∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

MARIA

"Hold."

"Hold."

"Hold!"

"Focus on your balance!"

Clenching my jaw, I forced myself to continue to propel in the same spot exactly how Madame Sylvie wanted me to. But I couldn't focus. My head was going through a whirlwind of a thousand thoughts spinning in my mind, faster than my legs were going.

It was the worst I had been at practice in years and I could feel the annoyance radiating off Madame, who was burning a hole through me with her intense eyes, from afar.

I hadn't been in that dance room for long and my body was already aching. Spinning around en pointe was torture that morning. My feet felt stiff and my muscles weren't relaxed at all. I felt burnt out with my lower back prickling with pain, shooting up and down my body. I was holding in a wince at each turn, my hands unconsciously closing into fists at the unbearable pain soaring through my feet and up my body.

My head was throbbing and my vision was beginning to become blurred as I couldn't distinguish between certain objects around me. I felt nauseous which was unusual as I never experienced such symptoms when I usually practiced.

It was the stress, I knew it. The sweat was trickling down my body like water, soaking my leotard and sticking them to my wet skin. It was insanely hot in that room, despite the air conditioning being on. I could hardly breathe in a controlled pace.

I knew what was coming.

She was getting more and more impatient and furious by the second. I had disappointed her.

The moment I attempted a fouetté relevé, I lost complete control of my body.

I fell to the ground flimsily with a grimace when she slammed the wooden stick against my leg, fully breaking my unstable posture.

"You are able to do at least a hundred fouettés in a row! Why are you so distracted today?"

I doubled over on the floor in searing pain coursing through my body as I gasped deeply for air, my hand clutching my chest. It was ridiculous - I was breathless, no wonder Madame was getting mad at me.

"Madame. . .I-"

"Go home," she sharply snapped, turning off the music with her back facing mine. I sat up as I caught my breath, urgently gazing at her, shocked at her sudden words.

Madame Sylvie held a hard look of disdain on her long face as she glanced at me in frustration. "You create art with your body to show the audience the magic of dancing, telling a story. Yet you are pathetically moving like this in here - how do you expect them to react to you?"

I let my head down, keeping my eyes on the ground as I bit down hard on my trembling lip. My bun had fallen loose and slipped out of its tie. My hair flowed down my shoulders and hiding my ashamed face. I felt my heart racing again as I realised the depth of my mistake. I had never been so awful at practice.

"You are not embodying the art of this performance and it shows! If you cannot exhibit the emotions needed, don't bother showing up!"

"I. ." I hesitated before firmly saying, "I am sorry, Madame. I can do this, let's start again-" I stood, ready to stand in position again though my feet were about to fall off from all the pain that I tried not to show. I was determined and couldn't disappoint her anymore but she frowned, tutting as her hard look began to soften.

Her eyes scanned my body briefly before she met my eyes, her eyebrows slightly narrowed. "You've lost weight again."

I slowly brought down my arms, feeling myself tremble a little. Her words hit hard as my mind began to spin with thousands of insults beginning to attack my body. I could feel it, the lightness of my limbs, the emptiness of my insides, the slimness inside.

She came close, her face close to mine as she gently lifted my chin and met my eyes. Madame looked surprisingly concerned.

"Go home," Madame more softly said, her tight lips loosening. She sighed, moving my face a little to get a better look at me. "You look haggard and tired. Get some rest. Don't come back here looking like a ghost again." Slightly astonished at her words, my eyes widened a little while she turned away again, closing her small purse.

Once again, she sighed and said, "you will strain yourself too far if you don't take a break. We don't need more injured ballerinas, especially not our star ones."

Madame Sylvie spun on her heel and left, the grand doors shutting loudly behind her.

A single tear slipped out of my eye as soon as she left and I could feel myself falling apart once more. When I stopped dancing, all the pain was rushing back to me, the distressing events of the past few days being brought back up into my mind.

I held in the rest of the tears and wiped my eyes, sniffing as I took my bag and left the practice room to obey Madame. She was right, I was extremely exhausted.

The moment I came out, downcast and disappointed in myself, my eyes picked up on a particular muscular man being surrounded by a group of ballerinas. I took a look at them, noticing that a few were new to Dream. Like little girls, they were giggling, eyeing him which made my blood boil even more.

A small, dark scoff came from me before I clenched my jaw, crossing my arms over my chest. I cocked my head to the side and raised an eyebrow as heads turned, shocked to see me, including his. He could be such a shy guy that it frustrated me that he wouldn't push off a few parasites. As I walked forward with a sharp glare, they began to disperse, whispering so discreetly as they moved.

Once I stood in front of him, I exhaled slowly to calm my racing heart while I shot daggers at their backs, raging inside.

"What was that?" Leonardo asked amusingly.

"What was what?" I shot back a little to sharply at his innocent question. I sighed, rubbing my temple as I tried to push away the image forming in my mind from earlier. "Stop letting those. . .stop letting people around you like that."

Leonardo deeply chuckled, shaking his head as though he knew I was jealous. "Like what?" I met his playful eyes which pissed me off a little, earning him a glare.

I rolled my eyes, placing my hands on my hips in annoyance. "What are you doing here? I told you, I am not going back."

Surprisingly, Leonardo took my hand into his, pulling me to walk with him. "It's been days, Ria, stop staying away. Come home, I'm sure things will be different once you see-"

I stopped, seriously looking at him with a frown. "You heard, didn't you? Leonardo, she hates me to the point that if I died right now, she'd be wishing I was in hell."

Leonardo sighed, an understanding look coming onto his face but I didn't want his comfort as I started walking out the building.

My sister hated my guts and knowing why was the worst feeling of all.

When the doctor allowed me to see Luna, I had never been more relieved in my entire life.

I rushed in, tears already streaming down my cheeks, expecting the worst. I had been through a turmoil of emotions from the moment I found her to then and all I wanted to do was see her face to face, alive.

Without processing how she looked, the first thing I did was run to my little sister and pull her to me, wrapping my arms tightly around her and hugging her whilst I cried. I felt her warmth, the pounding of her heart against me in her chest that rose and fell, her breath against my cold neck. As I shut my eyes and held onto my sister tighter, breathing out in relief that she was alive and safe, protected in my arms.

"Lulu," I breathed out, clutching her in an inescapable hold. I missed her, I missed her so much and all I wanted do was completely shatter the previous, fractured bond between us and form a new one, renewed as I learnt that life was too short and I needed my sister.

But I knew something was wrong the moment Luna's harsh, hoarse tone uttered, "don't call me that."

It took me a moment to register what she had just said. I pulled away a little and looked closely at her, my lips parted in shock. Her neck was what caught my attention at first, bandaged but swollen and I could see glimpses of purple and blue merged on her skin. Her lips were chapped and her eyes were sunken and dark, deep bags beneath them. She looked so pale as though she had just come from the mortuary.

My hand lifted to touch her cheek but her head jerked away before she pushed my shoulders back roughly, glaring down at me hard.

"Luna-"

"So it was you?" She snapped with a scowl, her eyebrows low and sharp. Luna scoffed, folding her arms with the IV attached to her wrist. "You brought me back? What right do you fucking have to interfere with my life?"

Astonished, I became speechless before her. I didn't know what I expected. Perhaps Luna hugging me back tight, crying to me, opening up to me, thanking me and reconciling with me. But she was exactly the same as before, a touch of death had done nothing to her. I didn't want to argue, all I wanted was to reconnect with my broken sister. I composed myself and said, "Luna, you're my sister. I wasn't going to let you. ." I couldn't say the word and swallowed roughly, my hands finding each other as they fidgeted. "You're safe now. If you don't want to talk to me, I understand. But at least talk to-"

"A therapist? A doctor? Fuck off," Luna seethed, filled with rage. "You want me locked up, don't you? Of course," she darkly chuckled, breathless with fury. "You can save your fucking crocodile tears and leave! They are not needed here."

I could see how much resentment she held against me. Holding in the tears, I didn't let it show how much pain she was inflicting on me by her sharp words. What did I expect? Luna never did and never would want me. "Luna," I had to pause as a lump in my throat was forming. I sniffed, quickly wiping my eyes. "Why did you do it? At least tell me that."

"You would never know, Miss Prima Ballerina," she scoffed, vividly warped with anger. My eyebrows furrowed at her words. "How much you've made my life hell."

"Luna-"

"You have no idea how much I hate being related to you!" Luna snarled, her hand holding the blanket in a fist, her nostrils flaring. It was hard to hear, hard to comprehend how much my own sister despised me. I had no words to say so I let her talk, the most she had spoken to me.

Then I saw it, the tears she was fighting whilst she burned a glower into me. "All my life, I've been tormented by your existence. It was always you! Everyone sees you as the star! That's why Mama never bothered to care about me - she always focused on you! Every single thing was about you!"

"That is not true-" I tried, narrowing to eyebrows at her as a sudden spark of anger hit me but she scoffed in my face. Since she was not going to allow discussion, I let her speak, trying not to get defensive.

"They both favoured you, made you the 'queen' you are today! You've got a nice fucking place, a high reputation, a company to call your own, but what about me?" She ranted, jealousy lacing her words.

I shook my head at her. "If you think that's what an idealistic life is, you have no idea-"

"There you do again! Dismissing me like I'm some stupid child!" The words sounded familiar.

You are a child! I held back from snapping, inhaling sharply. But she was right. I didn't want to diminish her feelings and let her continue without interrupting.

"All the time," Luna slowly said, her voice lowering a little. "Every single day at boarding school was torture." My face softened at her words. She never told me anything about her experiences at school. "While Mama was fawning over you, loving you and making you a world star at home. .she sent me away to that place - that hell where they. ." She stopped as soon as her voice cracked, closing her eyes tightly.

"I was an outcast. A loser abandoned by their family. What's the point of having a famous sibling? Everyone envies you for it and when they realise how useless I am as a connection. It just makes things worse." Luna rubbed her clenched jaw that was prominent beneath her skin. "No one cared about what they did to me. No one cared about how I lived - no, survived. How they used to torture me in class, push me around at practice, creep up on me in the showers. Throw food or paint all over me, pretend to be friends with me then toss me to the side once they used me. All the fake invites, the false concerns. I felt like a fucking animal in a zoo! And it never fucking stopped. No matter how hard I tried to avoid it, how hard I worked!"

Luna wiped the stray tears rolling down her cheeks, maintaining her hard look, which I then knew came from a deeply hurt and broken place. Her hair falling down her shoulders and hiding her face. "I don't want this life - this life of pain every single day, these expectations - this career that I never chose! None of it!"

"So I guess that's my reason," she muttered bitterly, lifting her head once again after a moment's silence. "Pathetically, there's nothing for me here, an unloved, pitiful orphan who's life's purpose has only been to be bullied and used."

I quietly breathed out, feeling the weight of my mistakes. There was a lot I had done wrong to Luna without even realising and the thought of it was making my chest tighten and I struggled to breathe clearly. "Luna-"

"If!" Luna began sharply, her cold eyes flickering back to mine. "If you know and feel anything about what I've just said, then you should understand that the best thing for you to do is to leave me the fuck alone. I don't want anything to do with you anymore."

                      "Just let me be."

"'Just let me be'." I remembered, my eyes meeting Leonardo's. "That's what she said so that's what I'm doing. The only thing I've done to my sister is bring her more harm than good. I'm not going to hurt her anymore, Leo."

He stopped me from walking, standing in front of me as he held onto my arm. "Ria, do you seriously think that this is the right way to go? Logically think about this! Your suicidal sister told you to leave her alone and you're actually going to do what she says?" I brushed his hand off me, narrowing my eyebrows at him.

"Don't you get it? I'm the cause for those thoughts!" I exclaimed in exasperation as I waved my arms in the air a little before saying in a more broken tone, "I am the reason my baby sister lifted herself up on that chair and. . .why she struggled and swallowed down a whole tub of. . .I don't deserve to be her older sister."

I pulled open the car door and shut it roughly as I sat in the passenger seat, pulling the seatbelt over me as a few tears slipped out of my eyes. The amount of regret I was feeling was killing me slowly. I didn't realise my hands were shaking until Leonardo had gotten into the car, leaned over and placed his over my trembling ones, holding them gently.

He sighed softly whilst he gazed at me. I kept my eyes on our hands, holding in a sob. "You are both caught up in a big misunderstanding because of your parents. You're hiding things from her to protect her and that's why she doesn't know the truth and keeps blaming you for what your parents did."

"It's better she hates me than them," I managed to mumble coherently, unable to contain any more tears. "I thought. .I thought she could at least have a better memory of them than I did. It's better Luna doesn't know. .it could break her." 

"It definitely hit her. . .changed her perspective. Come home and speak to her."

My eyes widened at him as I stared at him more seriously. "You. .what did you tell her Leo?" He placed his hand against my cheek before I could explode. Wiping the tears, he calmly replied, "sometimes what you think is best, isn't. You'll see."

"Leo-"

Leonardo placed his forehead against mine, shutting me up. I closed my eyes as I tried to calm my heart.

"Please, Ria. . .just trust me."

I looked up into his eyes and held back from saying anything and simply believe his words.

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

~ Author's Note ~

It looks like Luna and Maria have a lot to discuss with each other.

Keep reading to find out Leonardo said to Luna beforehand!

Luna's views on her sister, is she valid for feeling that way?

Thoughts on this chapter?

Please vote, comment, share and follow.

Please tag users you think will be interested in NEPENTHE!

Votes and comments really help me know how the story is being received and helps boost my confidence for more updates :)

Thanks for reading!

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘

∘₊✧──────✧₊∘