Page 133 of One Last Encore

Hours later, the sterile white walls of the hospital offered no comfort. The brain scan came back normal. It didn’t make her feel better. It didn’t undo the fall. It didn’t erase the humiliation.

She didn’t even need stitches. Just a mild concussion. The words hit her slowly, each syllable dull and heavy. She wouldn't be performing for the remainder of the shows.

Ingrid tried to argue, her voice rising before it cracked. She wasn’t ready to give this up. Not like this. But the doctor stood firm. When Aimee arrived and heard the news, her expression faltered. Her protest died quickly, softened by worry. She agreed with the doctor, reluctantly.

She couldn’t even redeem herself, and that shattered something inside Ingrid more than the fall ever could. It was over. Just like that. All she could do was nod, the fight draining from her limbs. The silence in the room thickened, pressing down on her as her spirit crumbled under it.

The semester was done and so was Swan Lake.

Her body was still in the hospital bed, but her mind had already gone ahead to the dreams she had planned, now flickering like dying embers. The Paris intensive was next week. The intensive she had longed for, trained for. The thought of it made her stomach turn. What would they see when she arrived? A dancer who had fallen? Someone who wasn’t good enough?

Sylvia stopped by with her dance bag and phone. She stayed for a while, trying to say something comforting, but Ingrid couldn’t bear it. The words. The look in her eyes. The gentle pity in her voice.

"I’m fine," Ingrid lied, her voice brittle and breaking. It cracked down the middle, but she forced a smile anyway. Sylvia saw right through it. She didn’t call her on it, just gave her a quiet look and let the lie stand as she left.

All Ingrid wanted was silence. To be alone with her thoughts, to grieve without an audience.

But Eden didn’t leave. She sat quietly by Ingrid’s side. She didn’t try to fix it. And Ingrid, had nothing left to give, didn’t fight it.

The cab ride home blurred past in silence. By the time they reached her building, Ingrid's body felt impossibly heavy, like her bones had turned to stone. The stairwell loomed ahead, steep and endless. Every step pulled at her, demanded more than she had left. Her legs burned. Her head throbbed.

When they finally turned the last corner in the hallway, she stopped cold.

There was a man slumped against her door. Shoulders hunched, head in his hands, body curled in on itself like he was trying to disappear into the floor.

At the sound of footsteps, he looked up. Slowly. Like every movement hurt. His face was pale, his eyes red-rimmed and glassy. He grabbed the doorknob to steady himself as he rose, breath coming in ragged, uneven pulls.

Ingrid’s heart slammed once against her ribs then went perfectly still.

"Beck?" Her voice cracked, disbelief slicing through the haze of exhaustion. His name tasted strange on her tongue, half hope, half heartbreak. Relief surged up before she could stop it, bubbling in her chest but it tangled instantly with confusion, with fury, with a thousand things she didn’t have the strength to name. It all collided inside her, jagged and overwhelming, stealing the air from her lungs.

"Baby," he murmured.

The word, once soft and sweet, now landed with a thud. It slurred off his tongue, thick with something sour, soaked in regret and the unmistakable edge of alcohol. His bloodshot eyes met hers, rimmed red and glassy, then drifted to her Swan costume.

"I’m so sorry I missed it."

Her stomach dropped, the bottom falling out from under her. The flicker of relief that had ignited for just a second vanished in a flash of white-hot rage. She took in the sag of his shoulders. Disheveled. Swaying. Reeking of booze.

"Are you drunk?" she asked, her voice sharp now. Her voice rose despite the exhaustion pulling at every fiber of her being. Despite the pounding in her head and the bandage pressing tight against her temple. Despite how much she had wanted him there.

Beck winced, blinking hard. "I can explain," he rasped. There was desperation there, raw and panicked, but it couldn’t reach her. It couldn’t touch the hollow space where her trust used to be.

"Explain what?" Ingrid snapped. Her words crashed out of her like a dam finally breaking. "That you got too wasted to show up to the one night I’ve worked toward for months? The one night that meant everything to me?"

Her voice cracked, her breath hitching mid-sentence. The pain slipped through, uninvited and exposed. She felt it all, the loneliness of that stage, the sting of humiliation, the hope she’d held onto for just a moment too long.

"You must not care about me at all."

"Please," Beck said. He reached out, fingers shaking. "I–"

"Just leave." Her voice was cold steel now, forged in the fire of her fury. She pushed past him, the brush of his arm against hers like static. Her fingers wrapped around the doorknob. She didn’t look back. She couldn’t. If she saw his eyes, she’d see what she loved in them, and it would break her all over again.

“Are you—are you hurt?” Beck's voice broke on the last word, ragged and rushed. His eyes locked on the bandage above her eye, widening with something close to fear. He took a half-step forward before freezing, his hand trembling midair, hovering uselessly like he wanted to touch her but didn’t dare.

Ingrid flinched, her breath catching.

"Oh, you have no idea," she said, the words a whisper laced with acid. Every second she’d waited in the wings, scanning the audience. Every step she’d danced with him in mind. Every part of her that had hoped.

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