Repetitive stress had become normal in your life as a ballerina; your muscles twitched when you tried to stand still, your eyelids trembled, and the inside of your lips was all bitten, bruised, and had small wounds, but nobody would see that... The show had to go on. You've been in this since childhood, when the screams were more sublime and if you cried, they would even understand because you were a kid — now, more than a decade later, if you were humiliated because you messed up a simple sequence, fuck it, you deserved it, it was your obligation to know and do them well.

Your routine was grueling, the kind that wouldn't stop even if your feet were bleeding and your ankle was about to break in half. “Achieving perfection hurts, keep going or your prize will be watching someone steal your show.” Your first ballet teacher told you that, you never forgot it, your mindset grew up around that sentence. You just didn't know what awaited you at the end of the line.

Arthur Donaldson, the company's darling, the star from the day he stepped in, no other ballerina could match him. He had an inexplicable technique, moving on stage like a feather in the wind: smooth and unpredictable, but in his case, the unpredictability was calculated to impress; that was the predictable for him. People would pay whatever it took to see him perform, and no one really wanted to compete for his place, he was sure of that... Not with you.

Your first solo was when he fell ill and you had to take his place so the performance wouldn't be postponed. He saw it, everyone saw it. The audience gave you a standing ovation, just as they did for him, but beyond that, he, being the observant and petty person he was at heart, sensed that the applause and the emotion were greater for you than they ever had been for him. Art hated every second of it, he needed to destroy it.

That's how your personal hell began: you touched his glass castle, and a mere scratch was enough for him to declare you an enemy of his kingdom. At first, he'd stand on the side of the bar you were using just so you couldn't, correcting you without you even looking at him and he danced better when you were watching, hoping you'd know you could never compete with him — even if he was only doing all this because deep down he thought you could.

On the other side, you knew that he and you couldn't be equals. Art was perfection in the smallest details, he never made mistakes and was cool on stage, he did what he had to do and showed his excellence, every step was calculated, and he wasn't playing around with what he was doing. But, you were real, free, expressive... Your mistakes were camouflaged with a touch of creativity that only you possessed; the audience was enchanted by your smiles and charisma. You showed that ballet wasn't just a constant search for something perhaps unattainable, it was fun, it was doing something out of love.

Somehow, you two were complementary opposites, and that's why you had to listen to the director's words: “The two of you. Together. You complement each other too much to waste on a solo.” Your world fell apart, and so did Art's. A duet when all you wanted to do was rip each other's heads off.

The struggle for dominance between him and you was constant; he wouldn't accept being inferior, and neither would you. He was in charge, and so were you. You tried to avoid his corrections, but he always found a way to make you notice that he wasn't falling for your tricks, and if you made a mistake, he was watching. The problem? Anyone could see that something between you flowed way too well when you danced together; there was an inexplicable chemistry there, and that disturbed you both.

It was night, just you and him training tirelessly after everyone else had already left. Art was behind you, holding you firmly as he corrected your posture, his hands on you, soft but firm. You stared at him in the mirror, he felt your gaze and squeezed you tighter just to see you react. “Let's do it again.” He whispered close to your ear, pushing his hands away from you.