Life on Point

**Libby**

That incident blurred into a collection of many over the next couple of days. However as the time slowly edged on I began to get better at hiding it and all talk of me fainting had soon vanished. Whenever the room threatened to slip away from under my feet I would run to the nearest bathroom, lock my self in a stall and only then give in to the darkness that waited to envelop me. As soon as I came round I would be filled with energy, passion and, for a brief while, the resolve to begin eating normally again. However no sooner than I had sat down for a meal the food would stare at me triumphantly, as if it knew it could defeat me. Ruin me. I refused to let it. Like so many other dancers at Ramussen I would push the food around my plate, willing myself to take a bite but never quite daring too. I always concluded in the end that I was the master of my body and that if I decided to give in to the gnawing hunger I would become weak and out of control. Dancing must come first, I told my self constantly and before long it did. Within just a week I began to see the result of my new diet and the head choreographer commended me for my new “petite, svelte frame” that I knew would make me an even better dancer.

Two days before the opening show of Swan Lake Sophia came up to visit me. My stomach, like usual when I saw her, instantly turned to butterflies and the first touch she gave me burned my skin. She smiled at me in her completely natural, unassuming way and that was the first time in weeks that I wasn’t consumed by the thought of the upcoming show, or drawn by the powerful lure of dancing. Sophia didn’t just allow me to be myself, she encouraged it. She had never put on a front, never pretended to be anything other than who she was and that quality about her was infectious, it made me want to do the same. It also made me hate myself for never managing to.

***

Later that night we lay next to each other on the sofa and once more I was amazed by how much it was that I loved her. I was tracing my hand along her soft leg, up to her thigh and back down again; so accustomed to her body I hardly noticed I was doing it. Gently she placed her hand on mine and moved it up further, kissing me lightly as she did so. Every part of me wanted to continue, my heart rate began to quicken and air caught in the back of my throat. I wanted to touch her, I wanted her to touch me, I wanted our bodies to join together in the familiar yet beautiful way that they did, I wanted to lose myself in our love and passion...

And yet.
I remembered the voice of the head teacher, instructing the entire troupe to save our energy for the show, to waste it on nothing but dancing. We had been forbidden to run, to go to the gym and especially, she had emphasised, to have sex. It was then that a battle began to wage in my head, one that I supposed had really been there all along, lurking in the background and waiting for the chance to emerge. Sophia or dancing? Sophia or dancing? Sophia or dancing? The two options circled around in my head, the impossible decision I had always pretended I would never have to make. The one small choice about whether to sleep with Sophia that night or not soon began to represent an ultimatum between the two things I loved the most.

I thought for as long as I dared about what my choice was and whether it was possible to chose both equally before finally deciding that only one could win out and that, if I was honest with myself, I had known all along what that would be.

“Not tonight.” I told her as sweetly as I could, planting a slow kiss on her lips and praying that she wouldn’t realise the significance of the sentence I had just uttered. Praying she would never know that when it came down to it I hadn’t chosen her.