The Chapter Behind Us (Helan’s Tale)

The Chapter Behind Us (Helan’s Tale)

Helan was once the queen of the floor.
Her spins were so sharp, so luminous, that even the disco ball seemed to take notes. When she danced, the music didn’t play — it obeyed.
Then came the earthquake.
In one ruthless tremor, the stage cracked, the lights shattered, and Helan lost her left leg.
The club mourned for a week. Helan mourned for a month.
And then she returned.
Now, whenever someone leaned in and asked softly, “How are you doing?”
Helan would lift her cocktail glass, let it catch the light, and say with a wink,
“Darling, that chapter is behind me.”
It sounded brave. It sounded finished.
It wasn’t.
Because three times a night, like clockwork, she told the bartender,
“You know, before the quake, I could outdance the DJ’s entire playlist.”
She told the bouncer,
“My left leg was practically a celebrity in this club.”
She told the new dancers — with dramatic pauses and a sip of gin at the climax — how the crowd once chanted her name.
She said the chapter was behind her.
But she reread it daily.
The irony? Helan had reinvented herself.
She danced with a chair now — spinning it, tilting it, balancing on it like it was a co-star. Sometimes she hopped, sometimes she glided. The choreography was raw, inventive, electric.
The audience loved her more than before.
But every performance still began the same way:
“Ladies and gentlemen… welcome to the chapter behind us!”
The crowd laughed, assuming it was a clever tagline.
Only her closest friends knew the truth.
It wasn’t a closing line.
It was a bookmark.
One she held carefully between her fingers —
afraid that if she ever pulled it out,
she might have to admit
the chapter had truly ended.