The next morning my father didn't utter a word. But I bet the bags under my eyes, and the fact that they were bloodshot could tell you the whole story. He let me not talk about any of it; and I really didn't want to.
My friends from Lima had kept me up on the drama that transpired afterwords. I understand the aggression, but Santana really needs to learn to calm down. It might help her better in the long run. Besides the depressing news of all that happened during their time after nationals, many of them texted me their summer plans/adventures and wondered what I was doing during my three months.
I gave them the general answer of dancing as I didn't really know what I was going to be doing if anything at all. I never made any plans to meet up with them over the summer giving that same generic answer.
I hadn't danced that entire summer either. Ironic, I guess. I couldn't muster up the strength or motivation. Again, dad didn't say anything. But I could feel my joints aching, my muscles needed to be stretched. It was quite literally starting to hurt me not to dance. Especially since I had gotten rid of that whole walking thing for the most part. I rarely left for the bathroom, not feeling bothered to go. My dad would bring me all the food I needed, or it would already be in my room. I worried about ants but quickly came to the conclusion that I didn't care.
I was also back to watching tv. The brief welcoming of Jesse back into my life had reset my spiraling and moping back to the start. I think my dad understood that and let me mope. He had gone through the same when my mom left basically right after giving birth to me. He probably didn't get much time to mope, having a new baby to take care of...
I didn't know how much time my father had spent moping over the sorry excuse that was my mother, but for me, it had been three short months and school was starting again very soon. My senior year. Then I would be heading off into a future that I wasn't sure what it would consist of.
I sigh, plopping myself to lay back on my bed. I was hurting,- and not just emotionally- I wasn't hungry, and I was bored watching my show. I smack my hand around my bed looking for my phone. When I finally manage to acquire it, I unlock it and click onto my dads contact. I patiently wait for him to answer the phone.
"Hi, sweetie!" He greets in an intensely cheery voice.
"Hi, dad."
"What's going on, hun." He asked. For a moment, I seriously thought about telling him everything and ranting to someone for a good few hours before apologizing about how I had been acting all summer. But then I thought about how weird I would feel about it afterwords(not the apology, the ranting). No matter how good the relationship between us was.
"I was wondering if you could check the dance studio roster? Has it been booked for anyone today?" I ask him. He doesn't answer for a solid minute and I just assumed he was immediately going to check without any questioning. How foolish I was.
"You're going to dance?" He asks, surprise evident in his tone.
"Yeah dad."
"... Should I call Paige and have her come by?" He questions. Fear instantly grips my like a vice. I go rigid on my bed thinking about how she'll react once she sees me.
"N-no dad, that's fine. I'll just be dancing by myself." I express to him.
"Alright. Now, lemme check." He says distractingly. I hear a few clicks on the other end of the phone.
"Nope! Studio's all clear, sweetheart. Dance to your hearts content." He cheers. We say a quick goodbye, I gather some of my stuff and head to the studio, praying deep in the back of my mind that Madame wasn't waiting there in the shadows for my return.
Once dressed, I leave the locker room and start my stretches, the sound of Mozart in the background to sooth the intense emotions running amok in my soul.
I let out a loud sigh as I start stretching. This. This is what I really needed. I stretch on the ground, I stretch standing up, I even go to the barre and stretch myself out while stretching. It definitely helped my aching body and the movements along with the music, helped keep my mind distracted.
After I finish stretching, I move over to the sound system, ready to change the music. I decided on going back to what Madame was working with me on before the whole Lima and Jesse mess. I had yet to do the mouse king dance perfectly. It was an intense and difficult dance to work on. I knew I could do better and by the time I could manage to build up my courage to face her, I would be able to do the piece to perfection. Though that wouldn't stop her from picking something out of it that she didn't like.
Just as I click on the song, the door from the locker room opens. My head snaps up from the laptop to see a familiar looking girl enter the room. Her eyes went wide as she walked in, only to see me already in there. We both kind of freeze and stare at each other for awhile. But I swear, if this stuck up college party girl talks crap, I will go feral. The studio was open. The space was free range.
Then like a snap, i remember her. She was the main girl who walked in with all those other giggling girls. She told me her name... No! Her friends name. It was Trinity! But she was the nice one, or at least the one who nodded at me.
The girl seems to shake herself out of whatever frozen state she was in. She sends me a kind of awkward smile.
"I'm sorry, was the room booked today?" She asks, genuinely curious. I send her my own kinda nervous smile.
"No, actually. It was empty so I just kind of used the space." I replied.
We both nodded and the room walked into an awkward silence. We both just stand there, looking around.
"Well I can go, if you want. I've stretched, I'm good for awhile." I offer, moving to shut off my playlist when she stops me.
"No, no. You were here first." She shrugs, walking towards the door.
"Well why can't we share it," I try and offer again. She stops and turns around, looking curious about the offer. "The room is surly big enough for two." I give her a look and a grin. She looks around the room and seemingly agrees as she walks in and places her bag along the wall.
"This is cool of you. I didn't mean to crash your time." She says, walking up to the laptop.
"It's no problem." I say, looking down for new music on the laptop.
"Well, I'm Miranda, and it's really nice to meet you." She says, holding out her hand. I smile politely and shake it.
"Madi."
I often find myself in peculiar situations. Such as touring around the new kid to a college I don't even go to. Or flying to Ohio with a guy I barley know, stay with him, meet all his friends and even become friends with some of them myself. Somehow get heartbroken over said guy I barley know; now here I am, sitting in the middle of a dance studio, talking to another person I don't really know and ranting to her about all these peculiar situations. I just really needed to get it out and in the open. She was there.
"He really took you all that way just to pay attention to another girl?!" Miranda asked in disbelief. I nod distinctly. "Then he basically told you that he has feelings for you, but then STILL chooses her?!"
"For the third time, yes!" I shout jokingly at her. We had gone through the whole trip about five times and each time, she would ask the same questions.
"I just can't imagine a guy doing all that for you, then choose someone else." Miranda shrugged, dropping her arms into her lap.
"Yeah? Well, that's what happened. I'm just glad I don't have to see him around UCLA anymore..." I trail off. She knocks her foot lightly into my leg, causing me to look up at her.
"Are you though? Because from what you've told me, it sounds like you're gonna miss him." She admits carefully.
I twist my legs, pulling myself up into a standing position. I start heading to the laptop without a word. At first, anyway.
"I can't miss him. Missing him will make it worse."I admit, shrugging my shoulders as if saying 'what can you do?' I can feel the sympathetic smile that Miranda sends my way as she gets up.
"We dancing?" She asks. I nod in reply.
"You do ballet?" I ask, scrolling through the music.
"Religiously." She says and I can hear the smirk in her voice.
"Good. Me too." With a click of a button, the finality of the song choice was struck. I head back over to her and get ready in fith position. I look over to her with a smirk of my own.
"Try and keep up."
And with that, we were off, the dance battle commencing.