Hopes and Dreams

Hopes and Dreams Read Free Page B

Book: Hopes and Dreams Read Free
Author: Cathy Cassidy
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carefully, Jodie,’ she says. ‘You show great skill and promise in classical ballet, yet all the time I feel there is something … missing?’
    Fear closes my throat. Something missing? I am dancing for hours each day, pushing myself harder than I ever have before; if something is missing, I’m not sure it is within my power to find it. Will my stay at Rochelle Academy be over so soon?
    ‘Jodie?’ she says gently, and my name sounds alien, exotic, in her strong French accent. ‘Do you understand what I am saying? At the auditions, back in August, I felt you were holding something back. That is why we did not offer you a place to begin with; I sense the same … how should I say, reserve … in the way you dance now. Technically, I cannot fault you. You do what I ask of you – work hard … yet somehow, still, you are holding back. I need my students to dance with their heart and soul, not just with their bodies. You ’ave to want this, Jodie. You ’ave to want it more than anything else in the world. When you do that, the magic begins.’
    ‘I am trying my best,’ I argue.
    ‘I don’t think so,’ Sylvie Rochelle says. ‘I think you are playing safe. I want you to take some risks, open up, show me that you have something to give!’
    ‘Yes, Madame Rochelle,’ I whisper.
    I turn away, holding my shoulders back, my head high. I put every ounce of energy I have into making sure I look calm as I walk carefully out of there; I will not let her see my tears. The trouble is, in a boarding school, there is nowhere to run to if you want to be alone. I share my bedroom with three other girls, and I have never seen the common room with less than half a dozen people in it. Even the bathroom is no escape – if you’re in there too long someone comes along and starts hammering on the door, I kid you not.
    At Rochelle Academy, when you want some space, there is only one option.
    I walk along the corridor and push through the heavy oak front door, run down the steps and out across the frost-rimed grass. There’s an old summerhouse half hidden behind a stand of willow trees down beside the river: the doors hanging off, the paint peeling on the veranda – the wood beneath weathered to a silvery grey. Some of the other students must know about it too because inside, in the corner, there’s an old wicker chair and a blanket with chocolate wrappers, banana skins and squashed up Coke cans littered around it.
    It’s not my private place, I know, but I have never seen anyone else here. It’s where I come when I want to be alone.
    I make it as far as the steps before the tears come, sliding down my cheeks, hot and salty and bitter. I sink down on to the steps and wrap my arms around my body, gasping and shaking as the sobs rack through me. Sylvie Rochelle thinks I am holding back. That’s crazy – why would I hold back? I am giving everything I have, and still it’s not enough.
    The truth is that Sylvie Rochelle has seen through me, seen that I am second best, not good enough.
    It’s only as the tears begin to subside that I realize I am still dressed in leotard, tights, legwarmers, wraparound cardi and pointe shoes, and that I’m achingly cold.
    Could it get any worse?
    It could. It really, really could.
    ‘Hey,’ a voice says behind me, and someone drapes a jacket around my shoulders, thick and warm and heavy.
    A boy sits down beside me on the ramshackle steps, dark hair falling across his face.
    Sebastien.

4
    I drag the sleeve of my cardi across my eyes to blot away the tears. My sleeve comes away damp and streaked with eyeliner. I bury my head against my knees. If I count to ten, will Sebastien go away?
    Apparently not.
    When I look up, he’s still there, his face kind and concerned, his corduroy jacket with the badges all over one lapel still hanging around my shoulders.
    ‘How long have you been there?’ I ask, my voice still wobbly and thick with tears.
    ‘Long enough,’ he says. ‘I came out here after

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