Pas De ... Don't

2. Overture

            

            Kate didn't know how she would have managed without her new best friends. They whisked her away from curious onlookers and stayed with her through the first night and the series of medical appointments the following day. She wandered in a bubble, struggling to keep her emotions locked down. There was no time to rage and cry with a new routine to manage in a knee brace.

The deepest bruises on her back had come up in a lurid mix of purple and greenish-yellow freckled over with small red dots. She usually managed not to jump when Vince's hand brushed against them, but not always. Mid-week he took her aside, saying, "Look, we are trying to tempt and seduce so the way you flinch every time I bring you close is just not going to cut it. What gives?"

Kate turned and lifted the back of her shirt. Vince gave a low whistled. "Well, that explains a lot."

"It should be fine by Friday's dress rehearsal. The arnica gel helps."

"I can see these bruises are fading but how are you doing?" Vince's dark eye were full of concern.

"Don't get all gooey and sympathetic. I'll get through this. Everybody survives their first big crush. They don't usually have to do it in front of a television audience but it isn't fatal. Now are we going to run through from the top?" Kate put her hands on her hips and tapped her toe.

"Okay. I get it. Just know we are here for you and since we are pretending everything is fine try not to skip any more meals, not if you don't want your costume to fit like a potato sack." Vince said as he reset the music.

Kate blushed. She had been surviving on coffee and the occasional protein shake because she wasn't sure she could keep much else down. It was her stress thing. The thing telling her no matter how much she pretended, she wasn't fine. Waking to wet pillows with a hollowed-out ache in her chest told her just how not fine she was. She honestly didn't know how she got out of bed each morning except she couldn't let all the haters now spamming her social media channels win.

When Sarah-Anne spotted the mean-spirited attacks she took charge, systematically blocking bad actors, posting warning to make it abundantly clear such behavior would not be tolerated. She also took it upon herself to edit Daniel out of Kate's contact list and delete the avalanche of messages he had sent in the days following 'THE BETRAYAL'. That was what she and Bethany termed his actions but they did not let Kate hear their other all-caps names for the guy.

"I didn't see him flirting with Natalie, did you?" Sarah-Ann asked Bethany when they were on their own at the apartment.

"No. He was just pleasant to everyone so I still don't get it. Why wait until the semi-finals to drop his regular partner?" She scratched her head.

"Face it, for most of the competition Daniel needed Kate more than she needed him. Pretty sus that the only time he scored higher than her he drops her for another partner." Sarah-Ann still fumed but quickly changed the topic when Kate returned. She could see how the younger girl barely kept it together and had a mug of tea ready.

Kate managed to get through the rehearsals with carefully orchestrated timing helped by the four dancers paired with returning champions being kept on different schedules from the main competitors. Still Kate couldn't help trying to catch a glimpse of how Daniel was doing with his new partner. After all, she had come half-way across the world so he could take his shot. Theirs was supposed to be the big romance of the season, a fairytale ending. All grins and glitter until she got pushed to the sidelines. Of course, the move spiced up the tension for the home audience. She would have understood if it had been scripted but it wasn't. When she spotted him and Natalie just before dress rehearsal, she saw no sign Daniel was anything but pleased in his new situation