Falling Gracefully: A Lesbian Romance by Cara Malone

Author:Cara Malone [Malone, Cara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2017-06-25T18:30:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

Melody sat on a bench in the locker room while a dozen other dancers moved around her. They became a blur of tulle and silk, and Melody was feeling a little dizzy. She’d been sick all week, a stomach bug that seemed to work through everyone else in a day or two but which lingered in her. It didn’t matter how feverish she felt, though. Missing this audition wasn’t an option.

Neither was missing class, or her scheduled time in the practice studio, or her academic classes.

Melody threw up and then pressed a cold compress to her forehead in the dorm bathroom before dragging herself across campus to the auditorium this morning. She still felt a little sick to her stomach as she laced up her pointe shoes, and her fingers felt fat and clumsy. This was the last audition before Christmas break, the last opportunity to get out of the chorus and prove that she deserved to be here and all her time and effort, as well as and her parents’ money, was well-spent.

After she stuffed her blistered, sore toes into her shoes, Melody still had about ten minutes before her call time. She should use it to warm up, to stretch and practice her routine one more time, but all she could do was lean against the cool metal of the lockers and watch a few dozen girls bustle back and forth, getting ready to dance or packing up after their auditions.

None of them seemed half as concerned with the outcome as she was, and none of them was this sick.

Melody pressed her fingers to her cheeks, trying to derive a little coolness from them, and the sound of classical music filtered in from the stage. She felt her pulse quicken and something hot rose in the back of her throat. There were only two auditions ahead of her, and another bout of sickness seemed imminent.

“Melody Bledsoe?”

She turned her head, following her name. There was a woman standing in the open door with a clipboard tucked into her elbow, and Melody thought she looked wavy somehow, not entirely real. Or maybe it was just the fever.

“Melody?” The woman called again, and Melody raised her hand limply.

“I’m here.”

“You’re up next,” the woman said, checking something off on her clipboard. “Come to the stage now, please.”

“I’ll be right there,” Melody said, and then she watched the woman float through the door. It swung shut, and suddenly she felt very alone in this room full of people. Something lurched in her stomach and she dragged herself up off the bench.

Walking proved difficult. Her vision continued to be distorted and the locker room she’d become so familiar with in the last four months suddenly looked almost unrecognizable. With a great deal of effort, Melody found her way to the back of the locker room, and though she’d been looking for the toilet stalls, she found the showers instead. She went into the first one, drawing the curtain shut and allowing herself to collapse against the cool tile wall.

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