Life on Point

*Libby*

"You’ve got talent,” the woman told me simply, in a tone that implied it was not a compliment, merely a fact. I looked down at the floor, still utterly mortified that she had seen me behaving so stupidly.

“I’m from Ramussen,” she told me and instantly my heart began beating in my chest fiercely. Ramussen was the top dance school in the country, it was the kind of place I dreamed about going but never thought I would be good enough even to apply for. I waited for her to say something else but when she didn’t I realised my response was expected here, “Oh wow. I’ve always wanted to meet someone from Ramussen.” I realised this must have been the right thing to say because the woman began to smile. “Well here I am. We come to scout here every couple of years and because of you now I’m very, very happy that we do. I’d like you to take this,” she said handing me a small leaflet, “and make sure you ring us first thing tomorrow morning. We would love to offer you an audition. I mean, if it was down to me I would have accepted you right here and now.” I stammered and tried to get out words that wouldn’t come. I was overwhelmed by what she had just said and, to further my embarrassment tears began to prick in my eyes, “Thank you so much,” I managed to get out eventually. “I should really go back inside now,” she said before walking back into the hall to watch the other people perform their routines. Despite what she had said and the confidence it gave me I couldn’t help but wonder if had all been a joke, and even if she had meant it I feared that she would go back inside, see better dancers than me and therefore change her mind.

Nevertheless I held the leaflet within my hand like it was solid gold; it was the key to my future, the way I could change my life. I walked back inside quietly and went into the changing room. Pulling off my leotard I searched for my t-shirt that appeared to be missing from the floor. I saw Sophia’s silhouette in the door and quickly picked up my dropped beige leotard and tried to cover myself up with it, my cheeks turning redder by the second. She laughed at me softly, “don’t worry Lib - it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

“Umm...” I responded at first, not really knowing what to say to that, “Well in that case can you help me find my t-shirt?” She nodded and we began to search through the messy changing room scattered with clothes that different dancers had cast off quickly, in a hurry to get changed into their outfits. Suddenly her cold hands were around my waist, catching me offguard, “Stop it,” I told her, faking annoyance. She moved her hands further up and suddenly my annoyance was no longer pretend, “I said stop! People could walk in, people from our school and I don’t want them to see us. Why don't you ever understand that?”

I could see her face set and as she handed me the missing t-shirt she didn’t look me in the eyes. I pulled it on silently and slid my jeans on over my tights to save time, “I’m sorry okay,” I told her finally but I wasn’t, not even at all.

“Congratulations” she said, ignoring my apology, “you danced really beautifully today.” With that she left me alone. I slid down onto the bench and placed my head in my hands, about a hundred emotions running through my head. In the space of ten minutes of my life I had felt fear, anxiety, relief, elation, embarrassment, joy and now guilt. Pure guilt. I changed my mind constantly about myself, about what I really was and whether I was okay with that or not. Sophia meant more to me than I can put into words but at the same time she was a living, breathing reminder of my secret - a secret I was always in and out of denial about. Sophia bore the brunt of this denial; I pushed her away one moment and then drew her close to me the next – it was constant roller coaster of emotions for me but I always felt guilty when I took that out on her. However I knew that if I’d have gone back to that situation again, even with the gift of hindsight, I would probably have done the same thing again. There was no way I was ready for people to know that about me, especially when I didn’t even truly know what it meant myself. When people knew I was gay that’s all I would be to them, the other aspects of my character would no longer matter and suddenly I would become The Lesbian; I would no longer be just normal Libby and there would always be this stigma about me, a stigma that I did not want and definitely was not ready to handle.

Sophia said she couldn’t understand where I was coming from or why it bothered me so much what other people thought. She had been open about her feelings since she was fourteen and thought that the three years experience she had gained since then made her an expert on the subject. She didn’t see what I saw, which was that every conversation anyone had with her revolved around her sexuality. Sure, lots of people avoided her and disliked her for it but that wasn’t really what worried me the most. The thing was that even her best friends who accepted her for who she was began to think of her as nothing else but ‘the gay one’ and instead of talking about sport, music, films, feelings and other completely normal topics of conversation all they would ever talk to her about was her sexuality: what girls did she like, were her parents okay with it, had she ever had sex with a girl, did she fancy anyone in the school, what exactly did lesbians do anyway? Their list of questions was endless and what her friends unknowingly did was reduce her to one, tiny aspect of her character. Her being a lesbian defined her completely and there was no way I wanted that to happen to me.

I pulled myself out of my thoughts and, when I had composed myself, I stood up, gathered my clothes, put on my shoes and left the hall wanting nothing more than to go home and sleep. Forget about everything, lose myself to a world where I could be anything or anyone I wanted to be.