Re: Studio: Wren & Ryan
For Wren, home was different, family was different. Luke was hers. The kids were hers. They were family, and they were home, and even they weren't the same. She loved her children, but it was her mari she would die without. She loved the memory of her maman, and she loved the illusion of her père, and she adored Evie's soft resilience, but it was different than Luke. Luke was that thing, that unhealthy obsession. He was air in her lungs, and he was the expansion of her ribcage. She was possessive, and it wasn't healthy. She knew, she knew, but that was home, and walls made of white, they were only extensions.
She hadn't dreamed of things when she was small. For Wren, dreams were things that belonged to other people, to children in better houses. Dreams were school, and dreams were plain cotton panties, and dreams were beds outside of closets. She'd never dreamed of being a ballerina, not with any sense of reality, and she didn't know about ballet companies and how they were bad. Like many of the outwardly beautiful things in life, Wren unknowingly saw them as they were, and she didn't realize there was decay beneath the surface. Ryan was smiles and brightness, beauty in the movement of her limbs, grace in a place filled with sound. For Wren, this girl was ballet, all of it, she encompassed everything. Wren was really, really simple.
Dance is who I am, Ryan said, and Wren's blank expression went a little deep, a little thoughtful, and she turned the words inward and wondered who she was. She had no strong sentiment to utter, no declaration in return, so she smiled warmly instead. "I think you dance beautifully."
But the simple question after, that just made Wren shake her head, the smile lingering. "You don't understand, but that's okay." She meant it. She didn't expect anyone to weave through the labyrinth of her brain and understand her abnormality. She'd come to term with all that years ago.
The instructor turned off the soulful music, began readying for the day's lesson. Wren reached a hand out, and she took Ryan's fingers, and she squeezed. "Thank you. Merci."