Page 141 of One Last Encore

"I was bleeding out right in front of you. And you walked away."

Her mother still wouldn’t face her. Her knuckles whitened against the frame. Her silence was louder than shouting.

"You cared more about keeping up appearances than about what I was going through," Ingrid said, her voice tight with hurt. "It was always about how my pain made you look, how it disrupted your perfect world. I was falling apart, and all you saw was the mess you didn't want to deal with."

Her mother finally turned, but her face remained untouched–cool, composed, distant. A mask Ingrid had known her whole life.

"I didn’t understand," she said flatly. "How someone like you, so beautiful, so talented, could destroy herself like that. It made no sense."

Ingrid flinched. But the pain only fueled her.

"That’s it?" she hissed. "That’s all you ever saw–my looks, my performance. Not me. Never me. Just your little ballerina in a box."

Her mother’s expression wavered, just slightly, but she didn’t speak.

"You left me!" Ingrid shouted. "You ran off to Paris and pretended I was fine. You left me to pick up the pieces, alone. And I almost didn’t."

Her mother looked away.

"I’m not responsible for your emotions," she said, as though reciting a line from some cold, polished manual on detachment.

Ingrid laughed, harsh and strangled. "No," she said. "You’re just responsible for the silence. For making me believe I wasn’t worth saving."

She swiped at the tears on her cheeks, her chest tight with the years she’d swallowed.

"But I’m done," she whispered, then louder–stronger, steadier, like it mattered that she said it. "I’m done chasingscraps of love from someone who never wanted to give it. I won’t be your collateral damage anymore."

Her mother opened her mouth, but Ingrid stepped back.

"No," she said, her voice soft but immovable. "You don’t get to speak anymore.”

She met her mother’s gaze without flinching, silencing her, for once.

Ingrid packed her life into two suitcases and walked away from the mausoleum of silence and shame that was her mother’s apartment.

She rented a small place near the Seine. The walls were scuffed, the floors groaned with age and history. Nothing matched. Nothing sparkled. And yet, to Ingrid, it was liberation.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was hers.

On her first night, she stood by the window, watching the city lights ripple across the river like shattered glass.

Paris was supposed to be magic, meant for lovers and artists, a city of reinvention. But as she looked out, it felt distant. The romance of it all belonged to someone else. The beauty didn’t welcome her. It mocked her.

She thought of all the years spent contorting herself into something her mother might approve of, polished, perfect, poised. The endless hunger for scraps of affection that never came.

She didn’t need her mother’s approval anymore. She didn’t need anything from her. She had a spot in a company, and was making her own money. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to carve out her own space.

Her thumb hovered over Beck’s name on her phone, the familiar letters like a sore spot she couldn’t stop pressing. She wanted to hear his voice, just for a second. But what would she even say? What could he possibly say?

He hadn’t called. Hadn’t tried. Hadn’t fought for her. And maybe that was her answer. She didn’t need anything from anyone.

With a breath, she turned off her phone, slipped on her coat, and stepped into the night. The city buzzed around her, laughter spilling from cafés, music drifting from cracked windows, lovers leaning into each other like the world beyond them didn’t exist.

She walked aimlessly, letting the city's heartbeat pull her forward. But wonder never came. Only an ache, a quiet rattle inside her chest. The streets, the art, the life, it all slipped past her like water through her hands.

A café window caught her reflection. The eyes staring back were fractured—fragments of a girl held together by resolve, stitched with grit where gentler seams had torn. She had come for the ballet intensive. For a fresh start. A chance to begin again, to breathe a little easier.

But even in this new place, with everything ahead of her, she knew: some ghosts don’t keep their distance; they follow without footsteps, always a whisper behind.

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