"Jennifer?" she heard. Jennifer quickly got up and washed her face, her crystal blue eyes turning a lighter shade of blue from crying.
"Jen??" she heard Maribelle and Anna's anxious voices.
"Yeah. I'm in here!" She called out, before her friends could freak out.
"Can you please open the door??" she heard. Jennifer finished rinsing her face and unlocked the door, only to have Anna engulf her in a tight hug.
"Don't let that whore get to you. Don't give her what she wants." Anna said, and Jennifer nodded against her shoulder.
"Okay. Now come on they're announcing who made it!" she said, and grabbed Jennifer's hand, who grabbed Maribelle's hand and they all ran back onstage. Scooter gave her a worried look, but Jennifer avoided his eyes.
"All right ladies. We've came to a decision. We're picking three girls, only because that's how many of you we need. Once I call your number, step up. If not, I'm sorry; we just couldn't pick all of you, no matter how much we wanted to." Scooter said, and Jennifer looked up to meet his eyes as her and the girls held each other's hands, waiting.
"All right, first number..." he paused, building the suspense and Jennifer tried to hold back a laugh. "Number 389, Maribelle." Scooter said, and Anna and Jennifer both hugged Maribelle in congratulations. Maribelle, a huge smile on her face, stepped forward a few steps while everyone clapped.
"Okay, second number..." Scooter once again paused, and Maribelle looked back to her best friends and winked. "Number 776, Anna." Scooter announced, and Anna squealed as Jennifer gave her a congratulatory hug.
"And last, but certainly not least, we have number..." he looked at a girl on the far right side of the stage and smiled, causing the girl to start breathing heavy in anxiety. Geez Scoot, keep doing this and these girls are gonna faint. Jennifer thought, with an inward smile. "098, Jennifer!" Scooter finally said, and as everyone clapped, Jennifer timidly made her way to the front of the stage and hugged Maribelle and Anna, who were squealing like fan girls.
Jennifer looked behind her to see girls crying in disappointment, but some, the ones who were dressed similar to Jennifer, Maribelle, and Anna went up to congratulate them, which they took with grace. Jennifer looked at Scooter, who gave her a thumbs up and clapped with everyone else.
Once all of the other contestants left the Staples Center, Scooter called the girls down to meet the crew.
"And this is Justin. Justin, this is Maribelle, Anna, and Jennifer, the girls I told you about." Scooterfinished, his arm around Jennifer's shoulders. Justin shook each of their hands and lingered a bit on Jennifer's, who immediately shook it politely and pulled away, looking at the floor. Justin looked to Scooter for help, butScooter merely gave him an I'll explain later look. Justin was getting frustrated at Jennifer's cold shoulder attitude, and wanted to know why she was blowing him off.
"Hey... Jennifer. Can I talk to you?" Justin asked, pulling her from Scooter's grasp. She turned and looked to Scooter for help, but he merely shrugged and mouth the words just give it a try.
Justin pulled Jennifer backstage and into a supply closet, which immediately made Jennifer nervous.
"Hi." He said.
"H-hello." Jennifer replied quietly, looking down at her ballet flats.
"Well... I was just wondering why you keep blowing me off and giving me weird looks. I wanted to know what I did." Justin said, not wanting to beat around the bush. Jennifer looked up at him with scrunched eyebrows.
"I'm sorry. I never realized I was doing that." Justin absentmindedly grabbed her hand but she pulled it away, making Justin frustrated all over again.
"Like that! I'm trying to be nice, but you're acting like such a bitch!" he exclaimed, causing Jennifer to flinch.
"I'm sorry. I-"she didn't know how to finish, so she did the second best thing: she ran out of the supply closet, leaving Justin even more frustrated and angry at Jennifer.
"Two can play at this game." Justin said quietly, directing it at Jennifer's retreating figure.
"Jennifer found Maribelle and Anna and stuck tightly to them as the three girls met Kenny, Alfredo, Pattie, Alison, Carin, Marvin, and the rest of Justin's background dancers. Justin finally emerged from backstage, scowling. Jennifer locked eyes with Justin for what seemed like the hundredth time that day, but his expression hardened even more, making her tear her eyes away in fright.
"Now... I don't know about you guys, but I'm starving. Watching girls dance to the same song all day really gets it outta you." Scootersaid, and everyone laughed and agreed.
"We could go to Jennifer's house!" Maribelle suggested.
"Would your parents be okay with that?" Pattie asked, concerned, as Justin wrapped his arm around his mother's shoulders.
"Probably. They're most likely not gonna be home anyway, so it wouldn't matter." Jennifer said to the floor, and Scooter walked over and wrapped his arm around Jennifer's shoulders.
"I'll call them and tell them anyway." Scooter said, and everyone agreed to follow Scooter and the girls to Jennifer's house, but Jennifer saw that Justin didn't look too happy. Jennifer was confused as to why he was acting so harsh all of a sudden, for no reason.
Once everyone had gotten to Jennifer's house safely, Jennifer had ordered twelve pizzas for everyone.
"So Jennifer..." Pattie said, as everyone sat down in front of the TV to wait for the pizzas. "When did you start dancing?"
"Well, I took hip hop and a bit of ballet when I was about four, and then I stopped until eighth grade, when I started practicing with Anna and Maribelle for their cheer dances. After that, I started going to a dance studio out here in L.A, and they taught me some ballet and contemporary, and now I just always dance whatever." Jennifer explained quietly. Pattie nodded, taking in all of Jennifer's speech.
"That's amazing! Do you girls have any nicknames you go by?" she asked the three girls, sitting across from her.
"Yes, Jennifer goes by Jen, I have too short a name to go by anything but Anna, and Maribelle goes by Belle." Anna explained. Pattie nodded, and Justin smirked.
"Jen? Why don't you go by Jennie?" he asked Jennifer, causing her to stiffen at the name.
"I don't uhh... really like that name very much." She said, her voice barely above a whisper.
"Why not?" he asked, knowing he pushed a few buttons.
"I just don't." she said with a shrug, trying to pull it off as no big deal, but Maribelle and Anna knew that just the mention of that nickname was eating Jennifer alive. Before Justin could ask any more questions, the doorbell rang, indicating the pizza man had arrived. Jennifer jumped up and practically ran to the door, paying the man and retrieving the pizzas and setting them up on the little island in the middle of the kitchen.
"And 5, 6, 7 and 8." Justin said, looking at the background dancers through the mirror in the dance studio they were in, all of them getting the choreography quicker than he expected, especially coming from the new girls. Anna, he learned, was the jokester out of the three. Maribelle was the tough one, and Jen was the quiet one, and the one that bugged Justin the most. Each girl had a sort of concentration face put on, which made the distinction between them even more pronounced. Jennifer's eyebrows were scrunched together, and she would bite or lick her lips whenever she came across a part she struggled on, which wasn't very many, Maribelle had a completely serious face on, and she counted the steps in her head, and Anna would grit her teeth and smile to herself as she counted in her head.
"All right that was really good. Why don't we take a break?" Justin said, after they went through the routine a couple more times. Everyone wiped their sweaty foreheads and headed to get water while Justin walked up to the girls, smiling.
"How was your first rehearsal?" he asked them, only looking at Anna and Maribelle.
"It was fun. It's kind of hard to keep up though." Maribelle said.
"It was all right. I've had harder." Anna said, playfully punching Justin in the shoulder, causing him to laugh. Jennifer smirked.
"That's what she said." She told Anna, causing Maribelle to laugh out loud. Even Justin cracked a smile at her comment.
"That was a good one Jennie." Justin said, causing Jennifer to lose her smile almost immediately. Maribelle and Anna were commenting on Jennifer's crude response and didn't hear him. Jennifer looked at him in shock, tears brimming her eyes but she blinked them away.
"Th- thank you Ju-justin." she stammered, her voice cracking. He smiled at her innocently and walked away, feeling accomplished. Jennifer felt her heart drop and stomach churn in a bad way.
"All right people, let's get back to rehearsals." Justin called out to everyone, and all the backup dancers filed in the room. He heard Jennifer in the third row quietly mumble. "Belle, he called me Jennie. I heard him loud and clear!"
"Jen, stop. Maybe he forgot you said you didn't like to be called that." He heard Maribelle's reply and smirked, knowing Jennifer wouldn't argue.
"Okay, let's start from the top. Start the music please." He called out to his mom, who was acting as the DJ, starting and stopping the music for them.
"1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7-and-8" he counted continuously as everyone followed his lead.
A week later, and everyone was packing for the Believe Tour. Scooter had explained everything to Jennifer's parents about her going on tour, and of course they objected. Luckily, Scooter managed to convince them for Jennifer's sake.
As Jennifer filled her fourth and smallest suitcase with many fresh notebooks, several packs of brand new pens, many different books, her curling iron, her straightener, her phone charger, her brush and other toiletries, she heard a knock at her door.
"Knock knock." Scooter said. Jennifer smiled and carefully placed her favorite picture of her and Jeremy at the park, Jennifer on the swing looking up at Jeremy, smiling, and Jeremy looking down at Jennifer, also smiling.
"Are you almost ready? The bus is here. You're gonna be bunking with Justin, Belle, Anna, Marvin, Alfredo, Ry, and Kenny." Scooter said, and Jennifer shuddered. Throughout the past week, Justin hadn't been as nice to Jennifer as he was to Maribelle and Anna. Scooter understood why she shuddered and gave her a sympathetic look that she didn't see.
"He'll stop. Just give him time. He's just joking around right now, learning which buttons not to push." Scooter informed her. Jennifer turned to look at him.
"Then why hasn't he done the same to Belle and Anna??" she demanded. "Why is it just me??"
"Just give him time Jen! He's only joking around, I promise." Scooter said, and gave her a hug.
"Would I let anyone hurt you?" he asked, and she shook her head. "Okay, then let's go, everyone's waiting." He said, helping her with her suitcases down the stairs. Jennifer looked around for her parents, but frowned as she realized they weren't home to see her off, despite the fact that they wouldn't see her for two years.
"You ready for the tour life?" Scooter asked Jennifer excitedly, who smiled and nodded truthfully. Scooter helped her get settled into her bunk, her small suitcase on her bunk bed adjacent to Belle's, and on top of Anna's.
"Good luck, and have fun." Scooter said, before walking off the bus.