A Love as Hard as This

Chapter 27

Noah's Perspective:

It had been a couple of days since we had gotten the news from Miss Kate. Richelle hadn't talked to me since then, I knew she blamed me in part for what had happened. It wasn't all my fault, but I'd had part in it, so hadn't tried to redeem myself. She just needed to be left alone.

With nothing to with towards, the teams had become hollow. Every practice that we'd had hadn't ended well, usually with someone crying or lying on the floor.

I was now doing a solo to 'Up in the Clouds.' Dance was the only consistent way to work through my feelings. It helped me see inside my head and heart and know exactly what I was feeling.

When Piper and Amy came in, I didn't acknowledge them at first, and kept dancing. But when the music finished, I went over to them.

"That was incredible." Amy complimented.

"Thank you." I said. "You know, you really shouldn't be on here."

With everything that was going on, TNS East and West dancers weren't even allowed to talk to each other, so Amy in Studio A was a big problem, for Emily and Michelle at least.

"We have a plan." Piper said. "We're going to get Emily's dancers, and Michelle's dancers, and maybe one unstoppable troupe."

"Then we'll perform a dance, and we'll show that we're able to work together." Amy finished.

"So, you want to choreograph a secret dance, behind Michelle and Emily's back, on the slim chance that it will let us go to Regionals?" I observed. "And if we fail, we'll all get kicked out of the studio forever."

Piper and Amy exchanged worried glances. "I'm in." I said, surprising them.

"Yes!" they said in unison, hugging me in celebration. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Now, I just needed to ask Richelle.

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When I finished explaining the plan to get in the locker room, her face was unreadable. She didn't say anything, so I assumed that she was still mad at me, until she jumped into my arms and hugged me.

"If this works, we'll both get to compete at Regionals!" she exclaimed. "This is the best idea!"

"Yeah, it is." I agreed.

"But what if this ends badly?" she asked quietly, pulling away.

"It won't." I assured her. I hoped that I wasn't wrong.

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Richelle's Perspective:

We decided on Stand Up for the song, because it was The Next Step's song. A Troupe had competed at the first Regionals with that song. And we were going to get back on the road to Regionals with it.

I was given the spot as the leader in this dance by Piper, and I was really honored. A day ago, I had no hope of even going, and now, I was leading A Troupe in our only hope of going.

"How about we add an arm chain to the dance?" Ozzy suggested. "To show that we're all connected."

"Ozzy, I don't know if that's such a good idea—"I started, but Noah interrupted me.

"You know what? That actually sounds like a good idea. Let's try it." He patted Ozzy on the back and told everyone to get into position. Everybody did it, and to my surprise, it looked really good.

"Sorry, Ozzy. We should actually do this." I told him.

"Thanks, Richelle." He winked at me and I glared at him, causing him to immediately look away.

I looked towards the door and noticed Miss Kate coming in, a smile on her face. Emily and Michelle stormed in from the other side of the room, but smiled as soon as they saw Miss Kate.

"Hey, Emily, we were just talking with Miss Kate about yours and Michelle's idea to merge the teams." Piper said, covering us.

"Well I'm very interesting to see what you guys have come up with." Miss Kate said, smiling. I could tell she wanted this to go well just as much as we did.

We got into positions and did the dance. It went flawless. It had sections with both TNS West and East dancers which showed that we were unified, and moments where we were all together, like the human chain that Ozzy came up with. It showed that we all loved dance again, which was what Kate wanted.

To finish the dance, we huddled together and shouted. We broke away from it laughing, and turned to see Kate, Emily, and Michelle laughing too.

"So can we go to Regionals?" Kingston asked. We went silent, awaiting an answer.

"Yes!" Kate yelled. We all hugged each other and celebrated. Noah turned me around and embraced me tightly.

"Told you so." he said.