Fire

When you have a dream, you should hold on tight and never let it go. Pursue it to the very end. Sometimes, that dream turns into an obsession. It eats away at your core. It consumes you. Until you don’t recognize the person in the mirror.

“Someday, Elise, those shoes’ll be yours,” Ms. Auclair beamed. Everyone wanted to be the most graceful ballerina. Accepted into the conservatory mid-year given daddy’s money, you took what everyone coveted. 

     You’re a lovely liar, volunteering to help new students lost in the halls. But you go to your locker to eat snacks instead.

     Returning home, you slide out the shoes held in your grand case, caressing them. They’re yours, you say. You’d do anything to have them. Even steal them. With a small but lethal flame, you light the case’s wooden exterior. And just like that –

     “Elise! What…?”

     They’re mine.