The Dance Studio: When Secrets Surface
Part One: An Ordinary Thursday
My phone buzzed at exactly 5:47 AM. I didn’t need to check it to know it was Charlotte, my business partner, informing me that she’d caught a nasty flu and wouldn’t make it to open our dance studio. I sighed, silencing the alarm I’d set for 6:15, and swung my legs over the side of the bed. My husband Ryan mumbled something incoherent, his arm reaching for me even in his sleep.
“Char’s sick,” I whispered. “I need to open early.”
He nodded without opening his eyes, a skill he’d perfected in our twelve years of marriage. “Need me to take the kids to school?”
“That would be amazing,” I replied, already heading for the shower. “I’ll text you their schedules.”
By 6:30, I was dressed in black leggings and an oversized sweater, hair pulled into a practical bun, travel mug of coffee in hand as I kissed my still-sleeping children goodbye. Amelia, thirteen and increasingly private, barely stirred. Seven-year-old Lucas, by contrast, wrapped his arms around my neck with sleepy affection before falling back onto his pillow.
The pre-dawn air was crisp as I backed my Subaru out of the driveway. Streetlights still glowed in the darkness, illuminating the quiet suburban neighborhood where we’d lived for the past decade. Riverside wasn’t a fancy town, but it was home—the kind of place where people still brought casseroles when someone had surgery and where the high school football games drew crowds regardless of the team’s dismal record.
Elevate Dance Academy sat on Main Street, wedged between a locally-owned coffee shop and a bookstore that somehow survived the digital revolution. Charlotte and I had opened it seven years ago, combining her background in ballet with my modern dance training. What began as a desperate attempt to create jobs for ourselves after the recession had blossomed into a thriving business with over two hundred students ranging from preschoolers to retirees.