Standing on the steps of my old ballet studio I felt a surge of bittersweet nostalgia flow over me. It's been almost 6 years since I was last here.

I hadn't left with good memories.

As I walked through the familiar front doors into reception, I felt like I'd shrunk back down into that naive, vulnerable little girl that had been on the verge of crumbling into pieces.

"Hello, is Tatianna Ivanova here? I'd like to speak to her." I asked the receptionist at the front desk.

But before the woman could give me an answer, the heavy glass door to the main dance hall just behind me swung open, revealing a tall, slender woman dressed all in black. She was still just as graceful for her age as when I'd last seen her. Except now she would be in her 60's, evidenced by fine wrinkles gathering at her eyes, and the increased number of silver hairs that were pulled back amongst raven black tresses to form a strikingly perfect bun.

"...Myishka? Is that you?" she called out, her husky Russian accent drawing me back further into my childhood.

Myishka; 'Little mouse.' I haven't been called that for a while that's for sure.

"Tatianna," I acknowledged her timidly. I had now grown half a head taller than her but despite this, she still intimidated me just as much as when I was a whole head shorter than her.

"Well well well, I never thought I would ever see you back in this studio again," She chuckled. She was a stern lady with a mischievous twinkle in her eye that hinted at the soft centre that lay within her cold exterior. "Not after what happened the last time you were here." She smiled knowingly.

I could only apologise for the way I had left, "I'm so sorry Tatianna. I was childish and impatient and– "

"You were young and in pain Myishka." She finished for me, to my surprise.

"Can you forgive me?" I asked ashamedly, forcing myself to maintain eye contact with her sharp, ice-blue eyes.

"There is nothing to forgive." She smiled. It lit up her usually stern face and warmed her strong angular features, catching me off guard.

I couldn't believe that she was so forgiving, after how bratty I had been when I left...or rather when I quit. I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out as my brain tried to process my confusion.

"So why have you returned?" She asked simply, jolting me back to the present.

"I need to ask for your help, to re-learn The Swan." I said sheepishly.

The Swan was the last dance I learned before I hung up my tutu for good. Because I was in the advanced class, all of the students were older than me. Though the more mature girls didn't seem to mind, it was the ballerinas only a few years older than me that really riled me up. The way they rolled their eyes and crossed their arms as they eyed me condescendingly. I didn't have any real friends in that class, but that didn't matter to me so much when I first started; I just wanted to dance.

"Hey Rat-face," Lena called out derisively. She was 15 and the second youngest in the class after me, with poofy blonde poodle-hair and freckled button nose. Her oh-so-original name for me was a jab at the fact that Tatianna called me Myishka. Nobody else in the class was given any pet-name and we were all aware of it...but I'd never asked for it and I didn't particularly think I'd done anything to deserve the special Russian endearment.

"You know how you absolutely suck at 'The Swan' and how Tatianna keeps telling you to stop before you even get halfway into the dance," She began her tirade.

"I can do the steps perfectly Lena and you know it." I answered bluntly. My Dad had always taught me to try and ignore people like her as best I could, but it was harder with Lena who had a larger array of verbal weapons in her vocabulary than the other snot-nosed 12 year olds I was used to dealing with.

"So what? The rest of the class does the steps perfectly too." She shot back snidely, zeroing in on me as I warmed up at the bar, trying to concentrate on the different positions instead of her remarks.

"Then why does Tatianna keep pointing out your over-rotated pirouettes and your sloppy arm positions?" She smirked maliciously.

My heart started pounding and my cheeks felt hot with embarrassment, I saw them redden visibly in my reflection as I turned to the bar and faced the mirrored wall.

It was true that Tatianna kept stopping me and telling me to try and 'feel' the emotion of the dance. I tried to, but it wasn't exactly easy when I was focussing all my energy on executing each step flawlessly.

I had failed to shut Lena out and she grew even more cruel once she realised she was getting to me.

"Listen here you Brat, don't think you're so special just because Tatianna gave you a stupid nickname. I overheard her saying that you're just a baby and you don't have the emotional maturity to pull off such a complicated dance like The Swan. I heard her telling Sergei that she wants to remove you from the performance altogether. What do you have to say about that 'little Rat'?" she spat venomously.

What?

In the mirror I could see the reflection of Tatianna speaking to Sergei, the company's artistic director who was in charge of every performance and who decided whether you were 'in' or 'out.' The two of them were good friends and spoke all the time. They could have been talking about anything, but by the serious expression they both wore... I felt my stomach sink at the thought that they were having a discussion about me.

"You're lying." I said quietly, looking down at my pink-slippered feet.

"I'm NOT!" She shouted back, causing Sergei and Tatianna to look up and direct their attention to us.

"Why hasn't Tatianna told me then? The performance is in less than a week." I asked rigidly, my throat feeling strangled as I saw Tatianna's eyes on us in the mirror. She didn't look very happy, maybe even my warm-up techniques weren't good enough.

"She's just letting you think you're in the performance, because she doesn't know how to tell you. She said to Sergei you won't understand." Lena whispered into my ear.

"I don't understand!" I pushed her away roughly, "I can do all of the steps, I can do them perfectly! I know the dance from start to end." I yelled, my eyes were watery and I willed the tears away with every fibre of my being.

"You just don't get it. You're too immature to understand, unlike me .I'm almost 16 and practically an adult already." She scoffed at me, turning her nose up in the air as she continued her warm up as if nothing happened.

I felt so weak and pathetic as a stray tear managed to escape and trickle down my cheek.

At 12 years old you can't help but let things get to you, you haven't yet learned that age doesn't always determine maturity and in Lena's case, this was entirely true.

It didn't help that the performance was on my birthday (which was also the 2nd anniversary of my Dad's death), or that I overheard my mom talking to Rose's mom late one night when they thought I was asleep.

"Lisa you are having another Major Depressive Episode, you need to tell Ava." Said Rose's mom as she sat next to my mother at the dinner table and put her arm around her.

"I can't Heather," I saw my mom crying, "Not again. She's just a baby, she won't understand. Not after the first time I had to leave her after Nick died." My mom choked, her hair covering her face as she hunched forward with her head in her hands.

"She needs to know, she'll understand if you explain it to her," Heather urged her gently.

"I can't, I can't....I can't do this." My mom sobbed. And I saw what no child ever wants to see. Their mother having a nervous breakdown.

I remember thinking 'Why does everyone think I won't understand? Do they think I'm stupid? I know what depression is. I know how to dance The Swan. Why is everyone telling me I'm immature when I would do my best to understand if they just bothered to try and explain it to me!'

I turned up to final rehearsal before the performance having thought Lena was lying all week about what Tatianna said, but as soon as I sensed her approach me, as I knelt on the floor and tied up my ballet slipper ribbons, I suddenly felt a dreaded sense of fear that maybe Lena had been right.

"Myishka I need to talk to you." Tatianna said softly.

My heart stopped beating and my stomach tied itself into a tight knot.

"Listen, maybe it would not be such a good idea for you to dance tomorrow night." She continued, placing a hand on my shoulder.

'No! No no no Lena wasn't lying!' I thought, squeezing my eyes shut .

She tilted my chin up gently to look at her, "I know you can dance The Swan and you know all the steps perfectly, but – "

I couldn't believe this was actually happening.

"Tatianna please let me dance, please!" I begged.

"I know you want to dance Myishka but maybe it isn't such a good idea tonight, you have been through a lot recently and I got a call from your mother about her condition—"

But I had stopped listening entirely after I heard her say 'it isn't such a good idea'

"I'm not a baby! I'm not emotionally immature. I can dance perfectly, I know the steps, I understand. I can understand!!" I protested desperately.

I'd been on the verge of tears but I couldn't let them see me cry, so I held them back. I just wanted people to treat me like I was competent, to not look down on me just because I was young. How was I supposed to look after myself and be grown up when my Mom went away to the clinic again, if I couldn't even stop myself from crying like a stupid baby!

"Myishka calm down," Tatianna pleaded as she squeezed my arms comfortingly and tried to calm me down.

"NO! I hate this. I hate it. You can't force me not to dance if I quit first. So I QUIT." I screamed, ugly tears streaming freely down my face.

Looking back of course I was immature. Of course I actually didn't understand what was going on at the time. I didn't know that my mom having depression meant she was more than just 'sad' and that it hadn't gone away completely since the first time she was diagnosed when I was 10. I didn't know that Lena probably had been lying, or at least twisting what Tatianna had said to Sergei.

"..."

The whole room was silent after my outburst. Even Lena looked shocked.

I didn't want to dance if nobody believed in me. I felt like the only person who truly believed in me was my Dad but he was gone, and if my Mom said she couldn't do this anymore, then I didn't have to try anymore either.

I ripped the white feather hair-piece from my head and undid the ribbons from my slippers, yanking them off roughly and storming out of the studio.

"Myishka..." I heard Tatianna murmur, as I ran out as fast as I could.

I vowed to never come back...until now.

"So you want to finish what you started, no?" She guessed perceptively.

"Yes." I confirmed resolutely.

"Ok." She remarked nonchalantly and motioned for me to follow her.

"Wait, don't you have a class right now?"

"Eh, I can just ask one of those new young male dancers visiting from New York to take over. I'm sure the girls would love that." She winked.

A smile twitched at the corner of my mouth as I remembered how giggly and ditzy our class had been when Tatianna had introduced us to her 21 year old nephew Alexei that was visiting her from Russia, and had dropped by to teach our class for one lesson.

"You don't want to know more? Why I came back?" I asked tentatively as I followed her to a smaller practice room.

"I don't ask many questions. If my former student asks me to help them, I help." She shrugged.

"How much should I pay you?" I asked.

"Nonsense!" She exclaimed.

"Tatianna," I opposed firmly.

"You want to finish what you started, I also have to finish teaching that little mouse in my class that just wanted to dance as excellently as possible but never got to. I never gave up on you, you gave up on yourself." She retorted fiercely.

I was at a loss for words.

"You are special Ava. Maybe you were not meant to be a prima ballerina, but you are destined for more than giving up. Seeing you return here, wanting to try again, it is more valuable to me than if you graduated with top marks but never kept in touch." She continued, her tone more gentle as she saw me hovering uselessly in the doorway, my eyes watery and hot as I ran a hand through my hair and tried not to be so emotional. Except this time it was because I was so touched by her faith and belief in me, contrary to what I had thought 6 years ago.

"No tears remember?" She smiled affectionately at me.

I returned a relieved laugh, wiping my eyes and shaking off the past. Tatianna always used to tell us that we were not allowed to cry. "Ballerinas look weak and fragile, but we are strong. Embrace the pain." She used to say as our muscles ached and our feet sometimes bled.

"No tears." I smiled wistfully.

"It will be hard work. Don't think I'm going to go easy on you." Her warm smiling face suddenly turned back to ice as she talked business to me, "You were talented Myishka, but you have not trained for years."

"The discipline never really goes away," I laughed, knowing that I was about to put myself through torture.

"Neither has that determined little girl I knew." She smiled nostalgically, the ice melting away once more.

_____________________________________________________

Yes. It was torture. Pure torture.

Muscles that hadn't been called on in a while now felt stretched and strained.

I forgot how hard Tatianna used to drive us. And I haven't even put on my pointe shoes yet!

But despite being rusty, I felt a rush of childlike excitement as I rediscovered why I had once been so enamoured by the grace and elegance of the dance.

Warming up at the bar, I gazed at my reflection in the mirror. The girl looking back at me in a black leotard was so different to the 12 year old in pink tulle. And yet she was still there.

How ironic that the day after I decided to quit, the very night of the performance, when I got home from school there was a box on my bed containing a pair of extremely expensive pointe shoes, along with a note from my Mom:

Happy Birthday Ava,

I'm sorry I can't be with you today, the doctor told me that it might not be a good idea to be at home at the moment. But that doesn't mean I can't give my daughter her birthday present!
These are from me, and your Dad. He bought them for your 10th birthday, but I forgot about them until now. I know your father and I know he would want nothing more than to see you wearing them up on stage one day.
I love you, and I believe in you. Even though I know that it's hard for you to believe in me at the moment...

Mom xx

My feet were too small to fit the beautiful white silk slippers embroidered with silver thread and crystals. Both my Mom and Dad had known how badly I wanted them after seeing a picture in a magazine, that regardless of the adult shoe size, my father bought a pair for me when he was in London. Except that while his luggage made it back home safely, he did not.

But as I clutched the box to my heaving chest and sobbed, another small piece of paper fluttered out. In my Dad's handwriting.

'You'll grow into them.'

And after having quit, I felt like I was a failure. I would never be able to wear them. I hated that period of my life. So when I finally brought them out of the dark, dusty corner of my closet 6 years later, call it destiny or fate or whatever but when I pulled them out of the box, untouched and still just as beautiful, and slipped them onto my feet... they fit perfectly.

I had grown into them.

My dad believed in me then, and he still believed in me now even though I couldn't see him. I wanted to laugh and cry and hit something and hug someone, all at once. Something from my past, had made its way to the present and had taken on new meaning for me.

'Embrace the pain. It will make you strong.' Tatianna used to say to me when I had to throw out yet another pair of torn and tattered pointe shoes, and my legs hurt so badly that she had to help me limp to the door.

I never thought that something from that period of time where I was soft and weak, would be the same thing giving me the strength to keep going now.

______________________________________________________________

"Sloppy!" Tatianna criticised harshly, "You call those feet pointed?!"

She didn't cut me a break then and she certainly wasn't cutting me any slack now.

"Hahaha" She laughed as I grunted in frustration, "Look at that scary face. I haven't seen those tiger-eyes for so long!" She chuckled to herself at my suffering.

"Again." She commanded ruthlessly with two loud claps.

My feet were sore and achy. I wasn't used to wearing pointe shoes again and both my arches and calves were killing me.

"You are focussing too much on the steps, you lack the emotion Myishka."

Lena's words echoed in my head "You're just a baby, you don't have the emotional maturity."

Well I wasn't a baby anymore.

"I'm not a little mouse anymore," I huffed.

"You will always be little mouse, Myishka." She smirked affectionately.

I just sighed good-naturedly and shook my head with a smile.

"Tatianna what happened to the rest of the class?" I asked casually as she finally let me take a 5 minute break. I'd been practicing for almost 2 hours now.

"Eh? Oh they all graduated." She answered.

"I see." I said.

"All except Lena." There was a knowing glimmer in her eye as she saw my gaze shift lightning fast to hers, and continued her story.

"She twisted her ankle during a performance, trying to do a turning 2nd position leap which I told her explicitly not to attempt. It was that move only you and Sara ever managed to execute flawlessly."

At 18 Sara had been the oldest ballerina in our advanced class and she was extremely talented. I had always looked up to her. She'd seen me practicing that turning leap which we called her 'signature move,' after class.
After everyone had gone home, I stayed behind and practiced. I was determined to do it. I had been extremely self-conscious of the fact that I was the youngest and I thought that everybody felt I didn't deserve to be in the same class; that I wasn't good enough. But I wanted to prove I was.
I couldn't work out how to execute the last step gracefully and make it look as perfect as she did. She surprised me when she came into the studio, 'You almost had it... Myishka' she laughed. And after hours of practice with her, I finally mastered it.

"Twisted ankles heal, "I said, confused about why Lena didn't continue, after bragging so much about how good she was.

"I'll tell you something I knew about Lena from even before you came into our class. She was talented, but not willing to put in the hard work it takes to be a ballerina. She did not see the effort that you put into your training and she was jealous that you could do such difficult routines. She was overconfident and attempted to do something I knew she was not yet capable of, not with the little work she had put into learning. And so she fell and injured herself. Her ankle healed completely, but she always told everyone there was permanent damage and she would not be able to dance again. I think what really happened, was that she knew she would never be as good as you if she did not work harder, and she didn't want to do that. So she used her injury as an excuse, so she would never have to be put to the test to see if that was true."

"Tatianna...I didn't realise you had been paying so much attention to us." I said quietly, after a short silence between us as I processed what she had just said.

"My students are like my children, it is my duty to pay attention." She said as she straightened up and held her head high.

And the way she looked at me made me realise that all those years ago, she probably knew what I had been going through outside of the ballet studio. She was there when my dad died, and she must have known about my mom having depression. She didn't want me to perform on that night, not because she didn't believe I could do it, but because she'd been worried about me. I was 12 years old. I hadn't been emotionally mature. Tatianna had been paying attention to me, and it wasn't about how well I could dance. Not at all.

So maybe, until just recently, I hadn't been ready for love.
Maybe I didn't realise that Ryan had been paying attention to me, but it wasn't just the 'Bad Girl' that everybody thinks is all there is to me. He'd been paying attention to all of me, and brought out the soft-hearted little mouse that I thought was gone. I didn't even think she was still there.

I couldn't stop myself from falling in love with Ryan, and loving him so deeply. That wasn't the problem.

I just wasn't ready to accept his love, or open up my heart completely to him. Because I thought I would be weak and vulnerable and easily hurt. But those things don't make me powerless or pathetic; they make me human. They're a part of who I am, and they've made me into the person I am today.

I hadn't been ready for love, because I hadn'tbeen ready to love myself.

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Enjoy lovely readers ❤

Next chapter will be out in a couple of weeks. Uni starts again soon and I wish I didn't have to go back!!

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Cerise xx :)