Ballet's My LIfe

After Jayden and Mike were caught red-handed, their moms decided it would be best to keep them apart. Best friends did not do things like shoplift! Mike begged and pleaded with Mom, but she remained firm. The worst part was, the ban on Jayden was not even his punishment. His punishment was far worse.


"For the next two months, ballet is your life." Mom said. Mike thought it was strange, even after Mom explained that the best way to keep him out of trouble was to keep him busy. But ballet?


Strange or not, Mike soon learned his new routine: every morning, he went to a private ballet lesson where he had to wear tights, slippers, and something called a leotard as he was drilled for hours. Then, Mom picked him up and he spent the drive home and the rest of the day watching ballet videos. Much to his dismay early on, it was literally the rest of the day. He had to sit on the couch in the living room, still in his leotard and tights, watching ballet video after ballet video, his headphones not coming off until bed, when Mom made him put on a pink nightshirt that said 'ballet is my life'. Once he started dreaming about ballet, he knew Mom's lesson was kicking in.


If anything, Mom was only getting started. By the second week, he had started to notice that there were fewer and fewer men in his ballet videos. They seemed to focus more and more on women in tutus. He thought that was strange, but Mom told him tutus are just part of ballet. He considered this and it seemed unsurprising when he got his own tutu in the third week of his punishment. He told the instructor that that didn't seem right, but both she and Mom reassured him that it was an essential part of ballet education.


"It'll stop you from watching your feet." The instructor said. Mike nodded, not minding the way the tutu made his pirouettes look and feel more impressive.


By week four, his ballet instructor told Mom he needed to focus on graceful steps. He began to walk around the house while watching his ballet videos and felt so overjoyed when he was told he was walking like a proper ballerina, his tutu bounced with him as he jumped up and down, clapping.


The one month anniversary had passed without Mike even realizing it. Mom was right. Ballet had become his life. He hardly even blinked anymore as he dressed in his tutu and did his makeup before floating out to the car to go to ballet. Any time he wondered just how he had adapted to all this, he remembered how beautiful the ballerinas looked in his ballet videos. You would have to be crazy to not yearn to be just like them! At the same time, however, he wondered about Jayden. Had it really only been a month?


Month two seemed to speed by. Mike started to work on pre-pointe, a thought that excited him terribly. All the ballerinas in his videos looked so elegant on pointe and he wanted so badly to be just like them. Mom, however, had other plans to excite him.

One morning, she presented him with a sparkly tiara. He eagerly placed it on his head and twirled merrily. Behind her smile, she seemed a little taken aback, though he had no idea why. He twirled whenever he was excited, didn't he?


"I thought you might like to look extra special today since you'll be seeing Jayden." That was the last thing he had expected to hear. Mom had sworn that he would never see Jayden again!


"Are we going to his house?" He asked.


"You'll see Jayden later. Right now, you have ballet." Mike tried to focus on his ballet videos on the drive to class, but a part of him he had not heard from in two months was worried. What would Jayden say? Would he like the new Mike? Mike smiled to himself as he watched the ballerinas. Of course he would like him. He was the best ballerina he could be and surely Jayden would respect that. Mike imagined dancing for Jayden and receiving an enormous bouquet from him. His toes curled in his slippers.


Mike was in the midst of his ballet lesson when the door opened and another ballerina came inside. In the last two months, Mike had never seen another ballerina in a pink tutu in real life. His heart sped up. What should he do? The answer came to him at once and he rose up onto his toes and floated over to her. He knew he was doing the right thing as she floated toward him. As they neared each other, he realized that the face under all that makeup was Jayden! Jayden was wearing a pink tutu and tiara too! They stopped and curtsied in perfect unison. Of course we did, Mike thought. We're besties. Ballerina besties, he thought as they leaned in and delicately kissed the other ballerina's cheek before laughing and embracing as their moms took photo after photo.


"I love ballet." Jayden murmured softly.


"Ballet is my life." Mike replied. They broke their embrace and began to dance.