SEQUEL TO 'DANCING WITH DILEMMAS.'
New arrivals stir things up amongst the dancers at The Next Step, and with their loyalties being tested, how well will they be able to play the game?
The Next Step TV show reimagined as if it was made for the new a...
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Sitting at my desk, the words stare straight back at me, almost attacking me, it feels painful to not understand this assignment.
We were asked to write an essay for history class, but all I can think about is the history between Michelle and I. I'm just so angry, all that's been on my mind since I found out that James has become friends with her again is how dare he? How dare she?
I can't believe she had the thought to try to become friends with James and West again. It's just not fair, why does she deserve to have them back in her life after everything that she did to Emily?
The worst part of all of it is that everyone thinks I'm being petty for not forgiving Michelle as quickly as my boyfriend has.
How could I? I've seen first hand the impact that Michelle's actions has had on Emily. She hadn't cried for years, and now she's a shell of her former self, clinging to academic validation and trying to boost her grades so that she'll get accepted into a university far away enough to forget about all of her problems in Toronto.
I don't understand how people can think I'm the petty one. It's easy for James and West, they weren't the ones who had to pick up the pieces of their older sister and try their best to put her back together.
James has never had to do that for Alessia or Aria, and West has never had to do that for any of his siblings. It's not fair that I'm being labelled as irrational, from where I'm standing, I'm perfectly within my right to never speak to Michelle again.
I just hate the fact that I trusted her to begin with. I welcomed her into the studio, I was the one who tried to make her feel like a part of the team. When Stephanie invited everyone else but Michelle to her welcoming party at the start of last season, I was the person who took it upon myself to make sure Michelle wasn't left out.
I was the person who invited her to things, who bridged the gap. Yet I'm the person who gets no credit, I'll never be viewed in the same way as she views James, and it's not fair.
James is a good friend to her, but so am I. I was nothing but kind and loyal, I argued with my sister for months because of Michelle, yet she is the person that gets all of James' sympathy.
Poor Michelle, he says.
But what about poor Riley? Where is my recognition? Michelle wasn't the person who had to help make sure their sister didn't completely fall apart in the same way Emily did for me after our dad died. Michelle didn't have to cradle her older sister when she found out that she was cheated on in the same way that I did. Yet Emily and I are painted as the unreasonable ones.
Michelle never had to go through that, she never had to sacrifice her own well-being to ensure that someone else was okay.
The ink of my pen spills out across the page, splatters of the dark liquid run their course across the white and practically bare page, I can't bring myself to do this stupid assignment.
