Beauty and the Beat

Beauty and the Beat (4)

I had to sit out for a week before Mrs. Carson let me dance again. Luckily, we were still doing ballroom dancing because no one in the class seemed to be able to learn it correctly. That sure made me feel great about my peers.

When Mrs. Carson told us to get on stage with our partners, I began to make my way up there with Bennett. Unfortunately, she stopped us before we could.

“No, I don’t want you dancing with Bennett for a while,” Mrs. Carson informed me, practically pushing herself in between the two of us to keep us away from each other. “We don’t want you to kill Sadie, do we?”

Bennett gave me a look, and I couldn’t help but give him a look right back. He might have not been the best dancer, but I would have much rather been his partner than someone else I didn’t know that well who couldn’t dance.

“I’ll pair you up with Maxxon,” Mrs. Carson shrugged now, as if it was no big deal at all.

I just stared at her, my eyes wide and my mouth agape. Did she not see how big of a mistake that would be? She might not have been able to, but everyone else in the class sure did because they were giving her the exact same look.

Mrs. Carson blinked at her class. “What?”

No one said a thing; all they did was scurry away to get ready with their partners. I couldn’t help but glare at them, thanking them sarcastically in my head for helping me out of this horrible mess.

Mrs. Carson shooed both Maxxon and me away from her, and I knew there was nothing I could do now. I was stuck with him for who knew how long, considering this class just couldn’t get this ballroom dancing unit down.

Maxxon and I were only able to get through fifteen minutes of dancing together before I wanted to rip his hair out of his head. He said that everything I was doing was wrong just to annoy me, even though we both knew I was doing it correctly. Even though I had been out for a week, I had been watching everything that was happening around me and I knew exactly what I had to do.

“Hello, hello!” a familiar voice called from the top of the auditorium, and I couldn’t help but let out a groan when I heard her dainty little footsteps coming toward the stage. “Sorry I’m late!”

Believe me when I say I wasn’t bothered. I had actually thought that she wasn’t there that day, and I was actually very happy with that. But then she decided to just prance inside, halfway through class, as if she owned the place.

“Welcome, Anna!” Mrs. Carson greeted, and it was strange hearing her use her first name when she referred to her as Miss Ryder to the class. “You haven’t missed anything at all!”

In a way, she was right. We hadn’t really done anything but continue with ballroom dancing, even though it did suck since I was now partnered with Maxxon.

“Yo,” a new voice now said, snapping me back into the reality of what was going on around me. I blinked at Maxxon before glaring at him like I always did.

“What?” I couldn’t help but snap.

“You should probably pay attention,” he smirked, way too smug for his own good. “We don’t want you falling again because you’re not paying attention, do we?”

I glared at him even harder. “How the hell do you know that I fell because I wasn’t paying attention?”

He grinned. “It’s fine being such good friends with your best friend who nearly cracked your head open.”

I was going to kill Bennett for telling Maxxon I fell because I wasn’t paying attention. I’d rather everyone think I was a horrible dancer than think I was distracted by my English teacher and his former girlfriend.