Honesty

Chapter 8: Wake Up

My official apology for having a bad update schedule :)

~~~

"What's wrong?"

"Huh?"

"You keep checking your phone," Wanda said, glancing down at Kaia's phone that lay in her lap beneath the desk. Kaia flushed and grabbed the device, shoving it into her backpack. "What's so special on there?"

"Nothing," the brunette insisted as she picked up her pen and copied some notes from the slides ahead of her. "Have you done question 2?"

Wanda held up her empty notebook with a little smile. She'd paid absolutely zero attention to her history class this morning, and so far dance theory was getting the same attention. She found Kaia's distracted state a lot more interesting. "Are you seriously not going to tell me who's on your phone? I thrive off gossip."

"Not this kind," Kaia thought to herself. Truth be told, the 'who' on her phone was none other than Natasha. And Kaia didn't know of any other team members who had the captain's personal phone number, so she kept it quiet. "It's nothing really. Just annoying emails."

Wanda narrowed her eyes, tapping her pen lightly on her bottom teeth as she studied Kaia's side profile. "You're lying."

"Am not!"

"Sure, sure." Her voice was slightly too loud and a disapproving cough came from the professor at the front. Wanda smiled sheepishly and ducked her head down to her notebook, attempting the first question on the screen.

Kaia reached into her backpack discreetly and tapped her phone screen. Natasha was either incredibly busy, or really not interested in being civil with Kaia, but the girl's optimistic personality wouldn't let her even consider the latter. It had been over twelve hours and Natasha had still not texted back.

Slender fingers hovered over the keyboard as she agonized yet again about sending another message. Maybe she had been too forward? I mean, as far as she was concerned, they still saw each other as mortal enemies and fierce rivals. A small little compliment wasn't going to suddenly transform that.

The young Russian hated how much she cared about Natasha's silence. She always sought approval from people around her, but the last person she needed to care about was the mean spirited redhead who had a particular hatred for her. And the looming rehearsal tonight only intensified her nerves, setting her knee bouncing under the table subconsciously. At least she'd be able to see how Natasha was.

"Kaia," Wanda hissed from beside her. "You're tapping really loud." Her fingernails had been drumming against the wooden tabletop until she quickly stopped, clasping them tightly in her lap. "How much coffee did you have this morning?"

"Too much," she replied with a dry laugh. Liar. She hadn't had a drop.

~~~

"You think they decided on soloists yet?" One of the girls asked in the changing room. The whole room was astir, girls gossiping and chatting to each other as they changed from their day clothes into their dance clothes. Kaia kept to herself as she wriggled into her navy blue leotard. It was one of her favourites with a sheer floral design on the back. She'd won it at a dance convention last year and it quickly became a prized possession.

Her wavy hair already had two tiny braids in it, courtesy of Yelena this morning, so she brushed it back into a high ponytail and left the curls to fall naturally. They were a bit frizzy, but she couldn't find it in her to care.

"I heard that Stella gave Natasha the list straight after class yesterday," another piped up, causing some of the other girls around her to squeal in excitement. "Maybe they'll tell us today."