Chapter 1
~Feel Again: Contemporary~
'Zendaya's POV'
I still can't wrap my mind around it, even after the interviews... I'm going to be on Dancing With The Stars. This could be both very fun and very embarrassing. I'm a hip hop dancer, not a ballroom dancer. I know nothing about the foxtrot or the waltz, I can wop and I can dougie. Oh gosh, this is definitely going to be an interesting experience.
"Mom! I'm leaving!" I called out as I grabbed my keys and purse.
She came over to me, "Bye sweetheart. Have fun but be careful. Valentin is quite a bit older. If he steps out of line dont be afraid to tell him."
I stuck my shades on and rolled my eyes, "Of course mom, I'll see you later."
I walked out to my brand new black Escalade and hopped in. I live really close to the dancing studio where we would be rehearsing, so I got there fairly quickly. I took a deep breath and checked my reflection in the mirror. "You can do this, you dance all the time." I whispered. I needed to give myself a pep talk, cause I'm really nervous about this.
I hopped out of the car and walked into the studio. I opened the door and the cameras were already there, as well as my new dance partner, Valentin Chmerkovskiy. He grinned at me as I walked towards him.
'Val’s POV'
She walked into the room and she was like a breath of fresh air. So incredibly beautiful. I grinned as she walked towards me.
"Hey!" She exclaimed.
"Hi." I said still grinning.
"Zendaya, nice to meet you." She grinned and I pulled me into a hug.
"You're very beautiful." I said gesturing to her body. I can be a little blunt, but I have to be honest with her.
"Thank you!"
"How old are you?" I asked. She must be at least 18 or something, but she’s definitely young.
She looked a bit embarrassed as she replied. “I’m 17.”
I was definitely shocked, I tried not to show it, but I think she noticed. "17? I'll take that back." I said with a laugh. Crap, guess I have to try and forget all the thoughts about her.
She smiled, "So I guess I'm like the youngest."
I chuckled, "Ever."
She nodded, "Ever."
I didn’t want her to be uncomfortable so I just moved on. "Well let's do this, here's the envelope... What's our first dance?" I asked passing it to her. As she began to open it I drummed against my lap in anticipation.
She looked shocked as she read what was on the card, "Contemporary."
"What?!" We both exclaimed together.
"Contemporary in the first week?" I asked shaking my head.
She sighed, "Yup."
"What is that?!" I exclaimed. I have a lot of planning to do now, cause I don’t want to sacrifice the passion of the dance just because she is so young.
"Well I guess we should get started. We have a lot of work to do." I said with a grin.
"Just so you know, I dance hip hop.. Not ballroom. Just as a warning." She said nervously.
I chuckled, "Trust me, you'll do great."
"So what exactly is in a Contemporary dance?" She asked as she sat across from me on the floor. We both began to stretch and I smiled, "It's a whole lot of passion and acting. For our purposes we're going to tone down the passion just a bit because of your age, so that means our movements and facial expressions will have to be ten times more intense."
She nodded, "Acting I can do."
I grinned, "Yeah, I figured you'd have no problem with that. Now how do you feel about lifts? I figured we could throw some of those in there since you're really petite."
She blushed slightly and didn’t meet my gaze as she stretched, "No, I don't mind. As long as you don't drop me.." She said glancing at me with a smile.
I laughed, "I've carried people much heavier than you, I can assure you that you'll be safe in my arms." Is it awful that I would love to hold her in my arms?
She lifted my eyebrow slightly and smirked at me, "We'll see." I just laughed as I pulled her to her feet.
'Zendaya’s POV'
As he began to teach me the routine, I started to get a bit overwhelmed. There are a lot of intense movements in his choreography. After about half an hour we stopped to take a breather. He came over to me and grinned. "What?" I asked with a laugh.
He slipped his hands onto my shoulders and applied slight pressure that forced my shoulders up. "Great posture will get you very far in this competition." He said in my ear as he stood behind me.
"Sorry, slouching comes naturally when you're a hip hop dancer." I said with a laugh as I turned to face him.
He shook his head and laughed, "Anyways, for the rest of today we're going to keep working on the choreography, tomorrow we'll put it to music and then Wednesday we'll start with the lifts. This way you'll have a couple of days to start trusting me."
I laughed, "Sounds good. Let's get back to work."
He smiled and started the moves again. I copied his movements like I did before. After working on the beginning, he taught me how to do the turns. I kept messing up. I would do more than 2, or I would get dizzy and stumble when I stopped. He was extremely patient with me, which made me really happy cause this is really nerve wrecking and embarrassing.
For most of the dance he and I will be separate from each other, but we'll be doing the same moves. Hopefully we'll be synchronized because right now I'm a bit off and it makes his amazing choreography look really bad.
I laughed as I stumbled over my own feet again. He chuckled and walked over to me. "How about we work on the parts where we'll be dancing together?"
I nodded, "Okay, but I don't promise that I'll be any better at that!"
He just shook his head and smiled as he took my hand. He placed me in front of the mirror and stood at an angle behind me, I watched him through the mirror as he placed his hand on his chest. "This part will be simple for you. Put your right hand over your heart and at the same time we're both going to pop our chests and slowly glide forward." He demonstrated and I copied him almost exactly. He grinned, "Perfect! Now you're going to turn to me while keeping your lower half facing away. You'll need to point your toe and bring your left hand up towards my chest. Just let it hover in the air close to me, but not actually touching."
As I was standing there waiting for what to do next, he was just smiling at me. "What?!" I exclaimed with a laugh.
"You're amazing!" He said as he stared at me.
I blushed and looked away, "We've only gone over two things for the beginning of the dance, tell me I'm amazing when I do it all to the music and it looks good."
He laughed, "Fine. Here's what we're doing next: We're both going to bend at the knees and slide a bit to the right and as we're doing that your arms are going to cross each other and I'll take your left hand in mine. It's crucial that you get a good grip on me cause I'm going to be your anchor for your next move." Again he demonstrated. I did as he said and put my hand in his as we slid to the right. "Good!" He praised as he twirled me in his arms. He continued to show me the steps and I worked hard to try and commit them to memory.
After awhile we stopped and Val called it a day. As we were exiting the studio I turned to him, "So what would you rather me call you? Val or Valentin?" I asked.
He smiled but didn't look at me, "I'm fine with both, how about you switch on and off between the two and decide?"
I laughed and nodded, "Sounds good, but for me it's Zendaya, no other options."
He laughed and nodded and walked me to my car. "You were great today, can't wait to get to work again tomorrow." He pulled me into a gentle hug and I wrapped my arms around him and replied, "Yeah, today was great. Thank you so much!" As he pulled away he grinned widely at me.
Today was awesome.
*Two Days Later*
"Are you ready to do this?" Val asked smirking at me from below.
I glanced at the floor nervously, "Are you sure you won't drop me?"
He laughed, "I swear I won't, just jump into my arms. We're not going to try the actual jump just yet. I want you to be comfortable with me first."
I bit my lip and nodded, "Okay, just give me a second."
He had his arms held out in front of himself and he was smiling up at me. I took a deep breath, trust him Zendaya, you can do this. I closed my eyes before throwing myself backwards off of the table and into the air. Within seconds I was in Val's strong arms and he was grinning at me.
"You did it!" He exclaimed.
I laughed and grinned, "I did! And you caught me!"
He cracked up as he set me down. "Like there was any doubt. Now for the actual jump, you have to jump straight at me but spin in the air so you land in my arms backwards."
I scrunched up my face as I tried to imagine what it would look like. "I dont know if I can do that." I said as I ran my fingers through my hair.
He scooped me up and placed me on the table again, "You can and you will. Now jump again, this time spin around in the air."
I laughed, I jumped into the air and tried to spin. I was really off so he ended up catching me awkwardly. He looked down at me and we both busted up laughing. "That was horrible. I'm not gonna lie." He said putting me on my feet.
"I know. Let's do it again. Make it perfect." I said clapping my hands together.
He grinned and helped me back up. We did it over and over again until it was semi-perfect. We worked on the lifts, but after the jump, I wasn't scared that he would drop me. They seemed to go fairly well, but we still need a lot of work.
At the end of rehearsals we were both sitting against the wall together. I tilted my head back and he turned towards me. "I don't want you to be good, you know what I'm saying? I want you to be incredible, every time. Okay?"
It was really nice of him to say so I just nodded, "Okay."
*Monday Night*
I pulled my hair across one shoulder and tapped my foot nervously. We're about to go out there and I'm really freaking out. Val walked up to me and took my hand, "Our turn." He mumbled pulling me up from my seat. I followed him and focused on my breathing.
As we stepped onto the ballroom floor, Tom was speaking and then he started introducing us. I positioned myself like Val had instructed, and then his hands were on my waist and he was turning me the other way. He pointed at the camera and whispered in my ear, "They have to show our rehearsal video first." I laughed and nodded. How embarrassing!!
The video began to roll and I smiled as I watched the two of us meeting and practicing together.
"Are you ready?" Val whispered in my ear.
I nodded as the video ended and we placed ourselves on the dance floor. As the music began, I let it carry me and I did all of the movements that we had rehearsed for hours on end.
As we got to the part where I was walking away from him he pulled me back and I grinned at him. A smile spread across his face as well and we finished the dance with the ballroom erupting into applause. I grinned widely as we both bowed.
We were both breathing heavily as we walked over to the judges. Their comments were a blur, because I was so pumped and relieved after dancing. As far as I could tell they were all good. Val took my hand and pulled me up to where the other dancers were.
Brooke spoke to us a bit before our scores were announced. Again, it was all a blur. As the three scores came up, I gasped and clapped happily. All three were 8's. That's crazy for the first week!
Val turned and pulled me into a hug, wrapping his arm around my head and holding it close to him.
Brooke turned to Val, "Highest score of the night so far! Val what do you think?"
He still had one arm around me as he spoke, "I feel blessed. I'm very proud of Zendaya first and foremost. I'm very excited to work with such incredible talent, and uhm she's amazing. I'm very proud of you." He smiled at me.
"Thank you." I breathed grinning at him.
The cameras moved away from us and he pulled me into a hug again. "You were absolutely fantastic!" He exclaimed.
I beamed at him, "You're too nice! Thanks Val."
Someone in all black, with a wireless mic came over to us, "We need to get you on camera reflecting about the dance."
Val and I both nodded and followed him to a couple of chairs with a camera set up in front of it. I was so thankful to sit down. I breathed a sigh of relief and smiled at Val.
He grinned at me, "You know what you were so good, I'll allow you to just slouch for as long as you want." He placed his hands on my shoulders and gently pushed them down.
I smiled and cheered, "Yes! For two seconds."
He laughed and grinned at me. We talked for a few more minutes and then we were allowed to go watch the rest of the dances. As the night came to a close, we found out that we were at the top of the leaderboard. I was sitting down as they announced it and Val pulled me to my fight and wrapped me in another hug. I grinned and laughed as he squeezed me tight.
As we left the ballroom I turned to him, "I have kind of a weird question for you, please feel free to say no, of course!"
He chuckled, "Go ahead and ask me Zendaya."
"Would you be interested in going to the Kid's Choice Awards with me on Sunday night?" I bit my lip as I waited for his response.
"Of course! I'd love to go. I just have one request."
I raised my brow at him and he continued, "Come with me to the Children's Hospital of Orange County to visit some patients. I'm sure they would love to meet you."
I grinned and nodded, "Sounds like a lot of fun! Count me in."
He laughed, "Great, I'll text you later tonight with the details and you can fill me in for Sunday night."
"Sounds good! I'll see you tomorrow." I said as we parted ways to walk to our cars. He hugged me yet again.
"See you!" He called and waved as he opened the door to his car.
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Hey everyone! I hope you liked the rewrite of the first chapter!! I'm so sorry It took so long! I've been SO busy and I was having trouble figuring out what I wanted to put into this chapter. I'm sorry if it sucked!! I changed it up a bit, let me know what you think!
btw. for fictional purposes, I made her 17, almost 18.. and he's like 23. Just so that it isn't tooo innapropriate. Cause right now it would be like 11 years age difference haha.
Video of their rehearsal and performance is on the right. Also a picture from the performance is there as well! :)
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-- Jocelyn xx