At the ballet.
I wasn't born out of love. I wasn't born from a happily ever after. I was born to try and stabilize my parents turbulent marriage. They were hoping that raising a child together would make everything magically better. But when Maya Penelope Hart entered the world, a screaming purplish bag of baby and dashed hopes, my father gave up on my mother. It took her seven years of pretending she didn't know he was cheating. Eventually, he left to join his new, too young for him girlfriend. You might think that it was unfair of my father to place the fate of his marriage on my infant head, but one of the first things I learned was that unfair was a synonym for Kermit Hart. It was also unfair of him to decide that my mother wasn't enough for him, and to seek out another's love. It was unfair of him to remain in my mother's life, when she knew he was being unfaithful. It was unfair of him to leave her in the middle of the night, without warning.
It took several months for my mother to discover my father was cheating. She decided to turn a blind eye for awhile, and wait for him to come back to her. When that didn't happen, she kept pretending in an attempt to keep him in my life. Her father left when she was young, and my Gammy is always saying what a douchebag and a deadbeat my grandfather was, and my mother never had a positive view of her father. She didn't want the same for me, so she sacrificed her heart to let me have a father.
Katy Clutterbucket was going to be big. She had a promising future out of high school, full of dreams of movies, Broadway and television. She could have done it, too. She was accepted into the New York Academy of Dramatic Arts, and she was going towards the big time. But her high school sweetheart, Kermit convinced her otherwise. He told her that she didn't have a chance. She wasn't cut out for the big time, he said. Her only chance towards happiness was if she married him. And that was when my mother made the worst mistake of her life. She gave up all her dreams, to marry Mr. Kermit Hart. Now, she is working as a waitress, chasing dreams of being famous that died as soon as she said I do to my father, and I don't to NYADA.
I despised my mother when I was young. My dad left on a cold night when I was six, almost seven, and I was certain it was because she drove him away. When I was fourteen, I discovered that was not the case, but it was a bit too late for my relationship with my mother to be repaired wholly. She was always working, to 'keep the lights on.' I didn't understand that. I thought that she didn't want to be around me. So, I found a mother in my best friend's mother. Topanga Matthews became my replacement mother. It was her I ran to when I scraped my knee, when a boy at school called me stupid, when my father sent me letters, and I was scared to reply. And Cory Matthews became the father that I never had.
When I was five, I started ballet classes. My mother put me in the class so I wouldn't hear my father arguing with my mother. That was where I met Riley Matthews.
A five year old Maya Hart was dropped off in front of the studio by her mother, who hurriedly pecked her daughter on the cheek, before leaving again. I stood on the sidewalk uncertainly, in a second hand pink leotard my mother found somewhere, and a bag with some old ballet slippers that used to belong to her when she was young. My blond curls were crammed into a bun that was steadily exploding. As I stood there, nibbling on my pinky fingernail, a girl tapped me on the shoulder. I spun to see a girl who looked to be my age, but was still significantly taller than me. Her long dark hair was neatly pulled into a french braid, and her dark doe eyes were curious.
"I'm Riley Matthews," She said.
"I'm Maya." I replied, avoiding her eyes.
"Are you in ballet?" She asked.
"Yeah,"
"Do you want to come in with me?"
"Okay," I replied. She took my hand in hers, and together we walked into the studio. Miss Ann taught us the basic positions, and I swiftly learned that Riley Matthews was easily the most uncoordinated person I'd met. She tripped and took out the barre while attempting third position. After class, I changed back into my sneakers, and took my bag. I waited outside for my mother to come, but she didn't. Ten minutes had passed, and that turned to twenty. Riley, who had to fill out an injury report for the several bruises she had received while tackling a ballet barre, came out to see me sitting on a sidewalk.
"Maya?" She asked. I looked up to see her and a woman.
"Hi," I replied, scrubbing at any tear stains that may have remained on my face.
"This is my mommy," She said. I stood up, and pulled my ballet bag with me.
"Is your mommy coming?" Riley's mother asked.
"Um, maybe," I replied. "I mean, definitely."
"Are you sure?" I just looked at her, my blue eyes sad. "Tell you what," Mrs Matthews said, kneeling down next to me. "If you give me your phone number, I'll call your mother to make sure it's okay for me to give you a ride home, or-" She consulted her watch. "You can stay for lunch, and then I'll bring you home. Okay?" I nodded weakly, and told her my phone number.
I loved ballet class. I loved dancing, and wearing my ballet shoes. I loved the music, and how when I danced, I felt the music through me. I loved feeling graceful, and controlling each beautiful movement. I loved the passion I felt when I was dancing. It filled me with a fire that nothing, (not even grilled cheese) filled in me. I loved that when I danced, I could forget about my parents. I went every week, even when I had a rotten cold, and was hacking my lungs out. A month or so later, I started kindergarten. My teacher was Mrs. Morrison, a slightly overweight, red faced woman, and I was delighted to discover that Riley was in my class. Every week, at ballet class, I'd eat lunch with the Matthews, and then Riley and I would play until Mrs. Matthews brought me home. We were quickly becoming best friends. I loved school almost as much as ballet. Not because I felt the same passion for learning, not by a long shot, but more because it was an escape from my house. Almost every afternoon, I'd get home from school, and my parents would be fighting. As soon as I opened the door, they stopped, but the fight was still a tangible gas filling the house. On the afternoons that they weren't fighting, the car would be gone, and my mother would be crying in her room. My father always came back that evening, or the next morning, but slowly, things changed. My mother stopped kissing my father hello or goodbye, and stopped making him coffee in the morning. But when I was at ballet, everything was okay.
Riley and I were eating lunch at the purple table, where we sat at school, when a skinny boy with weird hair and a green turtleneck sat next to us.
"You can't sit here," Riley said. "This is the purple table. You sit at the orange table."
"But I have to sit here," He replied.
"Why?" I asked.
"Because we're going to be friends. We have to. And if I don't sit here, we won't become friends, and we have to be friends."
"Oh. Okay," Riley said. "I'm Riley Matthews, and this is Maya Hart." I took a loud bite from my apple.
"My name is Farkle Minkus." He replied.
"That's a weird name." I said.
"Speak for yourself, Maya." He said. I glared at him.
"Do you want to play astronauts with us at lunch?" Riley asked.
"Yeah," he replied, opening his grapes and eating some.
It took a while, but eventually I warmed up to Farkle. Originally he bothered me a lot, (he still does) but I got used to him, and began to appreciate him. He understood things that Riley didn't. His parents fought a lot too. That was why he was the one I ran to when my dad left on an unseasonably warm night in December, and didn't come back. That was the same day that Riley told me she was quitting ballet.
I woke up that morning, and rolled out of bed. My hair was tangled, and I repeatedly shoved it out of my face. My mother was still in bed as I padded down the stairs into the kitchen. We had a two storey home then, before me and my mom had to move out, into a much smaller apartment. The kitchen was empty, and I went to the table. A white envelope sat on the table, with my name on it. Warily, I picked it up, and pulled out a letter.
Dear Maya, It read. I know you're probably mad at me right now, Tears jumped into my eyes, as I crumpled up the paper, and shoved it in the garbage. Outside, the snow had melted into slush, making it look like the ground was crying cold tears. In that moment, I knew he was gone. I rubbed the tears off my face, and left for school. My elementary school was only a few blocks away, so I walked there every morning. Some days, my mom would drive me, but my dad took our car. All day at school, I was distracted. I couldn't focus on my work, and Ms Stephenson, my teacher, was noticing.
"Are you alright, Maya?" She asked, when she called me to her desk.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just kind of tired." I replied.
"Alright," She said, but her eyes told me she didn't believe me. I went back to my desk, and Riley leaned over to talk to me
"Hey," She said.
"Hi," I replied.
"What did Ms. Stephenson want?"
"Oh, she was just asking me about a homework sheet from yesterday that I forgot to do." The lunch bell rang, and we stood up and got our lunchboxes. "Your mom is driving me home from ballet tomorrow, right?"
"Yeah, we always do." Riley replied in a confused tone.
"Okay, it's just, um. My mom's car isn't working quite right, and we're just getting it fixed."
"Okay," Riley replied, skipping back to her desk. I met Farkle's gaze as she went past, and I saw that he knew I was lying.
"Why did you lie to her?" He asked me quietly.
"Can I talk to you at recess? I asked. "Riley has a service club meeting."
"Yeah," he replied. That afternoon, I sat under the big oak tree on the playground with Farkle, and he listened. When the bell rang he offered me his hand, and helped me up, and we went back inside together. At the end of the day, Riley and I were on the bus to her house.
"I don't know if I want to do ballet next year," Riley said, her face glum.
"What?" I replied. "Why?"
"Cuz I stink," Riley said. "I tripped over the barre four times last week, I kicked Katie A. in the shin twice, and I tripped Katie H. doing plies two weeks ago. I'm not good like you,"
"You're great, Ri," I said, hoping against all hope she would stay. Sure Riley was really clumsy, and not the best dancer, but I couldn't lose her too. I was scared that if Riley quit ballet, we wouldn't be friends anymore. Riley did quit the next month, but we still remained best friends, at school, and I spent nearly every weekend at her house, partly to avoid my mother. I was furious at her because I was positive that she was the reason my dad left. The more time I spent at the Matthews', the farther I drifted from my mother. We moved out of our nice house in a neighbourhood similar to Riley's into a much smaller apartment in a rougher part of town, and my Gammy moved in with us, partly to help take care of me when my mom was at work, and partly for my mother to take care of her. I hadn't really known my Gammy before she moved in, and I was fairly distant to her at first, but I quickly grew close to her as she was almost always making cookies, and wanted to watch me dance. She tucked me into bed at night, and made me lunches for school in the morning.
When I was a kid, my mother never told me I was beautiful. I was always just... different. A girl in my ballet class, Amanda, told me that I was ugly every week, and I was dying for my mother to tell me otherwise, but she never did. I'd go to Riley's house, and Mrs. Matthews would call her 'My beautiful daughter' and I wanted my mother to tell me that. I felt ugly my whole life, and I hated looking in the mirror. But one day, in dance class, my teacher, Ms. Ann told me that my technique was beautiful, and it matched my personality. That was the best compliment I had ever received. All my life, I told myself I was an ugly little troll, and no boy would ever like me. I was constantly comparing myself to Riley, who was tall, and beautiful dark eyes and hair, three things I did not possess. But that was when I realised that when I danced, I became beautiful. Dancing transformed me into a graceful, beautiful artist.
When the first letter came, I was in second grade. I refused to open it. I saw where it was from, and I missed my father, but I was angry at him too. He didn't even say goodbye. I buried it in my backpack. Riley found it one day, and tried to get me to open it, but I refused. There were several letters that came that year. I opened one, and only read half of it before tearing it into little pieces. (I tore the picture of his new wife, and her two children up too, but I drew moustaches on all of them first) Third grade brought four more letters, and I got one letter in fourth grade. After that, my dad just stopped sending them. My grades started to slip, because I was putting all I had into dance class. Dancing was all I cared about, but once my mother found my report card that had three D's and an F, she told me that if I kept getting bad grades, she'd pull me out of dance. I tried a bit harder, but I'd missed a lot of things that the other kids knew, and I was behind in everything. It took a lot for me to get even remotely caught up, but eventually I got there. I wasn't at the top of the class, but I'd gotten out of the bottom. By now, this was seventh grade, when Riley met the new boy from Texas, and fell madly in love. That night, I stayed late at the studio, and put all I had into dancing. My feet were bleeding as I limped home in the snow, and I ached everywhere, but I felt better. My mother was still at work, at the diner, but my Gammy was home. Her memory was starting to thin. It started with little things, like forgetting phone numbers, or what day it was, but it turned into bigger things like forgetting to pick me up from dance class, or going outside for a walk, and getting lost. One night, she left. I heard the door click shut behind her, and found her outside, confused and scared, and not knowing what she was doing. She didn't know where she was or how to get home. The scariest moment was when I was in eighth grade, and she forgot who I was. She looked at me, and there was no sense of recognition in her eyes. She died a month later. Riley, Farkle and Lucas came to the funeral, but I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to accept that my Gammy had died. After the funeral, my mother left to do a shift, and I grabbed my gym bag and pointe shoes. I got to the studio just as Ms. Ann was closing it up for the night.
"Hey Maya," She said, her face showing her confusion. "Why are you here?"
"I needed to dance. Is it okay if I go in?" I asked. All I wanted right then was to dance it all away. Ms. Ann bit her lip, clearly considering.
"Fine," She said after a moment.
"Thank you," I said, relieved
"But promise me you'll lock up afterwards?"
"I promise." She tossed me the keys, and left. I opened the door to the studio, and pulled off my sweater, and jeans, and warmed up just in my leotard and tights. Once I was certain I was stretched sufficiently, I tied my pointe shoes on. Moving to the center of the floor, I started in fifth position, and started with a bourre, did a pique and moved into a double pirouette. After that, I did the butterfly. That was a move I had been working on for awhile, where I went from the turn, and did a rotation, before pushing off into the air, doing a double spin, with my arms extended and knees bent, before I'd land on one foot, and go down into a kneeling position. It took a lot of coordination, with getting off the floor and reaching the right height in one count, before reaching the floor in the second count. I danced until I could barely breathe, and my feet were bleeding freely. Once I stopped, and stood still, in fifth position, I heard my phone ringing. I rushed over to my bag and dug my phone out.
"Hello?" I asked, still out of breath.
"Maya?" Riley's voice came over. "Where are you? I've been calling you and calling you!"
"Sorry," I replied. "What's up?"
"Lucas, Farkle and I came over to make sure you're okay, but no one is at your apartment."
"Sorry," I said again. "I'm at the studio."
"Okay, we'll be there in five." Riley said.
"What?" I asked. "No, don't do that." But Riley had already hung up.
"Nuts." I muttered to myself. Riley knew about my dancing, of course, and Farkle did a bit, but I had never told Lucas about it. It was something I kept to myself, because I was a little bit ashamed. People tend to associate ballet with little kids, and it would demolish my reputation if people knew I took ballet. I looked at my feet, and realised that they were throbbing, and blood was seeping through my shoes. Hobbling over to my bag, I removed my shoes when Riley knocked at the door. I waved at her, and she came in, Farkle and Lucas following.
"Hey," I said weakly, beginning to bandage up my feet.
"Gosh, Maya, you're bleeding!" Riley said, rushing over. (and tripping over the barre again. Some things never change)
"Calm down, Ri." I replied. "It's nothing, it's just from my pointe shoes."
"But.. blood!"
"Riley." I replied firmly.
"Okay."
"What is all this?" Lucas asked.
"Ms. Ann's New School of Dance Arts," I replied, focussing on wrapping my feet.
"But... Why?"
"Maya dances," Riley replied. "She has since we were five."
"Yeah," Farkle added "She used to dance with Riley." I finished with one foot and moved to the other.
"Are you done here?" Riley asked.
"Um." I replied. "I should probably cool down a bit. Just a barre routine or something."
"Okay." She said.
"Can you get me my slippers?" I asked her. Riley reached into my gym bag and pulled out my worn slippers, and I put them on over my bandaged feet. Moving to the barre, I did some plies, and cooled off my body.
"Now are you good?" Farkle asked. I nodded.
"How many pirouettes can you do in a row now?" Riley asked.
"Umm... " I replied. "Last time I checked around thirty."
"Do it." She said, smiling. I sighed heavily, and moved to the floor.
"Will you count for me?" I asked. She nodded, and I began pirouetting, spotting my head, as my arms moved downwards as I lost speed.
"How many?" I asked when I had slowed to a stop.
"Forty-seven," Farkle said.
"I counted fifty-two," Riley objected.
"I got forty-nine," Lucas said. Rolling my eyes, I went over to my bag and took my slippers off, and pulled my jeans and sweater on. I loosely tied my sneakers on, and stood up, slinging my bag over my shoulder.
"I'm good," I said. We left the studio, me locking the door, and turning the lights off, and began walking to my house.
"Are you okay?" Farkle asked, noticing my limping.
"Yeah, just sore," I replied. Before I could protest, he had scooped me up in his arms, and carried me the rest of the way to my apartment. Farkle was still skinny, and tall, but he had some muscle on him, and easily carried me. Once we reached my place, we took the elevator to my floor, and I unlocked the door.
"Okay, don't do anything stupid," I said as Farkle put me down. "I'm going to go change out of my leotard, I'll be back in a minute." I left to go to my room, and changed into sweatpants and an old tee-shirt before returning to the living room. My friends and I ate leftover pizza, and watched reality TV.
"Dang, Kendall is hot," Lucas commented. Riley slapped his arm, and he grinned. I heard a key turn in the lock, and my mom came home.
"Hey mom." I said.
"Hi baby," She replied. "Hello Riley, Lucas, Farkle." They all said hi back, and Keeping up with the Kardashians went to commercial.
"Your feet okay?" My mother asked, pointing to my bandages.
"Yeah, they just got a bit torn up." I replied. "We ate the pizza."
"That's okay, I ate at the diner. I'll be in my room, kay?"
"Okay mom." She left, and I rested my head on Farkle's shoulder.
I realised a few things through my life. Maybe I was born to save my parent's already failing marriage, and maybe I'd never be beautiful, and maybe my father was never coming back, but I wasn't alone. I had my mother, and I had the Matthews'. I had my friends, and I had Farkle, who told me I was beautiful, not just different. I was beautiful, and when I got my acceptance letter to NYADA, the school my mother was going to go to, I had a future, not only with dancing, but with Farkle. My life was turning around, and things were okay. My mother and I talked a lot more, and I loved her, and my step father, Shawn. And maybe everything is more beautiful at the ballet, but life is pretty beautiful too.