Beautiful Dancer

The Higher You Go, The More The Fall Hurts

Brady Farrar and Vega Ryans were definitely the best dancers at their studio.

It often got annoying for the other kids, listening and watching as Brady and Vega got praised, and given special parts, while they had to be background dancers.

Vega and Brady were on a streak. Never once had they lost. They were always first, and were extremely professional, even at a young age.

These were some of the reasons the two had been asked to preform at one of the biggest competitions they had ever attended. They had been working on this duet for two months, and they had gotten everything down, but the lift.

"I know this is different for you guys," their teacher said. "But you need to be less shaky. You guys have been dancing with each other for years now, I know you guys have chemistry."

Brady and Vega nodded, trying the lift over and over again. By the time they were done rehearsing, the lift had been good. Not perfect, but enough to pass for the end of the day.

On the way home, Andromeda Ryans was asking her daughter what she thought about the dance.

"It's nice." Vega answered. "The loft makes me nervous, though."

"Does it?"

Vega nodded. "Yeah. But I trust Brady."

"What if he drops you?" Rigel asked, his own dance bag thrown on the floor of the car. "Then what?"

Vega rolled her eyes, shifting in her seat. "He's not going to drop me."

"But he might."

"But he won't." Vega snapped, rolling her eyes at her brother.

Rigel stopped responding, and instead, went back to looking out the window.

Vega turned back to her own window, and ran through the dance over in her head. Her heart would spike up a bit when she thought about the lift, and she tried to convince herself that everything would be okay, and nothing bad would happen.

In his car, Brady was worrying as well. He had the tougher part in the lift. He actually had to do it. It wasn't that Vega was heavy, she was far from it, but Brady wasn't very strong yet, which made the lift harder to do.

"You okay, Brady?" Tricia asked.

The boy nodded the best he could. "Yeah. I just...I'm nervous for the lift."

"You'll do okay." She told him. "You and Vega work well together, and you've been practicing for two months now. You'll do it, and your streak will keep going."

Brady nodded, and he wrung his hands together, trying to keep himself from thinking of any bad outcomes.

{}~{}~{}~{}

It was the day of the competition, and Brady and Vega were going over the dance for the sixth time.

"Brady." Their teacher called. "You look nervous. You can't look nervous. Do you know what happens if you get nervous?"

Brady shook his head a bit.

"You drop her."

Brady and Vega shared a look, before turning back to their teacher.

"Run through it again. Come on, you guys have been doing this for two months, you should have lost the nerves after week four."

Brady nodded, and they ran through it again, and again until it was time for them to go on stage.

"We got this." Brady mumbled. "Are you ready?"

Vega nodded, and the two stood backstage waiting.

Finally, when it was their turn, they walked out on the stage, and began their dance. Everything was going beautifully. Everything until the lift. When Brady lifted Vega over his head, his foot turned the wrong way, and his hands went too far back, and Vega was falling out of his hands.

There were gasps of horror from the audience, and Brady was kneeling next to Vega. When she didn't get up right away, they sent someone for backstage to help her.

Luckily, nothing had been fractured or broken, but the way she landed, made her nose bleed.

The two left the competition after that. Brady and Vega both went home, one crying from pain and embarrassment, and the other from guilt.

Afterwards, two years had gone by since Brady and Vega had talked to each other. And it would have been longer, had they both not been asked to join the Abby Lee Dance Company competition team.