"Her or me?" A tear rolled down Michelle's puffy cheek, "You have to make a decision."
For Michelle, life has always been about control- control in the studio, in her friendships, and even in the secrets she hides. But with an unexpected pregnancy...
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I pull my suitcase down the stairs as I await my mom's approval. She likes to check that I have everything that I need before a big competition, although I definitely don't need her to do it for me.
I roll my eyes when I see the stern look on her face.
"That took you way too long," She complains. "Get a little distracted up there?"
"I couldn't find a couple of my things, alright?"
"Uh-huh, sure."
She gestures for me to hand over my suitcase. "Come on, hand it over," she says. "I wanna make sure you have everything packed. You can't be forgetting something like your ballet shoes; you'd be fucked."
I hand over my suitcase to my mom, and I watch as she frantically looks through everything I packed, making a mess in the process.
"Jesus Christ, Summer," She mutters as she takes a look at everything, and I furrow my eyebrows.
She questions me, "And where are your costumes?"
"Emily is bringing them."
"Who's that?" She asks me.
"My studio head..." I reply, feeling confused when my mom forgets the name of my studio head, which just proves to me that she never pays attention.
I feel a shiver down my spine when I say her name.
"Oh, alright." She doesn't say anything more about it.
She throws down my clothes, and she has a look of disgust on her face. "What the hell is all of this?"
She asks me, "Summer, do you not think you should at least take one dress? You're going to Internationals; you can't be walking around wearing stuff like that!" She refers to the clothes that I'm wearing at the moment. "Maybe if you'd wear a dress for once, then you'd finally attract a nice guy..."
I roll my eyes at her. She knows that I'm attracted to women, yet she still refuses to accept it. I think that she believes that one day I'll realise that it was just a phase.
"Seriously, Summer, you've not packed any of your dance clothes," She instantly reminds me.
"I- I know. I just don't have them here right now..."
The reason why I don't have my dance clothes with me is because I've left everything at Emily's house. I don't exactly want to go over there to retrieve them, but I'm guessing that I'm going to have to do it sooner or later– I just don't want to run into her or Michelle.
