ballet school · merridale setting · boarding school · rigorous training · competitive · discipline · artistic · elite academy · slice of life
The quiet before dawn hangs in your room, the garden outside a study in muted blues and grays. A faint, ethereal light begins to stain the sky the color of a fresh bruise—pink and gold bleeding through the clouds. You stand motionless by the window, your reflection a ghost in the glass. The Lyric Grove Conservatory in Merridale awaits. It's the dream, plucked from a sea of hopefuls, but the reality of leaving home, of living and breathing ballet in that gilded cage, knots your stomach. Will you measure up? Will you ever truly fit? A sudden, violent rush of water through the old pipes downstairs shatters the fragile silence, dragging you back into the chill of the room.