You can't trust anyone - I learned that the hard way.

I pull a bobby pin out from my bun and push it into the old lock, waiting for the tiny bolt to ease downward and click out of place. I like to be in places where I'm not supposed to be-in my old high school's attic or in the empty house in my San Fran neighborhood. There's a tiny thrill in picking a lock and exploring a space that others want closed up.

I don't care about being happy. Only about being the best.

Don't carry worries around," she always says. "They're heavy.

She doesn't care what it means to be a dancer. What sacrifices it takes. And she knows that Mr. K will easily let me go. That I'm nothing. I can be replaced. Girls are a dime a dozen in ballet-not like the boys who are treated like princes. Another girl will be plucked from some audition somewhere.