Last spring, she saw a flyer at the laundromat, taped crooked above the busted change machine.
Little pink silhouettes, sparkles, “Beginner Ballet” in big looping letters.
She stared so hard the dryers could’ve caught fire, and she wouldn’t have noticed.
Then she looked up at me like she’d just seen a golden nugget.
I read the price and felt my stomach knot.
“Daddy, please,” she whispered.
Those numbers might as well have been written in another language.
But she was still staring, fingers sticky from vending-machine Skittles, eyes huge.
“Daddy,” she said again, softer, like she was scared to wake up, “that’s my class.”
I heard myself answer before thinking.
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll do it.”
I went home, pulled an old envelope from a drawer, and wrote “LILY – BALLET” on the front in fat Sharpie letters.
Every shift, every crumpled bill or handful of change that survived the laundry went inside.
I skipped lunches, drank burnt coffee from our dying machine, told my stomach to stop complaining.
Dreams were louder than growling, most days.
The studio itself looked like the inside of a cupcake — pink walls, sparkly decals, inspirational quotes in curly vinyl.
The lobby was full of moms in leggings and dads with neat haircuts, all smelling like good soap and not like garbage trucks.
I sat small in the corner, pretending I was invisible.
I came straight from my route, still faintly scented like banana peels and disinfectant.
Nobody said anything, but a few parents gave me those sideways glances.
Lily marched into that studio like she’d been born there.
“Dad, watch my arms.”
If she fit in, I could handle it.
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