from Miss Carol as Piper does, so the fact that they both stayed after last isn’t a surprise in the slightest. If it meant that she would have to spend every last second of her free time practicing in order to be better and to avoid all of the harmful critique, she would. The more and more Piper looked at herself in the mirror, the more and more she could see that she wasn’t as good as Samantha, and that she wasn’t as good as everyone wanted her to be. After all, she did spend all of her free time practicing and rehearsing and trying. Why wasn’t she as good as the best? Or better yet, why was she not better than the best? It was a series of questions that constantly haunted the petite brunette and she never did know if she would find the answers to them. But it didn’t matter in that moment however, because she had time. Time to dance. Time to express herself free of outside judgement. Time to re-find herself and to tap into what she thought of as her own true potential.
Finally, all alone. Piper said to herself as she was left to her thoughts in the room she could have started calling her home. Mirrors found on two out of the four walls, freshly cut and shaped ballet bars posted to the other two walls. One could practically smell the fresh wood still. Spinning on the ball of her foot, she took in the area around her. It was such a large space in comparison to her petite frame. Her migraine was starting to get progressively worse, almost to the point where she needed to sit and stop standing. Standing. Something as simple as being up on her two feet. That simple act that Piper had taken for granted almost her entire life she felt the need to put a stop to, all because the room around her was spinning too quickly for her to catch up. Push through it, wimp she said to herself, slipping the phone out of her pocket and plugging it into the sound system.


Whatever song played first, that would be the one she would keep on repeat. It was very clear to her what the possible outcomes would be. She pushed those thoughts away. Starry Eyed by Ellie Goulding. Fantastic, one of the few songs Piper could sink herself into and completely lose herself in. It was that kind of dedication she had to her sport, and that unconditional sense of love she felt towards it. Biting her lip, she applied so much pressure she thought she would be seeing a wave of blood trickle down her chin. But she released her lip from the firm grip and her eyes were squeezed shut as she let out a breathy exhale. Traveling to the center of the room, she could barely even see her footing. It didn’t matter, she just needed the bass to take care of her as it pumped through the speakers in a 360 degree fashion.
Smoothing back her hair, she looked at her half illuminated face in the mirror while putting her hair into a ponytail. She saw herself in the mirror, but it was a much more vulnerable Piper. Not the tough one she was so accustomed to. The pressure from the tie only made the pre-existing pain in her head worse. Those first few actual sets of lyrics poured out from every direction, causing an initial reaction of running into a double leap, landing perfectly on the balls of her feet every time. Pirouettes soon followed until she got so dizzy, she had to plant both of her feet firmly on the ground or else she’d fall flat onto her hip. The music overcame her in entirety. As the vibrations from the bass were sent from the floor and up, it traveled to the mirrors causing them to shake just a little. It made the already dizzy and now sweating brunette have to do triples takes just to be sure she wasn’t seeing double. From keeping her mouth open slightly to get a constant and appropriate amount of air into her lungs, her gums, and by extension her teeth, were stinging with flecks of pain.
Collecting herself the best way she knew how, she went to do a fouette en tournant, but by the time she went to do a third rotation, her entire body collapsed. On the ground she went, completely broken. A single tear fell from her eye closest to the ground as she crunched her body together into a ball. Everything hurt. Not just from falling, but from the deeper issue at hand. The issue that limited her from being better than the best. The disease that was taking over her body. Piper didn’t need to get tested to have it confirmed, she knew exactly what she was getting herself into. How the cancer was starting to spread should have scared her, but it only made her want to keep it a secret that much more. The countless amounts of times she had to make up excuses for periodically leaving rehearsals made her sick to even just think about it. It was probably another one of the reasons why Miss Carol was so hard on her. There was a pain in her chest that was causing her to cough like a smoker might. Piper cringed at the pain, letting out a whimper as she lay there on the ground. It was a cold ground, and the piercing and pumping music was becoming drowned out in the background. She could hear it as clearly as she would hear a car horn honking from a few blocks down the street. Darkness, that’s the only thing that was around her anymore. The darkness engulfed her on all sides as she just lay there.
When you’re alone and no one’s around, there’s no point in faking anything. Anyone apart of the company was gone, home, on vacation, doing something with their lives. Piper tweeted earlier that night that she was driving around in her old Jeep. That had been a lie. She knew she would end up reaching her breaking point that night. And she had. Mentally, physically, the reality of her illness was sinking in. It didn’t, however, mean that she was going to slow down for any particular reason. In fact, she would work harder, practice longer, continue to exhaust herself until she really was nothing but a memory of a person. It was a dark series of thoughts that clouded her mind in regards to the subject, but she knew it would be something she had to own up to. The disease was a part of her family’s history, and Piper knew the symptoms well enough to know she would be putting up quite the fight that might not end up victorious. All she wanted was to finish her piece that would hopefully get her accepted into Juilliard. She knew Samantha would be applying too, and Piper didn’t know how much time she had left until she went through with the scheduled doctor's appointments, so why not give it her all even if all of the signs were telling her not to?
She had to cough again, and as she did, she tangled her fingers into her hair, pulling back on it so harshly her scalp was soon burning. The pain in her chest was such a surreal one, she let out a quivering whimper of pain, doing her best to bring her knees closer to her chest to apply pressure, hopefully to offset the pain. That didn’t work. In fact, she was only hurting herself more and more, and that’s when the tears started to come, bubbling over as her toes curled. The room around her didn’t even look like it had furniture or equipment or pieces of anything in it. To her eyes, it was empty. As empty as a room could be.
Chills were sent up her spine, causing her to react and lift her back off the ground, soon realizing she couldn’t even support herself as she soon hit the ground. A muffled scream of pain came from her mouth. She gulped deeply, taking in a deep breath to try and regulate herself, Piper figured the best thing would be for her to just lay there. Lay there and sleep, become comatose, continue to be as irrelevant as she’s proved to be around the studio. She knew her phone would eventually die as the song continued to play, and she couldn’t find it in herself to get the strength to stand. Strength to move. Hell, strength to speak. It was hard for her to muster up enough energy to even breath. She couldn’t breath too heavily, out of fear of having to throw up. She could feel an ant crawling up her leg. Usually, the intoxicating idea of some bug crawling up her leg would cause her to react harshly, flailing around. This time, Piper stayed composed and let the tiny creature crawl up her body. Her mind was telling her to react, but her body wouldn’t let her. She was so absent minded, nothing was being seen clearly or felt correctly. In fact, her senses were almost so heightened, it was as if an elephant were stomping up her leg. She could feel every movement, it only made it that much worse.
Still, still she stayed there. Useless. Exhausted. Irrelevant to the world. It almost made her smile, a weak smile that would have signified defeat. She imagined how beautiful the stars outside the window must have been. The idea of the night sky being so vast with so many possibilities that she never thought she could reach intimidated her. How could something she took for granted all of her life have more promise than her? Eighteen years on the planet that was graced with the sight of stars and she didn’t feel like it mattered a single bit; like a cluster of stars that formed a constellation were a thousand times more relevant than her. But she couldn’t bare to turn her head to look. It would have hurt too much. Everything to her was painful in that moment - thinking, breathing, feeling, hearing, moving her eyes. Nothing seemed to fall into place anymore, and she was so clouded with the pain she couldn’t even think of a reason to pull herself off of the ground. So she didn’t move, didn’t budge, just lay on the ground cold and in pain, because in that moment, that’s all she knew.
The negative thoughts were put on hold as soon as the music stopped playing. A few minutes later and she may not have noticed because it was background noises that were becoming nothing but silence. Rolling onto her other shoulder, she was startled at the sight of another person that was not Miss Carol’s secretary and she let out a small yelp. “Piper!?” Mason said, rushing over to the helpless girl that was laying in front of him on the floor. Mason was someone Piper knew well, with him being Miss Carol’s son. He and his mother didn’t share a single thing in common aside from their love of dance. He was kind, while Miss Carol was not so. Normally, she would have been happy to see him, but there’s no way Piper wanted anyone, let alone her dance instructor’s son, to see her in such a vulnerable estate. And that’s when the facade snapped back into play as she sat up as quickly as her fragile body would allow her.
“Mase, hey,” she said, sitting up as if nothing were different from any other day “What are you doing here so late?”
“What are you doing curled up on the ground?”
“Stretching.”
“Don’t lie, Piper. We’ve known each other for too long now.”
“Since we could first walk.”
“Another reason to tell me the truth.”
Piper sighed, knowing that she didn’t want anyone to know one of the most painful secrets she’s ever had to come across. Her own self doubts, the countless discouraging things she had been told, and the sickness that had captured her were some of the biggest contributing factors. But, maybe it was time to tell someone and to come to actual terms with it. Piper had made a few doctor’s appointments, but she never went to any of them. Her parents didn’t notice her missing a beat because she wasn’t. That was due to the fact that she spent more time than she ever did at the studio to distract herself. Her parents thought nothing of it and just assumed she was doing what she had to for the best chance at getting into Juilliard. That was only partly true. While she worked hard to perfect her piece to audition with, she was also facing the harsh reality that everyone wanted her to be perfect. Miss Carol wanted her to be like Samantha - which was someone she wasn’t. Coming to terms with reality wasn’t on the top of her list, but it needed to be on the list regardless.

Mason had known Piper since the day she stepped into the studio when she was only a year old. A stranger wouldn’t necessarily call them good friends, but they certainly were friends. Mason completely understood how hard it was for Piper to hear discouragement after discouragement from his own mother, having heard an ear full of it himself. In the public eye, Mason could do no wrong in Carol’s eyes and he was the shiniest gem in her collection. But, behind closed doors, she was as tough as nails with him. Perhaps that was why students like Mason and Piper were so well molded and could take correction well, but it was also a reason why they were paired up to partner more times than none. They were perfectly imperfect, but the put everything their souls could produce into a piece, and that is why they worked so well together. They cared about each other for more reasons than one, and above all else, they needed one another to be the best versions of themselves.

“I have cancer.” she said in a weak tone, avoiding his eyes entirely and not looking anywhere but to the ground. The words hit Mason like a sixteen wheeler came straight at him at full speed ahead. It was the scariest thing he had ever heard, and that was when he placed his finger under her chin and forced her to look at him. “Don’t be afraid to tell me. It’s okay.” he said to her, finding himself breaking a bit with every second that passed between them. Piper looked him dead in the eye, furrowing her brows at him. “Of course I’m afraid to tell you?! Saying it out loud makes it real.”

“Who else knows?”

“No one. That’s the whole point of it suddenly sounding real, Mase.”

“I had to ask.”

“Now you know.”

“I’m here for you, always. Every step of the way.”

Piper smiled, the first genuine smile she had mustered up in quite a long time. She had never felt more appreciative in her life. And other than her parents, she didn’t think anyone cared about her enough to say that they would stick around and actually mean it. And she knew that he meant it. “Okay.” Piper said, taking his hand as he helped her up. “Your audition for Juilliard is tomorrow morning, Piper.” Mason said heavily. That was another reality that she didn’t let sink in until it was said out loud. Her solo was gorgeous in her eyes even if in no one elses. “I’m prepared for it.” she said to him, grabbing her phone from the speakers and slinging her bag over her shoulder. It was true, she was prepared. Mentally, at least. Physically she was not at the top of her game, but for whatever reason, Mason made her feel better about the entire situation. That maybe she had a fighting chance one way or another.
“I’m going to go get some rest before I have to face the music tomorrow.”
“You’re going to be amazing. You are amazing.”
“You’re just saying that because I might die.” Mason laughed at that.
“That’s not true at all and you know it.”
He helped her out to the car. It was a bit of a struggle for Piper to allow him to drive her home, but after not getting much of an explanation as to why she was on the ground, curled up in a ball in the first place, he really put up a fight for it. From there on out the goodbye, the sleep, the wake up, the getting ready, the whole routine she had going for her seemed to be on fast forward. The most important audition for her life was in the coming hours. Mason has already agreed to picking her up hours before they had to be at the auditorium where they were holding auditions. She really wanted him to be the one she shared such an experience with, and he felt the same in return. They were partners, but they were, more importantly, friends.
She heard the honking of the car horn. It was Mason and he was right on time as he promised he would be. Her parents told her how proud they were and wished her all of the luck they would be able to muster up. She felt more than grateful. It was such a beautiful feeling - being surrounded by positive people who believed in her. Who actually believed in her. This was something the girl was not used to, and when she climbed into Mason’s car, she just thanked him. Nothing more, nothing less. It was all that needed to be said, and it was mutually understood between the two of them.
“Don’t be nervous, Piper. You’re the most graceful and amazing ballerina I’ve ever seen.”
“You don’t have to lie,” she looked over at him in mockery, considering that is what he had said to her the night before.
“It’s not a lie. It’s just so brutally honest.”
They shared a smile between the two of them as they pulled up to the parking lot. Piper’s audition wasn’t for an hour, and she could already feel her stomach fluttering with butterflies. When you are good at something, it’s hard to understand that there are people who are better at the same skill and that one person can take all of your dreams away. But, it didn’t matter to Piper. This was her moment, it was her time. She felt strong, even when she saw Samantha warming up and, as per usual, looking flawless.
“Good luck today, Sam.”
“Oh, Piper! Hello. You too. I know Miss Carol doesn’t think you will do well and of course that you’re not as good as me, but you have a shot.”
Condescending was the best way to describe Samantha, but Piper couldn’t blame her. Perhaps if she were as talented as she was she wouldn’t be so humble either. Piper just gave a smirk and nodded, walking past her and she just waited for her name to be called. Once her name escaped the announcer's lips, her breathing froze in time and her whole body locked up. Mason came up behind her, placed a hand on her shoulder, and whispered to her that she needed to ‘get up there’. Piper put her hand over Mason’s, instantly feeling glad that someone she trusted was there to pick her up when she froze in terror. Her dancing would have to be the thing that showed her personality. “Okay.”
The music pumped, the bass was prominent and she could hear it against the wall and feel it through her feet. The soles of her feet were practically vibrating themselves, mimicking the hard beat of the drums and the smooth sax in the back ground. Piper could feel the tingles and vibrations travel up her body; it was the most exhilarating
adrenaline rush she had felt in so long. Before the opening line, she let her body sway and she gathered the counts down to a science as she let the song sink into her. Once the first few actual lyrics rolled out of the speakers, something in Piper clicked. Arms moving in
perfect sync, both protruding a hip hop/jazz tone as her feet followed accomplishing fancy movements, all quick paced but classically beautiful to look at, of course.It was as if her body and her movements were telling a story. A story that almost had no point in being told, but Piper loved the feeling she got as she glided around leaping and twirling to the female’s voice that she could hear loud and clear. Dancing allowed her to be free, open, and honest with herself. This was her honest audition for those of Juilliard, and she couldn’t be more proud of it. Specifically because it finally connected to her soul. Dancing is when she felt most comfortable Piper couldn’t put her finger on what was different, but maybe dancing just made her so ultimately happy she didn’t have to worry about anything else.

She began to have the epiphany that she could be anything, she could do anything. No one else mattered. She was dancing to the best of her abilities, she refound herself falling for a guy who cared about her and didn’t think she was a horrid mess. Piper figured she was surrounded by good people, and even though Samantha had an ego, she still had the decency to wish her good luck. Nothing is in black or in white, because the world works in grays, and Piper was glad that she could be gray and still get what she wanted. When she finished her piece, breathless and proud, the proctors thanked her with a large sea of smiles and sent her away to send in their next contestant.

Mason jogged over to her immediately to ask her how it went and to congratulate her regardless of how it did go.

“So how did it -”

“Perfectly. Amazingly. I loved every second of it, Mason, I just got into Juilliard. I know it.”

“That’s what I like to hear!” the boy said, picking her up off of the ground in a hug and swinging her around as he did. “I’m proud to say I partnered with a Juilliard student.” and that was something Piper laughed at. But they laughed at it together, in unity, as if they were both in agreement.
“Thank you. But this time, thank you for being here. For caring. For finding me in the most vulnerable state and then being such a good person that I felt I could trust you with all of my little ole secrets.” Piper said, smiling as she did so.
Mason naturally told her that she was welcome, that he would do what he had to to help her. He cared a lot about her. They were friends. But, they were more than that too. He smiled down at her, her eyes glistening with the dim light; she looked beautiful. Mason leaned in slowly, trying not to take her off guard too much, and placed his hand upon her cheek. She looked up at him like something crazy was about to happen, but she softened her facial expression when she knew it was something they both wanted. His lips met hers gracefully and Piper pulled the two of them closer together as she tickled the back of his neck with her finger tips. The two leaned out of it, resting their foreheads against the other, smiling. Piper’s heart was still beating quickly, and she could feel it wanting to jump right out of her chest. Mason had to have felt the same way because he quickly pecked her once more.
“I can’t get enough of you,” he smiled, “No matter what happens, we’re always going to be a part of each other’s lives, okay? I promise.” Mason said, a certain comfort in his tone.
“I promise too.” she said, smiling up at him.
Little did Piper know that she would get her Juilliard acceptance letter months later, and that her appointment would result in a high note. Her cancer wasn’t terminal, it was just going to be a very grueling process. She had stage 3 lung cancer, and although she was petrified, Piper had a friend. She had a family. She had people who loved her and a career ahead of her. Piper was never afraid to disappoint anyone anymore, and she didn’t have to try to be someone like Samantha anymore either. She was her own person, her own individual with her own experiences. The good and the bad, the pretty and the ugly - whichever the case may be, Piper had it all on her own. Mason became someone she depended on more and more, and he depended on her too. Even though the two had known each other for what seemed like forever, things had escalated between them. They weren’t just friends, they were more than that.