Opposite Attracts - Lynn Loud Jr

Chapter 8 - Nathalie

Estella's POV :

To my chagrin , the school didin't have a dance team . Seriously tho , how come they fucking have chess but not dance ? I was gonna have to make a call and tell my dance teacher the situation .

People always told me the same bull shit about how athletes train all their life to become professionals in hopes to win awards blah blah blah but I didin't need that label to win medals . I was doing just fine in a regular competition team .

When I was younger , I had won my fair share of gold medals but I was alright with whatever place I got . Not so much anymore . I beat myself up over the awards because , as my dance coach says , second is the first to lose .

Now I know it wasn't realistic to completely stop losing and get a perfect score every time but I was confident that I could work my way to a point close to perfection .

In my opinion , winning solos was much easier than winning duets , trios , or groups because of the synchronization , the flow of the dance , the spacing between dancers and all that stuff ...

That's why I preferred them , I didin't have to suffer the consequences of someone else's shitty dancing or get dragged into coach Sparks' lectures about how we "could've done much better" and her pointing out every single mistake .

I could handle being lectured and yelled at after my number for a few minor mistakes but I hated having , on top of that , someone else turning to me after a performance and having the guts to blame me for their mistakes .

Don't get me wrong , I love my teammates more than anything and these scenarios rarely happened but it was possible .

Not to mention the fact that you couldn't improvise if you forgot a move unexpectedly and the difficulty would go down so that the dance would be achievable for everyone .

On top of all that , we also had to deal with the petty parents wanting their children to have a "special part" in every single dance , get mad about the so called favoritism towards the dancers with slightly more technique and skills and fuck up the dance at the end , changing the whole choreography just for the sake of their children's egotistical asses .

With all that being said , solos were just so much better . And I was gonna do whatever it takes to have a few numbers included in our future competitions .

After what seemed to be hours of proving my point and begging coach Sparks to comply over the phone , pacing around my room like a maniac while trying to sound professional , she finally agreed , and said we would make it work - my prayers have been answered .

She would virtually send me the numbers and have me train with their company but from a different location and , when competition time was around the corner , I'd fly a few days before and practice with my actual team .

Was that convenient ? No , not at all . But I was ready to do everything in my power to prove that I'm deserving of my spot on the team .

After my figure skating tryouts on Monday , I was looking forward to Wednesday - the tryouts for cheerleading , hopping from one sport to another .

I decided if our school didn't have a dance team , I had to preoccupy myself with something else so I decided to try something close to gymnastics and dance - cheer .

Unfortunately , I had to wait till next week to try out for gymnastics because the coach had a concussion and needed to stay in the hospital for the upcoming week .

I really hoped she got better soon - even though it was selfish , I missed gymnastics and wanted to practice as soon as possible .

A girl from our English class called Natalie overheard me talking about wanting to do cheerleading and told me that she was also a usual member of the team and would help me get in .