dancer's heart | hsmtmts

eight

act one, chapter eight
turkey day

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"Don't look now, but your ex and his new girlfriend are making out at the lockers." Elana says as she follows her friend to her locker. "For being the most hated couple on campus, they really have no shame with their PDA."

Against her better judgement, Andrea glances their way, taking in the familiar scene for a beat. Once again, her mind takes her back a few years when she first found out that her dad had been cheating on her mom.

"Andrea, wait. Please, let me explain."

"You were kissing another lady, dad. I-I need to tell mommy." The little girl tries to move past her father who continues to blocker her way. "Dad, let me go."

"Sweetie, please. Don't tell your mother." Her dad begs her, crouching down to be at her eye-level. "I don't want to leave and if you tell her, she's going to make me move out of the house. Then who would be here to take you to dance class or buy you those sweet snacks you like? You don't want that, do you?"

"You promise that you won't do it again?"

"I promise."

"You promise you won't leave me?"

"I promise." Her dad holds out his pinky, making the girl smile softly before wrapping her much smaller pinky finger around his. "Okay, how about we go out for a late night ice cream and drive tomorrow night?"

"Yay!" He forgot about that drive. The little girl waited until 10:15pm for her father, but he never showed up. Her mother had told her that he must've fallen asleep at the office, but the girl didn't believe it.

Even then, she still kept his secret.

"Andy! Wait, can you just let me talk? Please. Just let me explain myself."

Elana gives Andrea a curious look, silently asking her what she wanted her to do about the situation. Andrea gestures for her to leave, making her best friend immediately walk off towards the practice room. "You've got exactly two minutes." Andrea says, opening her locker, trying to calm herself down.

"Thanks -uh- I— First, I wanted to say that i'm sorry. I know we were only dating for a few months and weren't that serious, but I know how much trust means to you and I broke that. That's probably the worst thing I could've done to you and i'm really sorry about that."

"Well, I appreciate the apology." Andrea, slamming her locker door shut. "Is that all?"

"No, you deserve an actual explanation to what happened then I promise that I will leave you alone." Joseph says, making the girl sigh. "Sadie and I, we met when I was waiting for you to finish practice one day. She said she was also waiting for you, something about paperwork that you forgot to pick up. I offered to hold it for you, but she was so paranoid that you'd think she is lazy because she didn't stay around to hand it to you herself. Then we started talking and... well, it just felt right. We didn't expect it to happen this way, it wasn't intentional and we never wanted to hurt you. I'm-i'm truly so sorry for hurting you the way I did."

Andrea Townsend

"He's not wrong. It's not like I was in love with him, I liked him enough to date him but nothing more. We never got the chance to really get that far." Andrea huffs, running her fingers through her hair. "But it's not like i'm heartbroken or anything, it's more about the fact that this scene is just all too familiar. He fell in love with someone else and shattered the trust we have built together over the last few months. Just like my dad had did, but with years of trust."