I’d taken ballet since I was three, and had spent all my time after school—and every summer, at sleepaway ballet camps—dancing. My life was a blur of leotards and convertible tights, bobby pins and hairnets, breaking in pointe shoes and comparing calluses and bloody blisters after class like war wounds, like battle scars. I had fully believed that it was what I was going to do with my life. I wasn’t going to go to college—I was going to dance professionally.

And it wasn’t like it was out of the realm of possibility to think that I could do it. Gelsey Edwards, two years older than me and the star of our dance school, became an apprentice at the New York City Ballet when she was fifteen and joined the company the following year. But right before my freshman year started, my teacher sat down with me and my parents and told me she didn’t think I’d be able to make it. That while I was technically proficient, she didn’t “anticipate” I’d get an offer from a company. I still auditioned for the School of American Ballet—but didn’t get in. And suddenly, all my plans—all I’d thought my life would be—were thrown up in the air. I wasn’t going to SAB and Professional Children’s, in the city. I was going to Stanwich High and would have to figure out something else to do with my life.

At fourteen, I was all washed up.

But during the second week of school, there was an announcement about auditions for the fall play. I dragged myself there, not expecting anything, just to have something to do. But there in line behind me had been Stevie Sinclair. We were both cast as maids in The Cherry Orchard, and I fell in love. With all of it. With my new best friend, with the camaraderie, with the long rehearsals, punchy tech run-throughs, sitzprobes and opening nights, striking the sets and cast parties. I loved it all. Joining the theater department turned what had been the lowest moment in my life into something better than I ever could have imagined. I was all in, 100 percent. And I’d barely danced since.

“Kat, wait up!” I stopped crossing the student center and turned around, seeing my friend Teri running toward me, her brown hair flying behind her.

“Hey,” I said, giving her a smile. “Where are you coming from?”