Her Men Of Ruin

Yule

city, Yule country.

Yule

National School of Dance.

“Your

project lacks the emotions required for such a heart-friendly piece,

Miss Litotes. Dance that to a person with cardiac arrest and they

could die. You

need to wield passionate and subtle feelings when portraying a

swan-like

character, which is something you do not seem to possess. Stiff

movements are meant for robotic showcases, not ballet or contemporary

dances. You should have learned more about that instead of focusing

on technique. You are dismissed. Next person.”

Eighty,

or less than eighty words, yet they carry such venom that stabs

Heaven’s heart like a blade.

She

bites her lower lips to stop herself from bursting into tears, yet

that doesn’t help as she grabs her bag and hurries out, slamming

the classroom door behind her.

Reaching

her lodge, Heaven tosses her bag aside, tucking out her phone and

chewing the nail of her shaking index finger as she dials her best

friend’s number.

After

several tries, her bestfriend, Lulu, doesn’t pick up, so Heaven

resorts to calling her boyfriend instead.

He

too doesn’t respond. But, thankfully, Lulu calls back.

‘Heaven,

are you alright?’

the girl raps from the other side of the phone. She sounds

breathless, as if running while talking.

Heaven

shakes her head, though Lulu couldn’t see her, bawling her eyes out

as she rants into the phone. “I’m

not okay, Lulu! All my hard work… they… they are for nothing! The

board rejected my project! How am I supposed to cope now?”

‘Hold

on. Is it the one you’ve been working on for months now?’

Lulu says with short breaths again, earning a shriek from Heaven.

“Yes,

Lulu! That’s the one!”

‘Isn’t

it your final year project?’

“It

is! Now I have to repeat a damn year, and I can’t get a job in the

National Dance Company anymore. I can’t even get a job in any top

companies, because I’ll have a red marker on my certificate! This

is so unfair, Lulu! I’ll end up scrambling to survive now!”

‘It’s

alright, Heaven. Can’t you get other jobs? I told you dancing

shouldn’t have been your career—’

‘Lulu,

hang

up.

You don’t have to teach her everything,’

someone mumbles from the other side of the call right before it

disconnects.

Heaven

stares at her screen speechlessly. The person who just interrupted

Lulu sounds too much like Hector, Heaven’s boyfriend. That makes

her uncomfortable, added to the fact that Hector’s not picking up

his call.

Hector

lives just

across the bridge,

so

Heaven quickly hails a cab.

As

she arrives at her boyfriend’s studio

apartment, she calls him again even though she has been doing so the

entire time in the cab.

He

still doesn’t pick up.

Now

she stands on the last step that leads to his door, about to knock

before her hand hangs in the air on hearing faint noises coming from

inside. Curses. Constant body slamming body. Moans and pants.

But

she can’t be too sure.