Unpredictable (A Dance Story)

Chapter 33

The day after a hard practice was always torture, but the pain I'd felt as soon as I woke up the next day was overbearing. Even the slightest movement shot jolts of pain up my legs, and my left arm was stiff and heavy. Miss Sarah's idea of "never letting go of each other" throughout the whole dance literally meant we never let go...through the entire two minute and fifteen second routine.

I limped down the stairs and hobbled into the kitchen where I quickly made a bowl of cereal and sat down. The previous two nights of practice replayed over in my thoughts, but it only made my head hurt worse. The first night wasn't so bad...we practiced lifts and other partner work. However, Miss Sarah didn't go easy on us at all the second practice.

She managed to finish the whole dance in only three hours, claiming that she was too excited to keep us waiting. Her excitement never fizzled away throughout the night, though Holden and I lost interest about twenty minutes in after putting together the first quarter of the choreography. It didn't help our exhaustion when Miss Sarah forced us to clean up the dance about a billion times. I swear, she "had to pee" almost every ten minutes. It got annoying, but I didn't say anything. It was obvious that she was trying to make Holden and I spend extra alone time together, which was another one of her evil plans. I knew that our chemistry and emotion sucked, but she tried too hard to make us warm up to each other again and our friendship only got more awkward and uncomfortable.

I sighed, and dumped the rest if my cereal in the sink. Nationals were almost here. Miss Sarah expected a win. And honestly, I wasn't sure that we could give her one.

***

I smacked my lips together, staring anxiously at the door. Scott had asked if I wanted to come over and meet his sister. Of course I wanted to, but then what? Everything was happening so fast. Fake boyfriend one second, real boyfriend the next...What was I doing?

My phone buzzed. "I'm here:)"

We'd had plenty of text conversations since Karina's party, but I was still nervous. I called out "I'm leaving!" and heard a muffled response from my mom in the other room, then pushed open the door with a sigh.

"Hi Ella!" Scott exclaimed with a smile. He was standing outside the door. I smiled back. "Hey!"

"Alright, so my sister's really excited to meet you. She's older than me, and she's actually driving us, so she's in the car right now." He glanced back at the car in our driveway, clearly excited to be introducing me.

"What's her name?" I asked.

"Danielle," he replied, starting to walk toward the car.

I followed him without a word, taking a deep breath. He opened the door for me and I hopped in, his hand purposely brushing against mine for a second.

"Hello, Danielle! I'm Ella! It's so nice to meet you," I said enthusiastically. The girl behind the wheel looked like a female version of Scott with dark hair to her shoulders and the same hazel eyes.

"I know who you are! I follow you on Instagram. You're amazing." I smiled at her, but something was off. There was no emotion in her voice and she immediately glanced down at her phone, typing away. There was an awkward silence. Scott looked over at me, beaming.

Well, this is fun, I thought sarcastically. Danielle turned up the radio, then we were off to Scott's house.

"Our parents aren't home," Danielle said as we pulled in, "But they know you're here."

"Lovely," I replied. Scott reached across me to open my door, winking. I shook my head with a little smile. So gentlemanly.

We walked into the cute little house, Scott informing us that he made popcorn.