Re: Studio: Wren & Ryan
Ry knew obsession, right. Obsession was wanting when you were sposed to want other shit. Obsession was dancing 'stead of staying home, arms wrapped around your mama when she cried over your brother, when all that was left was bone and dust and dirt 'stead of a man who grinned all teeth and a kid, even if he sold shit down on the street every night.
Obsession would be waking up someday -- soon -- and realizing your mama was gray and sick and in a hospital bed fretting over bills that she couldn't pay cuz she'd been watching over you and paying for ballet slippers and tutus and classes outta blood and sweat on her knees that many years.
Yeah, Ry couldn't imagine life without ballet in it. Without movement. She stayed still too long, she twitched, her knee jerked, she bounced, tapped toes. Movement was her in-breath, dance her exhale and maybe she couldn't wrap her head round a man filling in that hollow, hallow space between bird-bones and making her fly, but she could get her head around something doing it.
She wrapped a thumb around Wren's fingers, and she squeezed back, tight. Ry was warm, right. Energy, and heat and her hands were hot. Yeah, she didn't get it. She knew she didn't che, her sister tried to explain kids and a man like it was something that could be explained and Ry didn't get it none.
But she knew thank yous. The music played down her spine like rainwater rolling down every knob and vertebrae and she beamed back at Wren, wild curls and hot hands and bright eyes.
"Yo no hice nada, I didn't do nothing." But her spine was elastic, and it straightened obediently, training, years of it as the first slow stretch, and Ry slid down to the ground, heels raised and the arches of her feet high. "After class, we can trade numbers or somethin'. You gotta hang onto people or you forget them."