Chapter Text
“She’s gone.”
Pearl’s eyes flicked up. Her body tensed. She couldn’t have heard that correctly. She couldn’t have left her—
“What do you mean?”
The only indication that Garnet was aggravated was her clenched fists.
“I mean,” she paused as if Pearl could only understand her if she spoke slowly, “she’s gone.”
And one, and two, and three — and — four…
This piece annoyed her; it was too fast and there was too much syncopation. The music blared with loud cords and mismatched counts. Her feet struggled to keep up.
“C’mon, Pearl—” the rehearsal director barked.
—You lazy fat ass, Pearl finished her thought silently.
Yes, yes, she knew she wasn’t any good at anything choreographed by Balanchine, but then why did she keep getting cast in the pieces? She was just a corps member, and they could very well do without her. The director said she had potential. Pearl believed that she was just saying that to save what was left of her ego, not that she had much of one to begin with.
But, even though she knew she was no good, she pushed a bit harder, keeping in time with those god awful counts. She counted them just to know she was another second closer to being done. Her muscles liked to tell her that they were fatigued. She pressed on regardless.
…and eight, and nine, and ten — and, a — one, and two, and a, three, four, five…
Pearl caught a glance of her reflection in the mirror. She frowned. The rehearsal director noticed.
“Smile, girls, smile!”
Smile so no one can tell how you actually feel, right? That’s what Pearl assumed she meant. Her smile was fake, at best. Who could smile when you were forced inside of this body, forced to look like this—
“Okay, okay,” the director clapped, making sure the pianist and dancers knew that they had fucked up so hard that the only option was to completely stop the dance half way through. “Girls, your technique is subpar today.”
“What else is new?” Lapis whispered to her fellow corps member. She said it quiet enough that only Pearl could hear. If the director heard, that would be a disaster.
“I expect better from you.”
Her eyes went straight to Pearl, but she pretended not to notice (even though she did). She fiddled with her waist belt nervously.
Another clap, another sigh of exasperation.
“We’ll pick up tomorrow. We have to finish setting the piece by Friday. The gala is next week.”
She said it as if they didn’t know that. It was a daunting fact, one they would not easily forget.
Yet, no one so much as batted an eye. They just nodded and left the room, already taking down their hair and fiddling with the ribbons on their shoes.
It was nights like these that Pearl wondered why she still tried. She was not good enough to be in this company at all, yet there she was, part of the BCB corps de ballet. It was a dream come true. Or it should have been a dream come true. She let herself believe it was.
After the long rehearsal, she was exhausted and half-heartedly said goodbye to her fellow dancers. They were all as annoyed as she was, but at least they had the energy to walk home. Pearl tried that a few times, but she couldn’t do it. It was too difficult after dancing all day. So, she had Garnet pick her up at night. There was something comforting about seeing her big maroon truck pull up to the side of the building.
But that night, Garnet was not there.
Pearl waited outside by the road for fifteen minutes with no sign of Garnet anywhere in sight. She frowned and walked to the boardwalk side of the building and looked at her phone.
No messages.
Great.
Her eyes flicked from the brightly lit screen to the waves of the ocean, trying to remain calm and not let her exasperation bring tears to her eyes. Finding a bench, she sat herself down and pretended like she was not rubbing her cheeks to get rid of the rebellion in the form of black streaks. That’s what she got for not wearing waterproof mascara, she mused.
After a few minutes of listening to the waves crash on the shore, she finally broke down, choking on her own breath and shuddering against the icy winds that blew off the water. She just hated this — this and that and everything.
“Hey, are you okay?”
Pearl whipped around, practically falling off her place on the bench.
“Why are you crying?”
The voice belonged to a boy — a boy who looked to be about the age of nine or ten. He had a head of humorously curly hair and a red shirt that was almost as obnoxious as the worried look in his eyes.
“I’m not” — sniff — “crying.”
“That’s not what it looks like to me,” he persisted, walking up to the pale dancer. “You look really sad. What’s wrong?”
What annoyed Pearl the most was how earnest the boy was. He wasn’t condescending. If anything, he actually sounded like he cared about how she felt. She didn’t exactly know how to respond to such kindness.
“Nothing,” she precisely lied (since she was quite good at lying). “I’m just very tired.”
“Ohh, you were dancing in there, weren’t you?”
Her eyebrows raised.
“Um, yeah, I was.”
Immediately, his face brightened, and he bounded happily over to the bench where Pearl sat and plopped himself next to her.
“I didn’t recognize you at first, but now I do,” the boy beamed. “You’re really good! I was watching through the big window. Does it hurt to go on your toes like that?”
Pearl gaped. The boy was…actually impressed by her?
“I-I…I mean, no, it doesn’t really hurt all the time,” she explained, glancing to the pair of pointe shoes dangling from her dance bag. “But at the end of the night, it does. When you’ve been working all day, I mean.”
“Woooow,” he gasped, looking at her with stars in his eyes. “Are those your shoes?” He pointed to them, his excitement ever building. “Can I see them?”
“O-Of course. But, they are a bit…fragrant.”
She untied them from their place on the bag strap and handed them over with a bit of hesitance.
“Wow, cool!” he marveled, looking inside them and playing with the ribbons. “I can’t believe you dance in these! It seems like it would be so hard.”
“It is hard,” she chuckled, taking her shoes back from the boy and restoring them to their proper position. “It looks easy on the outside, but on the inside it’s terrible.”
That statement seemed to dim the boy's excitement considerably.
“But you said it doesn’t hurt too bad.”
“Not always,” Pearl sighed. “But it’s very strenuous. It takes decades of work to be ‘good enough,’ and even then, you’re really never good enough.”
“Oh, no, that’s terrible.” He seemed completely beside himself with distress. “Is that why you’re crying?”
A wisp of a smile crossed her lips.
“Yes, that, and a million other things.”
“Like what?”
His persistence was off-putting.
“Uh, like, my friend is supposed to pick me up, but she never came.”
“Oh no.” His frown lit up into a jubilant smile only a second later. Pearl assumed that this was his figurative ‘light bulb’ appearing over his head. “Wait! My dad could give you a ride. He’s got a van and everything!”
“O-Oh, no, that’s not necessary—“
“No, no, no,” he chided her, grabbing her wrist and forcing her upright. “I insist!”
Before she knew what was happening, she was being dragged by this small boy, her head spinning and vision swimming from the sudden change in positions.
After a few moments, he looked over his shoulder and said, “I’m Steven, by the way. What’s your name?”
“Pearl.”
“Pearl,” he parroted, “I think we’re going to be really great friends.”
This caused the small woman to laugh. “Yes, Steven, I think we will be.”
But, just as they were about to leave the boardwalk, Pearl’s phone lit up and started singing a slow piano tune. (The Lilac Fairy variation from Sleeping Beauty was Pearl's favorite music growing up.)
“Oh, wait, Steven,” Pearl said, holding out her hand and getting the boy to stop.
“Huh?”
She flipped open her phone, pressing it to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Pearl, where are you?” Garnet’s low but soft voice carried through her phone.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I was just by the beach. I’ll come around in a second.”
They both hung up because it was their habit to never say goodbye.
“Who was that?” Steven asked, tilting his head, eyes still wide with wonder.
“My roommate, Garnet. She’s who I was waiting for,” Pearl explained, turning in the opposite direction. “Sorry, I have to go.”
Steven’s smile reappeared as he waved big enough to shake his entire body. “That’s okay! You can meet my dad another time.”
“Sure,” she smiled back. “Goodbye, Steven.”
“Bye!!”
As she was walking away, Pearl had to wonder what she did to deserve that little beam of sunlight with curly hair and a star on his shirt.
“How was rehearsal?” Garnet asked when Pearl closed the door to her truck.
She felt better than she did before, but not by much.
With a heaving sigh, she leaned back in her seat and let out a groan. “We’re still setting that wretched Balanchine piece.”
“Oh, that asshole who married all his dancers?”
“Yeah. I don’t know why everyone tries to force his pieces on us. All I know is I’m horrible at them.” She picked at her nail beds.
“I’m sure you are good enough at them because they cast you,” Garnet replied cautiously.
“Oh, but if only you could see the look on her face when we’re rehearsing. She hates me. I’m so slow, ugh. Maybe because I’m so tall? I don’t know.”
They all knew that the real answer is because she has no energy. Garnet was honestly surprised she hadn’t completely fallen apart by now.
(Pearl would never admit it, but she felt the same way.)
“Are you tired?”
“Always.”
“Well, after dinner, you can get to bed early.”
Pearl sank deeper in her seat, hoping she could disappear completely. But, of course, that isn’t possible.
Unfortunately.
She walked in the door after Garnet, unceremoniously dropping her dance bag on the floor.
She stopped, anxiety gripping her.
She could already smell it. The comforting, alluring smell of melted cheese hit her square in the stomach. Every time she felt like this she imagined her stomach ripping open and inverting on itself. Was it even hunger anymore?
(She didn’t even remember what not feeling hungry felt like.)
But, it was just another challenge. Another piece to master. Another dance to perfect. Pearl would be the master of threading her way through lies and empty stomachs even if it killed her.
They all watched her as she entered the room, spotted the pizza, and looked away. It was literally a choreographed dance. Don’t look at Amethyst and the pizza already on her plate, the pizza already half gone. Ignore the feeling of fear that pricks the back of her head, the one that says (The Pizza is almost gone, you’re going to starve, don’t let her eat it all) even though Pearl doesn’t want a bit of it. Walk over to the counter and carefully start assembling her pot of green tea because that’s all she gets to eat after doing badly in rehearsal.
They watched her when she sat down at the table, picking up the newspaper and waiting for the water to boil.
Amethyst ate another piece of pizza. Pearl felt her eyes on her. Garnet was washing something in the sink.
It was silent until the kettle whistled, and she got up to pour the water over the strainer.
And, the silence returned when she sat down again. It was really quite deafening, but all in all, it was a well-performed piece, don’t you think?
But, Amethyst broke her form.
“P, why aren’t you eating?” Amethyst asked as she shoved a gigantic piece of pizza down her throat. She didn’t chew it very much. It was rather sickening.
The piece was ruined.
“I told you, I hate eating,” Pearl spat with a little too much venom. She was perfectly fine with her little pot of tea that she sipped gingerly when she wasn’t busy being grossed out by the amount of food the younger girl was eating. “It’s disgusting.”
“Yeah, well, you need food to live so…” In went another slice of fat, carbs, and refined sugars along with a guzzle of some sort of bright green soda.
“You might need to,” Pearl hummed, keeping her eyes focused on the paper, “But I don’t.”
“I don’t think it works like that,” Garnet interrupted, sitting down at the table and grabbing her own slice from the box propped in front of them. “Everyone needs to eat.”
“Sure.”
Pearl’s grunt of an answer made both Amethyst and Garnet frown.
The truth was that they were worried about Pearl. She had always been thin, always not too fond of food, but lately, those attributes had been amplified. Her clothes were falling off her. The lines of her face became sharper, her eyes more sunken. She couldn’t walk home at night because her dance rehearsals were too exhausting for her.
(Most days, she flat out refused to eat.)
Pearl exhibited all the signs that she had “a problem,” but none of them knew exactly what the problem was or what to do about it.
Silence continued to hang over them. Pearl pretended not to notice.
“Pearl,” Garnet began, “I can understand if you don’t want pizza. We can always make something else.”
She waved her off, saying, “Oh, no, it’s quite fine.” She continued to read the paper.
Amethyst and Garnet shared a glance. “Fine” was not the word they would have used to describe the situation.
“Pearl.”
The urgency in Garnet’s voice caught Pearl off guard, and it forced her to look up to piercing eyes. Garnet had taken her sunglasses off. Both Garnet and Amethyst were looking at her like she had just done something to personally upset the both of them, but Pearl was doing nothing but minding her own business.
They didn’t have to say anything. Pearl knew the drill.
Instead of letting herself be lectured, Pearl got up from the table and decided she should take Garnet's advice and get ready for bed early.
Disgusting.
Lines, dulled by age, ran down her stomach. She hated these lines. They were proof that she could not control herself no matter how hard she tried. Her fingers traced the cuts, the old and the new, a grimace appearing every so often when she pushed too hard against her breached skin.
Then, she allowed her fingers to dance over her ribs, counting them to make sure they were still there. Her hands felt the hollow of her stomach, the protrusion of her hip bones. Good, she thought, she still took up not enough space/too much space.
This was the reward, then. The satisfaction of knowing you are thinner than other people. You will never be thin enough, but you can scare people with your death-like appearance. People can marvel about how little you can eat and how much you can do. You are other-worldly, nothing can hurt you, you will never die.
(Until you do.)
She forgot she was hungry again. It was never worth eating. It was just not worth it.
Already showered, she brushed her teeth, and practically collapsed into bed, losing herself to a familiar and welcomed dreamless slumber.
(Tomorrow, she'll start the whole thing again.)