Re: Studio: Wren & Ryan
Lark - that was her maman - had been young, young, youth and limbs that moved graceful, soft laughter and lilting voice. Where Wren was plump and lush, too much of her to ever be a ballerina, Lark had been willow reeds. Wren should hate her maman, but she didn't, and she remembered her beautiful and fragile wrists, herbs in the kitchen and French lullabies.
Wren wasn't made of willow reeds, and she didn't know what the dark-haired girl was made of. But she did know that you couldn't change what you were made of. Try, and try, and try, and Wren had spent money and hours on dance and etiquette, and she could pretend, and she could be believed. Soft and quiet, cardigan and sundress, and people would look at her now and think she was good, and she was sweet, and she was quiet. But she was none of these things beneath, scratch, scratch and you'd find something different. But this girl at the barre, she was laughter. Wren had none of her own, but she brightened for the sounds of the girl, and it was nice. She could, for a moment, claim those sounds and make them hers, even though they'd never, ever truly be hers.
"Not being anyone." Wren considered it, leg up on the barre and slow stretch, the backs of her thighs screaming burn in protest, and even that was living. It was nice, and this conversation was nice, and it was like being someone, even if that someone wasn't real. "Doesn't that get really, really lonely? I'm not anyone much, but sometimes I'm everything. Well, to one person I'm everything." She smiled bright with the certainty of that one tiny, tiny thing. It was little, that one thing, but it could light the entire studio with its glow.
"Losing through dancing, maybe? Finding something in the music. Do you listen? I always think I can feel it here-" Hand to her belly, leg off the bar again. "That I can feel it here, and maybe it isn't empty." It was a telling, telling statement, but Ryan was a stranger, and she was known, and she was the past, and all of those things felt safe as words tumbled past pout-pink lips. "Does that make sense? I don't talk much anymore."