The world after Ben was a silent, gray expanse. Adrian’s memo, a stark black-and-white decree of my isolation, was a headstone marking the grave of my old life. The other dancers, once a bustling community of shared aches and aspirations, now treated me like a fragile, possibly contagious, artifact. Their eyes slid away from mine in the corridors. Conversations hushed when I entered the dressing room. I was no longer Elara Jenner, a dancer in the corps. I was Adrian Volkov’s chosen one, a title that felt less like a crown and more like a collar.
I told myself this was the price of greatness. I repeated the mantra until it was a dull, rhythmic ache in my skull, a counterpoint to the sharper pain in my heart. The work was the only anesthetic. I threw myself into rehearsals with a self-destr
