My father began working at a regional firm, while my mother settled into early retirement.
Changing cities didn’t magically fix everything. Some mornings, I still missed Brendan. I remembered good dinners or rare afternoons when he seemed genuinely affectionate.
Whenever nostalgia tried to rewrite the past, I opened the revenge folder, read Revenge 96, and remembered exactly who he was.
I found a part-time job at a downtown bakery and enrolled in a community arts program.
One afternoon, I stopped outside a small dance studio and watched a class through the window.
The instructor opened the door.
“Are you looking to sign up for a class?”
“No,” I replied softly. “I just used to dance a long time ago.”
“Well, that’s an easy problem to fix,” she smiled, inviting me inside.
My first sessions were painful.
My muscles were stiff, my timing was poor, and every mirror reminded me of that university championship.
But I kept returning.
Week by week, Brendan’s critical voice faded from my mind, and I rediscovered how much I loved dancing when nobody else controlled what it meant.
Six months later, I performed a short solo at a local community theater.
My father filmed the entire performance with his phone angled too low, while my mother cried in the audience.
Another dancer uploaded a clip online. It never went viral, but an independent dance company in Phoenix saw it and invited me to audition for its upcoming season.
My first thought was that I wasn’t good enough.
