Dancing in the Dark ✓

21 | sasha

The filming went more smoothly than I worried about. Even though there were minor hiccups like the lighting equipment flickering at one point, Theo calmly took it in stride and set to fix it along with Lars. Filming the dance sequences didn't take too long either, with Hiransh and Daisy leaving straight after for an early Christmas dinner. 

"Ah, the most wonderful time of the year," Raphael sighed. 

"Time to get fat with New Year's as well," Davi added. 

"Have a good rest before we start with editing," Theo chuckled. 

"Are we only meeting again next term?" Halima wondered aloud. 

"Yes," Lars confirmed, suspiciously cheery. 

"Thank you all for your hard work thus far," Theo re-affirmed. "If you guys are around for Christmas, I think my mom is hosting a Christmas lunch again. Feel free to pop on over."

Raphael beamed. "I'll be there. Lars, will you be here?"

"Going home," Lars replied. 

Davi's face fell. "Fine, watch the Northern Lights without me, then."

The corner of Lars's mouth twitched. "But you will have good food."

"Oh, you bet," Davi perked up once again. "You guys have to come over to mine too. Trust my Latino household to go full out on the food..." 

My phone buzzed in my pocket, and I stilled at the contact name flashing on the screen. 

"Sasha?" Theo murmured next to me as Davi continued to gush over his family's celebratory traditions to a wide-eyed Raphael. "Are you okay?"

I forced myself to nod. "I've just got to take a phone call." 

He nodded to the door. "Go ahead, no worries at all." 

I went downstairs and rushed outside, as it felt like the walls were closing in around me, felt like it was getting harder to breathe. But the crisp winter air did little to calm me as I answered the phone. "Mom." 

Her tone was as sharp as ever. "Sasha." 

I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. "Why are you calling?"

"That's no way to talk to your mother," she tutted. "I only want what's best for you." 

Anger was overtaking the shock. "Have you spoken to Joshua?" 

Not even a moment's hesitation, not even an ounce of shame as she replied, "Not yet. I will call him before New Year's." 

"But you're calling me now." 

"Because I've got a dance opportunity for you."

My thoughts screeched to a halt, replaced by an eerie focus. 

She continued on steadily. "I've settled into my career of being a competition judge. I've made a lot of connections just for you to officially break into the industry. I know Leilani will be coming to L.A next year, which suits the timing of the auditions I've secured for you. You can come together with her once you book the flights --"

"What?" I bit out. 

"Move to L.A with me," she repeated sternly. 

I was so mortified with what she was suggesting that I couldn't formulate the words I wanted to say properly. "Mom, I'm not dancing anymore."

There was a dangerous pause on her end. 

My hands were shaking. "Perhaps there was a time where I wanted to, but then you left."

"Great," my mom praised sarcastically. "Good for you, Sasha Li. Wow. My time, effort and arguments with your father were all for nothing. The sacrifices I made when I left Malaysia to seek better performing arts opportunities for my children. You could have made life so much simpler if you had just told me this earlier on, Sasha."

"It wasn't for nothing," I argued. "I loved performing --"

"That's not good enough," she cut me off. "If you just sucked it up and went through with performing, at least you would have been able to save some of my efforts, and made my ugly arguments with your father count for something. So, as I was saying, it was all for nothing."

Flashbacks of my parents arguing in the living room flooded back to me. Me making Joshua wear my noise-cancelling headphones as I hid him in my room. Me in tears as I begged my parents to stop screaming. My dad trying his best to hold Joshua and I together. Joshua asking me if our mom still loved him. 

And so, I snapped. 

"Since you have nothing nice to say, I'm hanging up." 

I stuffed my phone back into my pocket. Started striding down the pathway. 

Then I ran.

I ran, adrenaline pumping through my veins, my heartbeat pounding in my ears. My legs were simply reacting to my pent-up emotions, my mind blank. I needed to run from the world. I needed to disappear. 

Before I knew it, I had ran towards the nearest cinema. I wasn't even aware of which movies I was buying tickets for, only aware of them being one after the other. I ended up with three tickets, so that was about six hours in total. Good. Six hours of escape, whatever it was.

I made sure to buy hotdogs and popcorn as well, because there was no way I was going out for dinner, risking people seeing me. I only unlocked my phone once, ignoring the other bombarding texts and missed calls from my film crew to text Leilani 'I need space' before completely switching it off, and indulged in the dimming cinema lights as my first movie began to play.