breaking nia ~n.f.~

Chapter 2

Nia gulped as she entered the Abby Lee Dance Company. Practically hell on earth.

She wanted to scream, run, jump off the ledge of the building. Former dancers smiled at her. Their pictures hung the walls with pride, pride Ms. Abby took in her students. But not in Nia.

She flung her pink ALDC bag down and said hi to Maddie and Paige. They had become awfully close now. Always together, always having a fun time. The fans always complained about how Paige had forgotten Chloe, but what about Nia?

"Worthless." She told herself in her head. Paige was braiding Maddie's hair. She laughed and turned, a loving look in her eyes. Nia choked down the tears and told herself to stop.

She got a glimpse of Josh leaving. He had dropped Paige off.

As Nia ran her finger down her thigh (a bad habit) she remembered at a meet-and-greet, when someone asked Chloe if she was dating Josh (which she responded with a disgusted face), Christi answered for her, saying no. And she thought Josh had a "thing for Nia."

Clearly she was wrong, Nia thought to herself, hot anger spreading through her body.

Stupid

Naive.

Her eyes filled to the brim with water. "Excuse me." She told no one in particular.

She went into the bathroom, filled with painted-on swooping stars. It was a nice red-beige color. Nia prepared her three fingers, huddled over a toilet, and stuck them down her esophagus.

She vomited, quietly flushed the toilet, washed her hands, rinsed her mouth out, and walked out of the bathroom.

"Nia! Get your lazy butt in here for pyramid!"

Nia dreaded pyramid. Even though Dance Moms had ended when she was thirteen, she was on a new show: simply called "The Abby Lee Dance Company". Each week it focused on a certain company. It started with the minis first, then the junior, then the senior, which Nia, Maddie, Paige, Chloe, Kendall, Mackenzie, and a bunch of other people were on.

Abby tore off the first piece of a paper. Nia, smiling, her straightened teeth white, her hair all nice and puffy, wearing a pink dress she had bought at Bloomingdales.

"Nia, you're on the bottom because you did poorly last week." And with that, Ms. Abby gave her a frown of disappointment and moved onto the next.

A bunch of ripped papers later, Abby finally assigned assignments for the competition, Starbound, in Pittsburgh.

Nia pressed her nails into her leotarded hip as the assignments rang out. She didn't get a solo. Gloom draped her like a curtain.

"Okay, start stretching!"