Lost in the Middle

Eleven

AN: Set during Pas De Don't. And more heart to hearts in parked cars because my partner and I do that a lot, we'll sit in my car in her driveway for 20 minutes or more just talking. Made some edits to chapter 10 because I thought I copied everything over correctly and only discovered over the weekend that I didn't, nothing major so if you don't feel like rereading it you aren't missing much.

When Michelle and Emily tell her that she's earned a spot on the pas de deux, Richelle has to actively stop herself from launching herself at Emily. She giggles a little to herself and excitedly shakes her hands. That is until Emily introduces their guest choreographer for this dance, and then her walls are firmly back in place.

It's during their first ballet rehearsal when Chloe is teaching them the choreography that Richelle realizes why there's a disconnect when she tries to emote during her dancing. It's always harder for her to do things while she's masking, it takes up so much energy, even if she's doing it unconsciously, to put up a "normal person" front and most of her other focus is going into remembering the choreography. What finally makes it click is that she had no issue in her audition with just Emily, Michelle, and Noah watching, she even choreographed a story into her audition and worked with Noah to make sure it looked right. But now that's she's with an unknown person (okay, not entirely unknown, Chloe was on A-Troupe when she was still on J-Troupe and she knew her in passing at the time) and she's actively working on being perceived as normal which is why faking the emotions is harder. Chloe even tells her that she's faking the emotion and not really feeling it. But people can't just make themselves feel things, can they? Noah knows that this isn't their last dance together, so he can't actually be feeling like he's missing her. That's not how emotions work, feelings have to come from somewhere, right? She might be better at acting when she's not masking, but she's still acting.

It's a few days later and they're packing up in the locker room. Richelle tries to not let it get to her that Chloe gave the contact info to Noah, probably because they're only hiring male dancers at the moment, that's usually how those touring shows work. That doesn't stop her from asking Chloe as they're heading out, and then regretting it when she hears that the reason is because she's not showing real emotion.

"Is that really a thing normal people do? Can they just make themselves feel things?" Richelle questions on the drive home. She's mostly asking rhetorically, but she wouldn't mind if he had an actual response.

"Are you looking for advice?"

Richelle shrugs and mumbles out something that she hopes sounds like "I don't know".

They're back at her apartment by now so after Noah parks he turns in his seat to face her. "Well, what I do is I imagine what it would be like to be there, what I would be feeling. When we were doing auditions for Stacy Carpenter she asked us to dance an emotion, you would've hated it, but she asked me dance about leadership, which isn't really an emotion, but I thought about being Dance Captain and going from looking up to all the guys on A-Troupe to suddenly being the one people looked up to. And for our pas de deux, I think about losing you and Jacquie and not being able to dance with either of you again."

She looks away from him when she starts speaking, preferring not to make eye contact, "I sort of did that during our trio. That's what Emily was talking to me about. I wasn't sure I was going to be able to perform it like I did when we showed it to her. Because I spent the week before shutting down all my feelings for you and Jacquie and pretending I didn't have a crush on you guys. And Emily talked to me about using it anyway, she told me that it would make the dance more real. And even though we didn't win, it was one of my favorite dances." He doesn't say anything so she looks up and sees him staring at her with a little bit of a dopey grin. "What?"

"Nothing, I just like listening to you talk."

She rolls her eyes at how sappy he's being, but she still leans over to hug him, "See you tomorrow Noah."

***

She doesn't mean to tell Jacquie before Noah does, but she also definitely thought that he would have told her as soon as he got the card, she knows she would have.

"I don't think he would have told me either if I hadn't pressed for why Chloe held him back," Richelle says, trying to help the situation. Based on the look Jacquie gives her it doesn't seem like it does. "Why don't you talk to him about it. I'm sure he has a reason for not telling you yet. It hasn't even been that long since Chloe left."

"Thanks Riche." They're alone in the locker room so when Jacquie pulls her into a hug Richelle lets herself lean into it a little before pulling away.

"Um, I'll see you guys tomorrow. Nat's picking me up to have dinner with our parents. Good luck."

Since Natalie isn't at the studio yet Richelle goes to hang out in Emily and Michelle's office with her other sister. She curls up in a corner on the floor and pulls her current favorite book out of her bag. She's rereading it for the third time but even know the exact plot she still gets sucked in and misses the text from Natalie letting her know she arrived. Instead what pulls her focus away from her book is a knock on the door frame.

"Hey, you ready to go?"

Richelle nods as she checks the page she's on and closes her book. "Sorry, I forgot to take my phone out of my bag so I didn't hear it buzz."

"It's okay. Besides, I haven't been in here in a while. The shared office looks nice, much better than the shrine you had at TNS East," Natalie jokes.

"Ha, ha, very funny. Richelle please take your rude sister out of my office."

"Bye Em. I'll see you tomorrow," Richelle says as she grabs her sister's arm, not soon enough to stop her from flipping Emily off though.

"There are children present," Emily tries to chastise her.

"Like that's ever stopped me before. Bye Emily."

Natalie slings her newly freed arm around Richelle's shoulders as they walk out to the car.

***

"Hey, are you okay?" Natalie asks in the lobby of their parents' building.

Richelle shrugs, "I'm worried I'm going to slip up talking about Noah and Jacquie, and they're going to want me to move back in with them, and I'm not going to be allowed to see them anymore, they're going to want me to mask, and I don't know if I can go back to masking at home."

"How long have you guys been together? A few weeks? And you haven't slipped up yet, Emily is still the only one at the studio who knows, right?" Richelle manages a small nod as she stims to calm her still racing, catastrophizing thoughts. "See, even though a few weeks isn't that long, it still counts for something. And I will do everything I can to keep you with me. I know mom and dad weren't thrilled when I offered to let you move in with me, but I think they see that I'm an 'acceptable' guardian at this point. It's been almost 4 years and I haven't killed you yet."

Richelle laughs a little at that. "I don't think I ever told you how much I appreciated you letting me move in. And for being my escape before I lived with you. You and dance were—are—my safe places. I hate that you got all the height though," she jokes after hugging her sister, barely at her shoulder. "Can we just sit here for a few minutes before we go up?"

"Of course, as long as you need."

AN: Some more backstory for why Richelle lives with her sister and not her parents, also Natalie is 32 (16 years older than Richelle) so she would have been 28/29 when Richelle went to live with her which is why that all ended up working out and why she was a Trusted Adult.

This was my favorite chapter to write so far. Even as short as it is, I love Emily and Natalie's banter.