“You have to go!” Karla’s whisper cuts through the silence of the rehearsal room as we run through the morning’s warm-up. “Shh!” I hiss back at her, stretching. The accompanist starts playing on the piano in the corner, and we all move to our positions at the barre. The studio has mirrors running all along one wall, with polished honey wooden floors and bright spotlights overhead: nowhere to hide from your reflection, but a dancer is used to it. We study our own poses for hours, making sure every limb is placed at precisely the right angle. “Hello, did you see how hot he was?” Karla continues to whisper from behind me. “I don’t even know him!” I whisper back, checking that our instructor, Gilbert, is over at the other end of the studio. “He could be like, an axe murderer, or a human trafficker, recruiting American virgins for some sex ring!” “First of all, you’ve been watching way too much Taken,” Karla whispers back. “And second, so what? You’re thinking about it, I can tell,”
