The Secret Friendship

Chapter Three

Chloe POV:

My phone buzzed as I sat at the kitchen table working on some killer calculus homework. My senior year of high school was kicking my butt. Not to mention, I had dance every day on top of that. My nine year old sister Clara sat adjacent to me, working on some third grade math problems I could probably do in my sleep. If I wanted to achieve my dreams of becoming a doctor, I need to have high math and science grades. As I reached for my iphone9 in the middle of the table, Clara playfully slapped my hand.

“No phones during homework time, Chlo.” She sassed as if she was the phone police then got back to her worksheet as if nothing had happened. Since the time she was born, Clara had always been the comic relief of the family. She was incredibly annoying sometimes, but I loved her more than anything. I sighed and reluctantly followed her orders until I wrapped up the final three problems and went upstairs to start getting ready for bed. The text was from a number I didn’t know. I opened it up and it read,

“Hey Chlo! It’s Maddie! Text me when you get a chance! We have lots of catching up to do!” I had about an hour before I needed to go to sleep, which I usually reserved for reading. However, I was eager to reconnect with Maddie so I put my book aside.

“Hey! I’m going to be up for the next hour if you want to talk now.” Not two minutes later, I had an incoming call from her. Instead of starting the conversation off in a typical manner like asking how I was doing or how my day was, her first question was,

“Can I talk to you about something serious?” It caught me a little off guard.

“Sure.” I heard her sigh deeply and then some rummaging in the background.

“I’m hiding in my closet. I have to be really quiet or Kenzie will hear me.”

“What is it, Maddie? Is everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine. I just…I…I think I might want to quit dance.”

“Maddie!” I gasped. This wasn’t at all what I was expecting. “Why? You’re so talented! You can’t quit!”

“Miss Abby’s getting so annoying…and everybody quit. It’s just me and all these strangers. I hate it.”

“What about Mackenzie? And Kendall and Nia? What happened to everyone?”

“Mackenzie quit. My mom and Abby hate each other now because of it…and Abby even takes her anger out on me for it sometimes. Kendall moved to Nebraska and Nia went to another studio. It’s just me now…and these other girls from all over the country. It’s not the same. I miss the olden days.”

“Wow…I’m sorry. That sucks.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

“Well, by no means I think you should give up dance, but have you tried telling your mom how you feel? I mean, if Kenzie quit, you should have that freedom too…” She sighed again.

“It’ll break my mom’s heart…it already kills her that Kenzie doesn’t dance. If I don’t dance, I don’t know what would happen…”

“That’s tough, Maddie. I’m sorry.”

“Hey, you want to go get some ice cream? I need to get out of the house.” I looked down at my pajama pants with puppies on them.

“I’m already wearing my pajamas…and I don’t think my mom will let me out this late…but I don’t have dance tomorrow night if you’d like to do something then.” She sighed again.

“I have rehearsal all day tomorrow. What about Saturday? We could go to the mall…maybe see that new dance movie. It’s rated R…but you’re seventeen so you could buy the tickets and I could pay you back.”

“Saturday sounds good.”

“Great. I’ll see you then. I have to go. My mom’s calling me downstairs to do the dishes. I’ll text you tomorrow.”

“Okay. Good night, Maddie.”

“Good night, Chlo.”