The Ballet Prodigy's Weight Curse

I used to be a national gold medalist in ballet.

Now I’m the 210-pound laughingstock the whole school gawks at.

I starve myself till I pass out, train so hard my knees bleed, and still the weight keeps piling on like it’s got a personal grudge.

Till the day I hear my best friend cackling in the equipment room, voice shaking with laughter:

“No matter how hard she tries, her weight will always be three-quarters of Bruce’s!”

Bruce is the 280-pound deadbeat loser who sleeps through half his classes. And me? I’m stuck to him, tied by some sick system I can’t break.

She stole my Juilliard audition direct pass. Paid guys to shove me, call me names, film me tripping over my own feet and post the clips all over TikTok.

She watches me flounder like a beached whale in the mud, barely holding back her snickers.

But she forgot one thing: mountains don’t run from streams.

They wait for the water to crash into them. And shatter into a million pieces.

Guess what? The bet’s on.

 ---

Three months ago, my face was on the studio wall of fame as a national ballet gold medalist. Three months later, I’m the 210-pound joke the entire school can’t stop staring at.

I won gold at the Regional Youth Ballet Competition, starred as the lead in our school’s ballet showcase two years straight—Ms. Wendy called me a “ballet prodigy that comes around once every decade.”

I could hold a relevé longer than anyone, spin like a perfectly tossed silver dollar, land silent and flawless. Everyone said I’d be the only one in my year to get the direct audition pass for Juilliard.

But now? I’m trundling along the outdoor track in a faded black compression top, gasping for air so hard my lungs burn. Every step hits the asphalt like I’m about to cave the whole track in.

The body that used to be light as a feather is now so heavy I can barely stand to look in the mirror.

The fat on my inner thighs rubs raw every time I lift my leg, the extra weight around my stomach dragging my whole center of gravity down.

I grind my teeth and pick up the pace, desperate to feel that weightless lift I used to have—but the dull throb in my knees reminds me: the girl who could nail 32 fouettés in a row is gone.

“Well, well, if it isn’t our little ballet princess.”

I freeze. That voice, sharp with malice. I glance right and see them:

Ryan, star of the varsity football team, six feet of solid muscle like a walking brick wall. Jake’s his little shadow, always grinning like he lives for the drama.

“Chunky ballerina, getting that extra grind in this morning?” Jake tilts his head, fake-concerned. “At your weight, you’d probably crash through the stage if you tried Swan Lake, huh?”

“Aw, don’t be mean,” Ryan smirks, holding up his hands. “She’s the prodigy who’s gonna get into Juilliard—hahahahaha!”

Other kids working out stop and stare. Some pull out their phones, some snicker behind their hands. All those eyes burning into me, like a thousand tiny needles.

Chunky ballerina. Big fat ballerina. Those nicknames stick to me like gum, impossible to scrape off. My face burns, but I bite my lip, don’t say a word, just veer left. I ignore them, grind my teeth and keep walking.

Next thing I know, something slams into my back hard.

I lose my balance and hit the track hard. My knees and palms scrape against the rough asphalt, a searing pain exploding through me. Blood beads up on my scraped knee, dripping down my calf.

“Oops, my bad. Didn’t see you there.” Ryan looms over me, a mean smirk on his face.

Laughter erupts around me. More kids stop, filming me on their phones, snickering, someone even whistles and yells “Nice!” No one moves to help me.

I push myself up to stand, the pull of my scraped knee making me hiss through my teeth.

“Yikes, that’s brutal…”

“Didn’t she used to be, like, really good? What happened to her?”

“Heard she binges and eats like a pig. Total washout now.”

The whispers buzz in my ears like flies. I bite down so hard on my lip I taste blood, refusing to cry.

“Back up! What the hell is wrong with you guys?”

A familiar voice cuts through the crowd. Cara runs over, her perfect face twisted with concern. She shoves Ryan out of the way and bends down to grab my arm.

“Doris, are you okay?” Her voice is soft, like she’s talking to a little kid. “Ryan, you’re such an asshole! Picking on a girl? Really?”

Ryan just shrugs and walks off like nothing happened. Jake follows, turning back to make a face at me.

Cara helps me up carefully, dabbing at my bleeding knee with a tissue. She frowns at the cut, sounding all worried and sweet. “You’re all scraped up. Let me take you to the nurse.”

I nod, a warm feeling bubbling up in my chest. No matter what everyone else does, at least I still have Cara.

I’m about to thank her, when something catches my eye out of the corner of my vision—

Cara glances over at Ryan and Jake, and winks. Fast, so no one else sees. The corner of her mouth tugs up, a flash of real, smug satisfaction in her eyes.

My stomach drops.

Before I can process what that meant, Cara turns back to me, her face back to that perfect, sweet mask. “C’mon, let’s get you cleaned up.”

I remember what Ms. Wendy told me privately last week: “Doris, I’m worried about you. If you don’t get your act together in two months, I’m gonna have to give this year’s audition spot to someone else.”

That someone else.

Is Cara.