Beauty and the Beat

Beauty and the Beat (6)

I practically skipped all the way back to the auditorium. Knowing that I didn’t have to sit through my horrid English class made me feel so much better. I wished that I was able to skip it all the time. If only it wasn’t a required class to graduate…

Mrs. Carson looked so relieved when she saw me walk back into the auditorium before the late bell rang. She was afraid that my teacher would have said no, and I had been worrying that exact same thing. But now that I was here, there was nothing Ethan could do about it.

“I’m so glad you could stay.” Mrs. Carson let out a sigh of relief before gesturing toward her beginner class. “It’s about as big as your class, except this has an odd amount of people in it while yours has even.”

All the underclassmen stared up at me, almost looking scared that there was someone knew inside the room, but I just smiled at them awkwardly. I shouldn’t have felt uncomfortable in front of younger kids, but I just couldn’t help it.

“Today, we’ll be learning what it’s like to dance with a partner,” Mrs. Carson informed her class, and everyone immediately looked around for the person they wanted to be partners with. “It must be boy and girl partners, please. Go on and find your partner.”

I heard grumbles coming from the class, but they did as they were told. They all looked so tiny, being underclassmen, but there were a few that I knew were in my grade. I didn’t know why they were deciding to take a brand new elective during their last year of high school, but it wasn’t like I was about to ask them or anything.

I remembered when I had to do this when I was in the beginner class back in my freshman year. We had a different teacher, since this was Mrs. Carson’s first year of teaching here. Bennett had taken the class with me, but Freya pounced on him to be her partner because she didn’t know any other boy in the class well enough to be partnered with them. I was stuck with Maxxon.

Thinking back on it, my classes had always been pretty bad at dancing. It was just that they were super bad this year.

I noticed only one boy didn’t have a partner to dance with, but he didn’t look bothered by it at all. I knew that he was a senior, like me, because I had him in one of my other classes. I just couldn’t remember his name.

“Sadie, you can be Justin’s partner,” Mrs. Carson called out to me, pointing to the blonde boy who was the only one without a partner.

Okay, that was fine with me. As long as I got to dance, everything was perfect. I barely got to move around during my class period, considering everyone sucked so much.

Justin and I made our way on stage together, and he looked less than thrilled to be here while I was pumped and excited. Mrs. Carson even said this class was good, so I was expecting to be able to dance, even though she did say I was supposed to be helping them…

“Hey,” I greeted my partner once we got up on stage.

“Hey,” he greeted back, sounding completely bored out of his mind.

“So…” as we waited for Mrs. Carson to make her way toward us and it was way too awkward just standing there next to him in silence. “What made you decide to take dance your senior year?”

He merely shrugged. “My twin sister.”

I blinked. “Really? Is she in here?”

“My sister’s in your advanced dance class,” Justin informed me suddenly and without warning, and I tried to think of any girl in my class that looked like the boy I was dancing with. “Katarina’s her name.”

I couldn’t remember anyone named Katarina in my dance class, but I did remember a blonde girl named Katarina in my English class, and she was about as obsessed with Ethan as Freya was. It was weird to think that that was his sister.