I am, too, honestly. When I hung up with Monsieur Dabrowski, I didn’t know how to feel. ABT didn’t want me. They were right not to. They offered me an audition, and I didn’t turn up to it. It doesn’t matter how much the apprentice program director liked my performance. I’m sure he’s forgotten all about me by now. As Mom said to me before: there are so many aspiring ballet dancers. All talented, determined, ready to give it everything. And most of them don’t get run over by a car the night before their big break.
And while I’m grateful that the apprentice program director for l’Institut de l’Opéra de Paris is open to seeing me again, I’m not quite sure what to make of it. Is she just doing Monsieur Dabrowski a favor? He swore up and down that it came from her and that he had nothing to do with it, but the more I think about it, the more I wonder if she’ll even remember me in a few months’ time when she visits New York.
Putting that aside, do I really want to come back to Paris next year? If you’d asked me throughout the summer, during my best times with Louis, I would probably have said yes. But that’s when I thought my life had suddenly transformed into a fairy tale. I believed that I could have everything I wanted. That I never needed to compromise. I could stay up late and get up early. Hang around with my friends and sneak out with Louis every chance I got. Uncover a family legend and give Odile all of my attention.
But now I’m not so sure about this idea of having everything. It always sounded too good to be true, probably because it is. Yes, I will heal. One day. I’ll have to work hard to fully recover, and even harder to make up for lost time. I’ll have to take it one day at a time.
* * *
Our last afternoon is here in a blink, and my hands shake as I pack up my things. The cardboard tube with my Degas poster sits in the corner of the room, waiting to go home and retrieve its rightful place above my childhood bed.
“That’s everything,” Mom tells me when our suitcases are by the door and ready to go.
I nod sadly. This has been a wonderful interlude, given the circumstances, but as soon as I leave this gorgeous room, I’ll be back to real life with a broken collarbone and shattered dreams.
Mom sighs, like she can read my mind. “Why don’t I go check us out?” she says. “Take your time. We don’t have to leave for another forty-five minutes. I’ll be downstairs, catching up on my emails. I’m sure my boss has had at least one or two emergencies in the last hour.”
When she’s gone, I go to the window one last time and step onto the balcony. My heart crunches as I face the Tour Eiffel for the last time. Is it possible to miss a metal structure? I bought a small key ring featuring it from a vendor on the Champs-élysées yesterday, but nothing can replace the real thing. I snap a picture and post it to my Instagram. Looking through my feed, I realize that I’ve only shared a handful of photos of my summer in Paris. I’ve been too busy enjoying it to feel the need to share it with the world.
Au revoir, Paris. I write in the caption. Je t’aime.
I linger on the balcony for a while, feeling a sense of peace. I was lucky enough to experience an incredible summer in the most beautiful city in the world. Even if I’d do anything to change how it ended, how many seventeen-year-olds can say that? How many aspiring dancers have done what I did?
Once I get back to Westchester, and things are a little clearer in my head, I’ll write to Louis. Maybe he won’t want to hear from me. Maybe the accident was just the universe’s way of closing this chapter. Maybe he’ll have realized our story was always supposed to end at the end of the summer. I just wish it hadn’t ended with me crying in a hospital bed while he walked away, bruised and confused.
A light knock on the door startles me. Mom must have given her key back already. I go to open the door, but what I find on the other side makes my jaw fall to the floor.
“What…，” I say.
Louis’s hair is a mess, like he just removed his helmet and forgot to put it back in place, as he usually does. He has a few scuffs on his cheeks and bags under his eyes. But he’s here.
“I thought you were gone,” he says, looking at me like I might not be real. “I thought you left Paris just after the accident. And then I was checking Instagram and…I got here as fast as I could.”
And then it hits me. I didn’t tell anyone I was staying here. No one knew that I was still in Paris. I wasn’t supposed to be. Mom’s surprise came about after my friends left, after I saw Louis for the last time. Or what I thought was the last time. When Monsieur Dabrowski called, he must have assumed I was back home already.