FicWad

Lily's mom sat in the livingroom, head pressed up against the couch cushions.
"Well Lily, he certainly was a nice man...Robert was his name?"
Lily nodded, "Yeah..Bert"
He had left an hour ago after Jepha and Quinn had called him...after they made amends over the phone...
"You know, your father and I went out for our anniversary last month..."
Lily nodded numbly...Was Gerard mad at her? She stared at the family pictures on the walls...on the tv cabinet...on the modest fireplace littered with last year's Christmas cards...
Her eyes lingered on a picture of her and her brothers...A blur of blonde...Lily's teeth small and square, a bit ragged and crooked...not even grown in all the way...
"We went to this restaurant on State st...what was it called?"
Lily stopped a picture of her in college...dressed in a leotard, looking off into the distance as she struck a pose....her body slim and toned...legs bent elegantly...
"I can't remember what the place was called, I'll ask your father when he gets home...but I had this drink there..it was a lovely blue...and it had these...swirls in it! Swirls!"
She remembered the pressure of those days as her eyes ran over the air brushed photograph with the soft lighting..with the pastel back-drop and the leotard..the silk skirt and the ribbon twisted around her poised calf.
Her toes twitched as her eyes hovered over the shoes...
She remembered cracked toes...blood...feeling as if her bones were breaking..she remembered countless nights in front of the mirror practicing..wishing she could be just a little better...just a little...
skinnier.
"I think it was a french name...Francois or something, but this drink...Lily, you'd love it..it was called a...something with M..let me think..."
Bryant Ballet...where it all began...where it started..and then the auditions came...and she made it. She was part of the Civic Ballet company...she was only a background dancer..but she wanted to be better, THE BEST..and then she was...
She thought it could be her secret..she thought no one would notice. But when she lost so much weight..when it seemed to melt off of her...
"It was called..a MAYSON, that was it, a MAYSON...what a funny name, huh? It was absolutely..."
She only needed a little..just a bit to keep her awake...to keep off the weight.. a lot of other girls did it. But Julliard ran these tests...
Julliard new it wasn't poppy seeds...
Julliard didn't want a ballerina like Lily.
And that was the year she burned her ballet shoes...
That was the year her grandparent's house was sold...
That was the year she met Adam at that night club...
The year he had put his hand on her back as she puked in the cold dark alley way...
The year they started the band..
The year Lily's nose bled so she could keep the weight down..so she could dance...
"Lily? Are you even listening?"
And her mother...her mother would hold her as she shook...awake from the spasms..
And her mother would lead her to the bathroom and rub her back as she felt like her insides would pour out into the porcelain...
And her mother would tell her everything was ok...and made her eat and opened her curtains and...loved her...
When her father had worked over time so she could dance...made more lines in his face, bags under his eyes so she could be a ballerina..just like she always wanted.
And it was wasted...blown away in the Chicago breeze..in the cold winter air... in an eight ball of cocaine...burned that night in the barrell along with Lily's ballet shoes..and the hopes and dreams of a little girl..that wished..
that hoped...
that someday...
she would be something.