A Love as Hard as This

Chapter 1

Noah's Perspective:

I walked closer to the studio. It's nice, I thought to myself. I had just moved to Toronto, and wanted to find the best studio possible. Apparently, The Next Step was the one.

When I stepped inside the glass doors, I was greeted by a woman. She looked as though she was in her 30's, and had golden-blonde hair that framed her medium-toned face. Her hazel eyes were kind as she looked me up and down, and she gestured for me to follow her as she made her way down the hallway.

"You must be Noah," she said. "I'm Miss Kate, the Studio Head of The Next Step."

"It's nice to meet you." I answered politely. My mother had told me to make a good impression. "Will I be in J Troupe?"

"You sure will. And..." Miss Kate paused at a doorway. "This is where the majority of your rehearsals will be. Studio B."

She opened the door and I looked around. This room was smaller than the one I had seen before, so I assumed the big one must've been Studio A. There were black ballet bars in the corner, which was a relief because ballet was my favorite. 3 girls were standing in one corner, and there were 2 boys in the other.

"Guys, this is our new edition to J Troupe. I'd like you guys to make Noah feel very welcome here. Starting with introducing yourselves." Miss Kate said, addressing the kids around the room.

One of the girls who was blonde spoke first. "I'm Camille."

The others said their names were Gabby, Josh, and Ethan. But one girl hadn't spoke yet.

"I'm Richelle." she said. I payed more attention to her as she spoke than anyone else. She had much more of an attitude, and when she caught me looking at her, her sea-green eyes narrowed. "Can I help you?"

Kate butt in. "You can actually, Richelle. I would like you to show Noah around."

"Sorry, but I'm not doing that." I wondered why this girl seemed to resent me so much already, we'd barely even met.

"You are. Start with Studio A, please."

Richelle gave in and walked quickly out of the door, barely giving me a chance to catch up to her. "Richelle?" I asked.

"What, Noah?" She snapped. Her eyes were cold again, and a little piece of her blonde hair was in her face. I had an urge to push it back, but I didn't know why.

"Well, you seem to dislike me or something, and I don't really know why."

"I can tell that you're going to be, well...not a good thing for me." I was puzzled. What did she mean by that?

Before I had a chance to ask, the doors to Studio A opened, and two people—a girl with a bob of brown hair and a boy with a black buzz cut—came out. I assumed they were probably in A Troupe, as they look older than Richelle and I.

Richelle sighed. "Noah, this is James and Riley."

They both smiled kindly at me, unlike Richelle, who has a scowl on her face. "It's nice to meet you, Noah." Riley said.

"Thanks, guys. Bye." said Richelle, grabbing my arm and practically yanking me away from them. I was confused again. Why would she do that?

"I did that because I want to show you around as quickly as possible. I don't want to be stuck with you all day." Richelle explained, answering my unasked question.

After a long half an hour, me and Richelle finally headed back to Studio B. Once there, we realized quickly that everyone else was cooling down and getting ready to go home.

"Great." Richelle muttered, turning to me. "You made me miss the rest of rehearsal."

"I'm sorry, I—"

But I didn't get to finish my sentence before she walked away. I decided it was best to just leave her, so I walked toward the boys.

"Dude, you don't want to go for her." Josh said to me.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"It's pretty obvious that you like her. But my advice is, don't. She's bad news. She's mean, she's got an attitude, and she doesn't care about anyone but herself. And if you get in the way of her and her dancing, watch out." said Josh.

I didn't realize she was this bad. But, I realized that I did like her. So I was going to do something about it, whether she was as bad as Josh said, or not.