Pirouette [h.s.]

chapter 7

The last thing I need right now is to get caught up in some guy, but it's like the more I tried to push away the possibility of even being attracted to Harry, the more forceful my mind becomes. I need to get Harry off of my mind. There's no way I can let him in, I'll lose my focus and that is essentially suicide in the dance world.

Hence why I currently find myself sitting on my studio room floor, a plastic-wrapped peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a Tupperware container of frozen grapes sitting in front of me while I dial Luna's number over and over and over until she picks up.

I rip open the sandwich wrapping and take a bite while pressing call for the seventh time. I had thrown my practice shoes towards the mirror once the clock hit noon to let my feet breathe and, as I wait for Luna to answer my phone call, I roll out the soles of my feet using a tennis ball. My arches burn as if they're sitting inside of a furnace from being cramped up inside of my shoes all morning and rolling them over top of a ball hurts so good.

Even through the distractions, the fact that the fall opener is only a few weeks away has kicked me into gear at the studio. I need to impress Claudette. I need to impress the scouts that I'm sure she'll pack into the audience. I just need to impress. Which is why this morning I've danced almost the entire four hours consecutively, going over difficult transitions and perfecting tricky parts of the choreography.

If I can make a break at this opener, it'll be such a huge weight off of my shoulders. My pay will go up and I won't be balancing on a tightrope, just waiting for the day I get kicked out. Stability would mean everything. Especially with my life, which is so far from stable it isn't even funny.

I hear the click of the phone and fuzziness on the other side of the line. I can tell instantly that Luna's picked up and that she's standing outside, the whooshing mountain breeze evident through the speaker. It makes my heart seize up.

"Fifi? Is everything okay?" her voice sounds panicked, and it dawns on me that I've probably freaked her out by calling so much.

We don't talk as often as I'd like to because of our schedules, and I usually don't call unprompted, no matter how much I need her. So, for me to call multiple times back-to-back doesn't look very good. But, to be fair, it's urgent to me.

Even though she's evidently high-strung, I can feel the tension pour out of me at the sound of her voice, "Hi Luna, I have so much to tell you. Are you free?"

She sighs, loudly, "Goddamn, Fif, you gave me a heart attack, you're lucky I'm even going to talk to you right now after scaring me so bad. I have about half an hour until I have to go to my next class. ...Wait a minute – aren't you at work? What's going on?"

"Okay, great, so last Tuesday I was at Dino's and I was about to close up and literally right before 2, this dude about our age showed up." I start, brushing off her questions, eager to get to the reason why I called in the first place.

I hear a slight squeak on the other end and suddenly Luna's speaking over me, "Fifi this is like the beginning of a Hallmark movie!" her voice increases in pitch as her sentence continues.

Fucking hopeless romantic.

"Oh my god, Luna, no."

A beat of silence.

No response.

"So, anyways, this guy showed up and I really can't even tell you how crazy he looked. He was fucking demanding blueberries. But not just like normal blueberries, like yogurt-covered blueberries. At 2 am?! What the fuck, Luna? Like, I like blueberries, too, but not enough to run to a gas station at 2 in the morning."