The stage is completely black but I can hear people cheering in the audience in front of us. When they are finally quiet enough, our dance starts. Early on in the choreography process, however, we decided to not just make this a dance, but a whole show. A three minute long show, but a show.
In the blackness, just one spotlight pops up to the left side of the stage, where Mason is standing, and into the microphone that’s hooked on her ear, she says her line.
“This is not just guns and bombs. This is happening everywhere, in everyone.”
Her spotlight disappears just as mine appears. I’m standing center stage and I look up mechanically like I’m supposed to. Luckily, the spotlight drowns out all of the people in the audience because I think that if I could see the audience, I’d start to freak out even more. The blinding white blur is way better than that.
“This is bullying. Online or in person. This is fighting with family or friends or boyfriends or girlfriends.”
Just as quickly as it appeared, the spotlight disappears and then Stella’s spotlight pops up with that dramatic thump of a spotlight and she looks up into the crowd even though I doubt that she can see any of them either.
“This is crying over a lost love. This is every pain that you have ever felt. This is hatred. Lying. Hurt. Crying. This is everything. This is everywhere.”
After she finishes her line, all three of our spotlights go on. We are all wearing the same outfit: A black tank top that’s mostly hidden by black lace that looks like a biker jacket only the lace makes it look more girly and it’s matched with black short shorts that are easy to move around in and custom made black boots that kind of look like my boots that I always wear only they’re made specifically for dancing. Mason on the far left of the stage, me in the center, and Stella to the far right, we are pretty spread out as we say the last line together.
“This. Is. War!”
As the music starts up, we grab our tiny microphones and throw them off of the stage where there are people waiting to pick them up and then we get into our first position. Now, the whole stage is lit up and everyone can see us but we still can’t see them because of all of the lights that are blinding us.
A warning to the people,
The good and the evil,
This is war.
To the soldier, the civilian,
The martyr, the victim,
This is war.
My heart is thumping loudly in my chest as we start our performance in front of the Arena full of people. At the front, there is a panel of judges- there’s five of them. Two of them were previous winners of this competition and the other three are super famous dancers or choreographers. We did our research before today but I don’t remember their names. Behind the judges, there’s an area where the press are watching and then behind that is where the audience is watching.
I can’t see anybody past the judges table because of the blaring spotlights as the song starts and I move through the moves like I have so many times before.
The past twenty minutes have been hectic for me because after I realized that my mom was actually talking to my dad this morning and he’s probably on his way here right now, I started to panic. I made sure that Uncle Chase realized what was happening before he went away to make some phone calls and then I almost started to hyperventilate. Stella and Mason just thought I was freaking out because of the performance so I didn’t have to tell them the real reason. I really do hate hiding that from them I just feel like if I’m going to tell them about my father, twenty minutes before the most important show of the summer is probably the worst time to do it.
However, although the upset over my father possibly coming back is pretty distracting, I have these dance moves burned into my skull and I’m trying to push everything else into the back of my mind to give the best performance that I can. I focus on the dance moves and the moves that come next. The moves aren’t very provocative at all- the dance is actually pretty masculine but not in a bad way. As we dance to This Is War, there’s strobe lighting and dancing spotlights around us to go with the dance which took a lot of prior planning to make the dance not just a dance, but a show. There’s a spotlight that follows me as I flip across the stage and when that happens, there’s a lot of cheering from the crowd and it kind of makes me want to smile but I know that if I let myself get distracted, I could possibly mess up.
Luckily, that doesn’t happen, and our fast pace and intense song is over in three quick minutes. It goes by a lot faster than I thought it would and when we land in our final pose, I inhale deep, quick breaths as I hear the audience erupt in cheers and applauses and this time, I really do smile and then I look over at Stella and Mason who are also smiling. We stand up and walk to the center of the stage, grasping each other’s hands, we face the audience for a good minute until they die down enough for the announcer to speak over them.
“Okay, thank you to these three talented ladies,” He says which is our queue to leave the stage so, still holding hands, we all hurry off of the left side of the stage which is what we were told to do and then we pause and start to freak out about what we just did.
“We rocked it!” Stella shrieked shakily.
I bend down, putting my hands on my knees to breathe and then I inhale deeply and then exhale. “We totally rocked it,” I say breathlessly, trying to understand how the hell I managed to perform such a terribly difficult dance in front of all of those people out there.
“We are awesome,” Mason grins. “We are totally fucking awesome.”
“I need…” I gasp out as I try to bring in more air for my lungs after that totally exhausting performance. “To go talk to… my mom.”
“I should go find my parents too,” Mason pipes before looking towards Stella. “Did your parents make it?”
She shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess I’ll go call them to see if they’re here.”
“And break!” Mason jokes before walking towards the hallway that’ll take us to the public area so that we can find our parents. I know where my mom is sitting because Uncle Chase had reserved seats for my mom and Jo near the front but Mason doesn’t know where her family is so we break up so that she can go find her own family while I go meet up with my mom and Jo just to make sure that they’re still safe.
They are safe but Chase isn’t with them because he has to sit at the very front of the audience with all of the other important people to the school like the school board and people like that but my mom and Jo are sitting about ten rows behind the front row of people and luckily, there are two buff-looking men sitting on both sides of them. They are both totally unharmed and, as I look frantically around the dark auditorium, I don’t see any hints of my father anywhere near them.
There’s another group of people performing right now so it’s really dark and almost impossible to see anything except for the stage but when I walk up to my mother, she is able to see me.
“I need to talk to you,” I say. The music is slow and kind of quiet, unlike our song which was super loud and thumping, so I don’t have to yell or anything.
“Sienna,” She greets me with a grin. “You were amazing up there, baby. I’m really so proud of you.”
“Mom,” I scowl at her, obviously not in the mood for flattery from her right now. “I need to talk to you.”
“Okay,” She sighs, obviously aware of what this conversation is about since she’s sitting between two body guards, I’m sure she can figure out that we know that she had contact with my dad. She stands up and the body guard on her right stands up and lets her into the aisle way to stand with me. Jo looks over at us and I wave at her but motion for her to stay in her seat so she just nods and returns her attention to the stage and the current performer. “Were the body guards really necessary?”
“Yes,” I snap. “When you put your family in danger, body guards are necessary, Mom.”
“Come on, let’s go talk in the lobby,” She pleads.
I shrug and start walking in the direction of the lobby. When we get out there, I’m ready to explode on her. Not only did she call my dad but she ruined this day that’s supposed to be super exciting and amazing and I’m supposed to be celebrating with my friends and boyfriend, not dealing with my mother and my fucked up father. I mean, even if we don’t win, we still worked our butts off and we still had a really amazing dance so I think a celebration is necessary no matter what but it’s harder to celebrate when I’m afraid that there’s a lunatic on our tail.
“What were you thinking?!” I shriek at her. There are a lot of people in the lobby but it’s well-lit and quieter than in the auditorium so I don’t care if other people hear us. “I gave you the option to stay there with him but you came here with us to get out. Do you remember that, Mom? Because now, not only are you putting yourself in danger, but you’re putting me and Jo in danger. Please just tell me that you didn’t tell him where we are. Please.”
“I know that you’re upset, Sienna,” My mom sighs. “But he’s changed. He’s not the same man anymore, I promise.”
“Oh, my God,” I scoff and roll my eyes at her. “Are you serious?! What makes you think that this guy has changed in the past month since you’ve been gone? He has been this way for seven years, what makes you think that he’s just going to change now? How can you be so stupid?!”
“He changed once,” She informs me. “He can change again.”
“And you are willing to risk your children’s safety on this hunch that he’s different now. That’s just great. How wonderful of you,” I chirp sarcastically. “I have worked my ass off to protect us from him. Even before I came here, all I did was protect you and Jo. That is all that I fucking did. I would give anything for you guys to be safe and you are just throwing it all away. I came here and then I brought you here so that we could be safe. I got us out! I did your job. And you’re throwing us right back in. You know what, Mom? You go ahead. You go right back to him but I will not let you drag me and Jo down with you. I won’t.”
“We can be a family again,” She assures me. “I know him. Jerry is a good man. I wish that you’d see that.”
I look at her and I start to cry a little bit because I can see that she genuinely believes that this man is a good man. “What is wrong with you?” I wonder hysterically. “Mom, you need help. Like, professional help.”
“Do not talk to me like that, Sienna Mast, I am your mother,” She snaps at me angrily.
“I’m not saying it to be mean!” I yell at her as tears prickle my cheeks. “I’m saying it because I’m afraid for you. But you can’t play that mother card because right now, you’re being a super shitty mother. He would have killed us if I didn’t get us out of that house and if you go back to him, he’s going to kill you. I can guarantee you that.”
“Why can’t you have faith in him? Just a little bit of faith that he can change?” She wonders sadly.
“Because I don’t believe that people can change that easily,” I shake my head at her. “But like I said, I can’t stop you if you want to go back to Georgia with him but you’re delusional if you think that I’m going to let you take Jo with you. It’s either him or us and if you try to take her back to Georgia, I’ll go to the police. I’ll be eighteen in a few months so I’ll fight for custody of her. With all of the crap that Chase’s PI has on him, I’ll win in a heartbeat, I can assure you that.”
“Are you saying that you’re going to try to take my daughter away from me?” She asks me incredulously.
“I’m saying that you can kill yourself but I will not let you kill Jo. It’s your job to protect her but you obviously won’t do that so it’s my job now and I’m going to take it more serious than you ever have with me or her. If you tried harder- just a little harder- this all could have been avoided but you ruined everything. I bet we could have gotten out a lot longer ago but you probably forced us to stay there in that house and I just never saw it. Gosh, I cannot believe you.”
“I want us to be a family again, Sienna,” My mom tells me as I’m walking away from her and back into the Arena. When I get in there, they’re going into an intermission break thing for twenty minutes so it’s the perfect time to grab Jo and go find Penn so that we can celebrate a little bit. “Why can’t we be a family again?!”
I ignore her yell as I slip into the Arena and go back to the front where I left Jo. She’s still there with the body guards and when I see her sitting there, I decide that she’s safer there with guards than she is wondering around this insanely crowded place with me and my boyfriend so I just go over to say hi.
“You looked so cool up there!” She tells me with a giggle. “You’re like a rock star!”
“Thanks, Joey,” I laugh, sitting down in the chair where my mom had been sitting prior to leaving to talk to me. “You’re going to stay here with these nice guys for a little while, okay?”
She frowns at me and her wide, scared eyes prove to me that she knows what’s going on, which really breaks my heart because I was hoping that she’d say oblivious to the whole thing. “He’s here, isn’t he, Nenna?”
I nod because I don’t want to lie to her about this. She does deserve to know because although she’s only seven, she’s really so much older than that in levels of maturity. “But these guys are going to keep you safe, okay?”
“Okay,” She nods.
I kiss the top of her head and then turn to one of the body guards. “She does not leave your sight unless she’s with Chase or me. Do not let her leave with her mom, do you understand me? Can you legally do that?”
“Legally? No, ma’am,” The body guard told me. “But we’ll do it anyway. You have my word.”
“Thank you,” I smile gratefully at him as I start to move closer towards the stage where I think Penn is sitting. All employees of the school get really good seats at the front of the seats so he’s probably up there. I’m on the right side of the huge auditorium and I don’t see him but my phone is back at our booth so I can’t call him. I decide to stand up on one of the unused seats to try and find him and when I see his head of brown hair standing on the other side of the room, I smile.
But only for a moment because after I see Penn, I see another familiar face standing right beside him everything goes numb. Penn is having a conversation with my father.
Without even thinking about it, I jump off of the seat that I’m standing on and start running towards them. Because it’s intermission, nobody is in their seats and everybody’s up walking around so there’s no easy path to get to Penn but I don’t care. I push people to the side as roughly as I have to as I run violently through the front of the auditorium. It feels like it takes me hours or minutes to get there but it’s actually probably only just seconds.
“Penn,” I gasp out when I reach him and my father that I haven’t seen in three months. Standing so close to him sends a sick chill down my spine but I don’t look up at him. I don’t think Penn knows who he is and I don’t want him to know until I can get some distance in between them because if I just told Penn right now who he is, he’d flip out and I don’t want that to happen.
“Hey,” Penn grins at me, wrapping an arm around my waist.
“We have to go this way,” I say quickly, tugging on his arm. “We have to go.”
“Why?” He wonders. “I’m actually talking to this guy about getting a doctorate. Is it important?”
“Super important,” I nod hysterically, tugging on his arm some more.
“Okay,” He agrees, stepping in my direction and I flood with relief but as I turn to walk away from my terrible father, I feel him put a hand on my shoulder.
All hopes of secrecy fly out the window as I freak out in some kind of PTSD episode or something and I scream at him. “Don’t fucking touch me!” I scream at my father. “Don’t you fucking dare.”
“Sienna,” I think Penn says my name but I’m not listening.
“I swear to everything on earth, I will kill you,” I seethe into his smug disgusting face. “I swear, I will, if you even think about touching me or my sister. I will fucking kill you.” And then I look over at Penn with a look that could probably kill a thousand lambs. “Follow me this way and do not look back at that man or touch him in any way. Just follow me.”
I don’t wait for a response before I grasp his hand in mine and pull with all of my strength to get Penn to follow me away from my dad and finally, he gives in and just walks away without being violent although I’m sure my outburst made it pretty obvious who the man is.
I take Penn back into the dressing booths and we sit down at my booth.
“So that was…” Penn trails off, probably still in shock.
I nod shakily and run my fingers through my hair. “Yeah.”
“He just started talking to me out of the blue,” Penn mutters, obviously surprised that the guy he was talking to out there is my dad.
“He knows who you are. I have no idea how but he does,” I gasp softly. “Thanks for not like… murdering him.”
“I’m going to,” Penn assures me. “I’m going to go back out there and tear him to pieces.”
“Penn, please don’t. I-“ I start to talk but an unexpected sob racks through my body and I can’t finish my sentence and then Penn’s arms are wrapped around me and I find my face being smothered into my boyfriend’s shoulder as I lose myself and start to sob. I explode with all of the adrenaline from the performance and then all of this adrenaline with my dad coming back and fighting with my mom- it’s all been really intense. Not to mention getting kind-of-blown-up by Gianna. I’ve had a crazy day.
“I got the tape,” Penn informs me as I start to calm down. “Gianna and Ava are being expelled. What do you want to do?”
“About Gianna?” I wonder.
“About your dad,” He corrects me. “Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it since apparently, murder is against the law even if it’s somebody as awful as him.”
“Can you go watch Jo?” I sniffle shakily, standing up from the folding chair that I’ve been sitting in. “She’s sitting on the left side about ten rows back.”
“I’m not leaving you, Sienna,” Penn shakes his head. “We can go get Jo together.”
“I need to go talk to Chase,” I say with a pleading gaze. “Penn, please, she’s with these body guards but I just want to make sure that she’s okay. I’ll be fine, I promise, I think he’s actually here for my mom.”
“Well, where’s your mom then?” He wonders.
“She’s probably with him. She told him where we are- she’s going back with him,” I mumble. “I have to go talk to Chase. Please, Penn, just go find Jo. Make sure that my mom doesn’t try to take her with them.”
“Okay, babe, just calm down, alright?” He suggests softly. “I know this is all scary and intense for you but I won’t let him get you or Jo. I promise. Just try to calm down the best that you can.”
I nod and lean forward, kissing his stubbly cheek just to help me calm down just a little bit more as I grab my phone from my bag and then start to walk away towards the auditorium to go find Chase.
Before I get too far, Penn wraps his arm around my waist and turns me around so that I’m facing him and then he unexpectedly puts his lips on mine for a quick kiss. “You were amazing out there by the way.”
I try to smile but it’s probably just a grimace. “When my family is safe, we can celebrate.”
“They will be,” He assures me as I walk away again towards the auditorium. When I get into the crowded and booming loud room, they’re still in the intermission break so there are people walking around all over the place. I start to politely move through the crowd and I can see Chase sitting up ahead but before I get to him, I feel somebody tug on my belt. I figure that it’s just stuck on something so I just keep walking and assume that it’s just going to unhook itself.
However, I realize that that’s not the case when that same tugging force pulls me back so harshly that I fall off of my feet but I’m caught by two arms.
I know that it’s my dad- his scent immediately makes my stomach start to churn in painful ways- and I start to thrash around but he wraps one arm around my arms and, before I can even scream, he pulls me into a small closet near the stage and in my effort to get loose, I try to get out of the room but he just violently shoves me and I stumble back before coming to a halt in the dark room as I hit my head on a shelf behind me.
“You have made the past few months very difficult for me,” He informs me, his voice sending terrible shivers down my spine. I rub the back of my head that is now painfully throbbing. “The good thing is that I’m here now and we can finally be a family again.”
I shake my head and glare up at him. His familiar grayish brown hair and wrinkles around his eyes that look like mine make me want to vomit. He’s really tall and leans over me like a dangerous sky scraper ready to crash and ruin everything around me. “That’s not going to happen,” I say shakily.
“Yes it is, Sienna,” He laughs. “And coming back to your mother’s hometown- you’re even stupider than I thought.”
“You couldn’t figure it out for three months,” I remind him dryly. “You wouldn’t have figured it out either if my mom didn’t call you. You’re even stupider than I thought.”
Again, he laughs a little bit before raising his right hand across his body near his left cheek and I know what’s coming but I can’t move away fast enough because my head feels like it weights ten ton and he backhands me across my right cheek, sending me flying to the side and crashing into a metal rack of equipment like extra microphones and unused soundboards.
I suddenly feel guilty because I told Penn that this wouldn’t happen but here I am- getting my ass kicked by this guy even though I thought that I was out for good. If I don’t show up, he’ll start to worry and I don’t want him to worry. I think about what Penn told me and I try to calm down as much as I can.
“You’ve really been a pain in my ass,” My dad tells me just before he raises his hand again but this time, it’s in the form of a fist and he throws it into my side. It’s a small closet so there’s really nowhere for me to go to dodge his blows so when he hits my midsection, I crumple to the ground, gritting my teeth so that I don’t yell out loud.
Thinking of anything that can get me out of this, I pull my phone out of my pocket- I don’t even try to hide it- and I dial the first number on my speed dial and press the green ‘call’ button. I don’t know who I called but I hope it’s somebody that’ll answer his or her phone. Before my dad can take the phone, I turn on speaker phone and slide the phone under one of the shelves so that my dad can’t get it and turn off the phone.
“What the hell was that?” He barks at me, kicking me in the side but it’s not as hard as he usually kicks so I’m alright.
“You flatter me,” I gasp, stumbling up to my feet and gripping the metal rack beside me so that I don’t fall do the floor again. “You’re a fucking surgeon and I’m still smarter than you.”
The phone rings loudly through the closet and he hits me again. I’m really dizzy so there’s no way that I can fight back so I’ll just have to take the beating until my rescuer comes to my rescue. Unless nobody answers because there’s no way to get my phone back from under that rack without getting a broom or something and I obviously don’t have time for that.
“You’re not so clever,” He shakes his head at me and then throws another punch to my gut. I clutch the rack so that I don’t topple over again but my legs wobble a lot. I start singing something in my head which is something that I always used to do when he started to hit me. It takes my mind off of the pain.
“Hello?” I hear Mason’s voice echo through the room, ending the continuous rings.
“Mason!” I cheer breathlessly. He punches me and I yelp for the first time but keep my grip on the metal. “I’m in the closet by the stage. Bring my uncle and anybody else that you can find. Anybody except for Penn. Hurry.”
He punches me in the mouth as if to keep me quiet and I finally lose my grip on the metal rack, falling to the floor with a bloody mouth.
“Oh my gosh, Sienna, are you okay?” She wonders into the phone.
He kicks me in my thigh and then in my waist and I yelp helplessly again. “Just hurry!”
“Okay. Okay, I’m coming,” Mason assures me, obviously worried yet very confused.
“That door’s locked, sweetheart,” My dad informs me. “They’re not getting in here.”
“You’re going to have to leave sometime,” I assure him breathlessly as the pain begins to overtake me and not even singing in my head will help me cope anymore. It’s burning in my core from all of the kicks and punches to my midsection and my face hurts all over the place with bloody spots and probably a lot of bruises as well.
Penn is going to have a huge ‘I told you so’ opportunity after this. Although, I’m sure that’s now how he’s going to phrase it, he’s probably not going to feel on top of the world about this. He’ll actually probably feel guilty about letting me go off alone and then I’ll have to convince him that it wasn’t his fault at all. Anyway, I’ve been through this- I can get through it again.
Even though my dad’s obviously incredibly angry right now- angrier than he’s ever been so while I wait for Mason, this is probably going to hurt a lot more than how bad it hurts right now.
“I met that boyfriend of yours, by the way,” He says, taking a break in the hitting and kicking to start taunting me. “I bet he’ll keep you in check if I let you stay here.”
“He’s not like you,” I pant past a bloody lip but I keep my eyes closed because I’m so exhausted and drowning in a dull pain everywhere. All of the pain just blends together in one big black cloud of pain seeping into every part of my body.
He laughs his gross laugh and then crouches down beside me. “Every man is like me, sweetheart.”
I take his position to my advantage to get the door unlocked, which will be slightly difficult because he’s between me and the locked door but I have to go for it. I lean against the metal rack and lift my right leg up, connecting my heel as hard as I can with his man parts since he’s pretty vulnerable now that he’s crouching so his legs are spread.
He grunts and falls back so I take my change and lunge forward towards the door. I grab the lock and twist it to unlock it before feeling a hand around my ankle, pulling me back away from the door and I scream out of surprise of the attack.
He stands up to lock the door but before he gets to it, it swings open and standing there are two buff men that are dressed in the same black outfits as the two body guards that I saw with Jo. My dad releases my ankle so I crawl to the opposite side of the closet as those two buff men walk in and grab my dad between the two of them and behind those two body guards, my uncle is standing and when he sees me, he hurries to my side along with Mason, who is standing there too with Brian and Stella. I look around for Penn and I’m incredibly grateful that he isn’t there. I want to clean up the blood on my face before I see him.
“We have a paramedic outside, Sienna,” Uncle Chase tells me. “Can you stand?”
I nod and grip his suit clad arm to help me stand. My legs are fine so I can stand but I’m pretty dizzy.
“What the fuck are you doing?” My dad spits, glaring daggers at Chase.
“I could ask you the same thing. It’s been a while, Jerry,” Chase says just before unexpectedly forming his own hand into a fist and he drives it into my dad’s jaw and he stumbles back but the body guards keep him steady. Brian has his arm wrapped around my waist to stabilize me and I hide my face in his shoulder so that I don’t see what’s going on but Chase doesn’t brutally attack my dad or anything, he just punches him and that’s it. “If you weren’t going to jail for the rest of your life, I’d probably kill you.”
“I’m not going to jail. I’m going back to Georgia with my family,” He snaps at his brother-in-law.
“Really?” Chase laughs humorlessly before he looks back at me and Brian. “Take her to the paramedics.”
“No,” I sputter. “I want to hear this.”
“Are you sure?” Brian wonders as Mason takes my hand in hers supportively.
I nod. “I want to hear it.”
“My PI in Georgia couldn’t find enough evidence to arrest you on domestic violence.”
“There is no domestic violence, Chase,” My dad assures my uncle even though it’s pretty obvious by the looks of my bloody face that he is lying about that.
“However,” Chase continues, ignoring my dad’s comment. “He emailed me earlier today that he has found positive evidence of at least five scams you’ve been behind at the hospital worth millions of dollars. Each scam is worth up to fifteen years in prison and if you could do simple math, that’s 75 years, pal. Embezzlement, fraud, money laundering… the list goes on.”
“It’s really over?” I mumble.
Chase turns and looks at me with a small smile and a nod. “It’s completely over Sienna. You and Jo and your mom are 100% safe.”
As Brian carries me out to the paramedic, I cry tears of relief and joy and just all of that adrenaline that’s still pumping through my body.
I don’t have a concussion or anything (the second time I’ve been tested for a concussion today) and luckily, I don’t need any stitches. I just get a lot of ice packs and bandages from the paramedics as I sit in the back of the truck while Stella, Mason, and Brian stand around me.
“Yeah so, I came to California because of my abusive father,” I supply awkwardly. “And that’s about all of the explanation I have.”
“Oh my gosh, that actually makes so much sense,” Stella says. “I am so sorry, Sienna.”
“It’s over now though,” I tell her. “It’s no big deal.”
Mason starts to say something but before she can get anything out, I see Penn coming toward us but I don’t have time to say anything before he’s wrapping his arms around me in a very tight hug and nuzzling his face into the side of my neck. It doesn’t take me long at all to reciprocate the hug and I pull him close to me.
“Please don’t be mad,” I say quickly. “I really didn’t think he’d find me and I didn’t want you to be there because I didn’t want you to see all of the blood. Are you mad?”
“Of course I’m not mad,” He assures me. “I’m just glad that you’re okay. I never should have let you go by yourself. Louis just called me and let me know that you were here.”
“I would have called you,” I mumble into his warm neck. “But I don’t have my phone. I’m okay though. I’ve had it worse before.”
“I was still worried,” He defends.
“Where’s Jo?” I ask when I remember that I asked him to go find Jo the last time that we spoke.
“She’s right there,” He pulls away from me and points to the left where Jo is sitting with Stella and Louis. I hop off of the back of the paramedic truck and wrap her in my arms for a tight hug and hold her and in mine.
“I’ve had a super long day. When is the award ceremony?” I wonder.
“We have ten minutes to get there,” Penn announces, taking my vacant hand in his.
“Well, let’s get to it then! We’ve got this!” Stella grins, trying her best to brighten the awkwardly intense mood.
We all make our way into the auditorium but I have to say goodbye to Penn and Jo at the stage because the dancers have to stand on the stage. The way that they announce the winner is that at first, they bring out Penn’s class of dancers and they announce the winner from that class and then they bring out Jamie’s class and announce the winner from her class. After they have the top two finalists, they bring those two teams back onto the stage to announce the final winner.
When Penn’s whole class is up there, I clutch Stella’s hand in mine and Mason is on the other side of her.
“After the hell you’ve been through today,” Stella says under her breath to me. “We better at least win this part.”
“Okay, after a long day of wonderful performances,” The announcer starts to speak over the speakers of the widely crowded auditorium that’s cheering with anticipation right now. “We are going to announce the winners that you have all been waiting for all year. The finalist from Penn’s class is…” The tension on the stage is almost palpable but after the day that I’ve had, I’m so tired that I’m not as nervous as I should be but I’m still pretty nervous. “Stella, Mason, and Sienna!”
After they said Stella’s name, we knew because there’s only one Stella in Penn’s room so we start jumping up and down excitedly on stage as we’re escorted off of the stage. Now, I’m even more nervous than ever because now, we actually have a shot at winning. The finalists from Jamie’s room are people that I’ve never met or heard of but I guess they’re pretty happy about Gianna’s expulsion.
“Now that we have our two finalist groups, let’s bring both groups up to the stage again to announce the winner!” The announcer invites us back onto the stage so we trot up the stairs and clutch hands again. The lights are still blinding so I can’t find Penn in the audience but I wish that I could see him because it would calm my nerves a lot.
“Now, the winners of the Vaughn Dance Competition for the summer of 2013 is…” The announcer breaks to build anticipation but I wish he would just get on with it already because I’m already a nervous wreck.
“Stella, Mason, and Sienna!”
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I'm going to stop doing extra updates now because that didn't work out too well and people were kinda rude so I'll see you guys on Thursday- there are only two chapters left :3
Also, thank you so much for all of the really good song suggestions! I chose this one from a girl named Brianna who emailed me on gmail but she never told me her wattpad name so I can't really give her a dedication.