Missing Moments

Dancemania - Piper's Perspective (Part One)

7x22

It had been a strenuous day for A-Troupe, both emotionally and physically. Piper was exhausted as she and Summer made their way back to the hotel in a tense silence. Once at their destination, they bid each other goodnight and went to their rooms. Lily was already in their room, in bed and texting on her phone. Piper immediately changed into pajamas and brushed her teeth before re-emerging from the bathroom.

"My mom is shook the judges were so rude tonight," Lily told her without looking up from her phone. "She was so sure we'd win the first round, no problem."

Piper didn't even want to think about what Miss Angela probably had to say about her performance tonight. She crawled onto the bed that she and Amy were sharing as Lily added, "I told her what Fredrico told us after the cameras stopped rolling though."

"What'd she say to that?" Piper asked reluctantly.

"Screw him and that he doesn't know good dance when he sees it." Lily smirked, finally looking away from her phone. "He's not even a dancer, you know. He's just a pretty face for the cameras. They pay him to be harsh because people wouldn't watch otherwise."

That didn't necessarily surprise Piper, but Finn would be horrified to learn the truth of the infamous Dancemania judge.

Not that she was thinking about Finn right now.

Or at least, she was trying not to.

The door to the room suddenly opened, and Amy entered, quietly shutting it behind her. She walked further into the room and crossed her arms, frowning at Piper, who frowned back at her. Amy had that look on her face that said she meant business, and normally, Piper would be curious to know what was on her best friend's mind, but tonight wasn't a normal night.

"What?" Piper asked warily.

"You need to stop being so hard on Finn."

Piper rolled her eyes and looked away from her, pursing her lips bitterly as Amy told her adamantly, "He's really beating himself up, Piper. He knows he messed up, and he feels bad about it, and you're not helping anything."

"This isn't my fault," Piper scoffed defensively, "He brought this all on himself."

"He made it here, and everything was fine."

"I almost got cut from the show because of him!"

"But you didn't."

Piper glared at her best friend, and Amy glared back. She couldn't believe that Amy was defending Finn when she was the one who had threatened to give Nick a piece of her mind when Piper had told her he was cutting her from the dance that morning. Finn had let her down, and he had never done that before. He was the one person who Piper was always supposed to be able to count on to be there for her. It was his careless mistake that had almost cost them the biggest opportunity of their lives.

So excuse her if she was a little mad about it.

"If he hadn't put his phone on silent, he wouldn't have missed his flight, and I wouldn't be mad at him," Piper reasoned, crossing her arms stubbornly.

Amy took a deep breath and slowly let it out through her nose before asking, "Why are you still upset about the phone thing?"

"Because he doesn't care about me," Piper snapped.

Amy blinked then gaped at her in shock. "Are you kidding me? Piper, Finn cares about you more than anything else in this world. Everyone knows that."

"Then why is he always running late for our dates? Or forgetting about them completely? And when I finally try to do one thing to help him be on time for once in his life, he just puts his phone on silent and completely disregards all of the effort I went to help him?" Piper raised her eyebrows as if challenging Amy to answer. Her best friend simply sighed and looked away, and she huffed in an unsatisfying triumph. "And then he thinks he can apologize a minute before we're supposed to perform, and everything will be magically okay again?"