Imani was back in.
She did not celebrate when the call came.
She laced Mae’s shoes and danced Open Window twice from start to finish.
The second time, Mae tapped her cane twice at the ending.
Tap. Tap.
That meant ready.
Then, two nights before the championship, Mae fell.
It happened in the bathroom just after midnight. Imani heard the crash and found her grandmother on the tile, one hand gripping the tub, face pale with pain. Her bad ankle had buckled, and her old knee injury had twisted under her.
“I’m fine,” Mae said immediately.
“You’re on the floor.”
“I’ve been on worse floors.”
“Grandma.”
The ambulance came because Imani refused to negotiate with stubbornness while fear roared in her ears.
At the hospital, Mae lay propped under thin blankets, leg braced, eyes furious at her own body. The doctor said nothing was broken, but she would not be walking safely for weeks. Mae listened with the patience of someone waiting for irrelevant people to finish talking.
When they were alone, Imani stood beside the bed.
“I can’t do it without you.”
Mae turned her head. “Do not insult my entire life by saying that again.”
Imani looked away.
Mae reached for her hand. “Listen to me. I have spent forty years teaching in rooms nobody came to photograph. I have watched girls quit because the world taught them talent without money is just a hobby. You have a stage now.”
Tears filled Imani’s eyes.
“You walk onto it,” Mae said. “And you dance like every locked door was only wood.”
Imani bent over Mae’s hand and pressed her forehead there.
At midnight, she returned to the garage alone.
The chair was empty.
The cane leaned against the wall.
The mirror reflected one body where there had always been two.
Imani placed Mae’s shoes on the floor, laced them slowly, and pressed play.
The music filled the garage.
She danced Open Window from the first breath to the last beat.
No counting.
No correction.
No cane tapping.
Just memory, muscle, grief, and love.
When the final note faded, Imani stood in the center of the floor, breathing hard.
“Ready,” she whispered.
The Sterling Hall Theater held nearly two thousand people, and every seat was filled.
Cameras lined the aisles. A livestream ran on the academy website, but the servers began struggling before the first finalist finished. Outside, people who could not get tickets gathered with phones and portable speakers, watching from the sidewalk like the night was a championship fight.
Brielle drew the eighth slot.
Imani drew the final one.