Silence (Dance Moms Fanfic)

Chapter One

Chapter One

First there was beeping. Four loud, obnoxious beeps. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEEEP. The last beep was always longer than the first three. Then came the blasting of oldies music, the only station the ancient alarm clock could get without being too fuzzy.  Then about three seconds passed until a small, pale hand flopped out of the comfort and warmth of the bed sheets and into the cold air to turn the thing off. Silence. Well, that silence never lasted long. Almost immediately Kelly would call up, “Brooke! It’s time for school!” Mumbles and grumbles came from the teenager’s room as she rolled from her stomach to her back. The girl would open her eyes and blinking at the ceiling, groaning and moaning. Then the door gets thrown open just like it did every morning. “Brooke, you have got to get out of bed. You’re going to be late for school.”

Brooke had her morning routine down perfectly. She had timed herself and perfected her routine. Kelly kissed the top of Brooke’s head once and then left. That was new. That wasn’t part of Brooke’s routine. Brooke sat up, a tad confused. Her mother never woke her up with a forehead kiss. Sometimes she threw a pillow at her, but that was the most. Now that Brooke thought about it, Kelly never kissed her. Never showed any affection towards the oldest Hyland child. Brooke shook her head and threw the covers off of her legs. Swinging them around to the side of the bed and jumping off. Her tiny, pale feet meeting the cold, hard ground.

“Mom! Have you seen,” Brooke heard through the wall. Her sister’s voice echoing in the house. “MO-OM!” Brooke groaned and fell back into her bad as Josh started screaming at Paige.

It wasn’t even seven in the morning, and the two were already fighting. As much as Brooke hated when her little siblings bickered, she would be lost if they didn’t do it. There was one day that Josh was sick and didn’t go to school. That one morning, there was no arguing. No bantering. No bickering. Brooke didn’t feel right. And all day long, her teachers asked if she was alright. Kids said that she just didn’t seem like herself. Everything in Brooke’s live was so patterned, so perfect, that when things didn’t go as she remembered, she was thrown off. Brooke hated change. She liked her structured life in her perfectly suburban house with the pool in the backyard and her perfect dance studio. Her perfect group of friends and her perfect boyfriend, Vinny. Brooke lived a perfect life, and she liked to remind everyone of that.

One, two, three, Brooke counted in her head and she pulled herself up off of her bed. Her feet meeting the floor again. This time, the floor wasn’t as shockingly cold as it was the first time. The floorboards in Brooke’s room creaked as she padded towards her closed to choose her outfit for the day. It was looking to be a warm fall day in Murrysville. That’s what was exciting Brooke the most. She dug into her closet, going straight for a pair of shorts and a blouse. There were so many options. Brooke had so much to choose from. “Three, two, one,” Brooke counted as she grabbed a blouse from the top rack.

“Brooke, what shoes goes with this?” Brooke heard Paige call from the doorway after hearing the thump her hands made on the door. Brooke turned and peeked out, giving Paige a simple shrug. Mumbling a few words that neither girl could make out fully. “Ugh, you’re no help!” Paige said. Brooke giggled and grabbed a pair of shorts from her dresser and threw them onto her bed. Brooke picked up the remote to her iHome and pushed play. Her country music blasting. She heard Paige holler at the sound of Kenny Chesney and Josh groan from down the hall. Brooke giggled and got changed.

The Hyland girls were very different from their brother. While the girls liked to dance and liked to listen to country music, Josh liked hokey and he liked to listen to hip hop and rap. Brooke would roll her eyes and groan at the sound of the curse words and talk of drugs and sex and alcohol blasting from Josh’s room or from his headphones. Sometimes Josh would sit in the family room or in the kitchen and listen to his music without using head phones just to bother Brooke. Paige didn’t mind, on the other hand. She would listen to anything. Go with the flow. That’s how she was. Easy going and laid back. Go-with-the-flow wasn’t the right phrase. Paige was more of a leader than a follower. Brooke was just the opposite. Though the two girls were equally as loud and confident, Brooke rather have somebody else take the lead and decide what they were going to do when they were going to do it. Paige liked to dictate things, and that’s why the two girls were good with each other.

As Brooke got ready for school, she held the entire house up, like always. Josh got used to bringing a bagel on the bus for his breakfast, and Paige could eat a banana or an orange in thirty seconds flat. Brooke generally skipped out on breakfast. She didn’t want to waste time she could be using for getting ready on eating. Especially because Brooke was in high school. Brooke wore a pair of white shorts and a light denim, sleeveless, collared blouse. Brooke ran a comb through her hair a few times and did her make up as she sat in the middle of the floor of her bedroom. Songs coming and going by the push of a button. Boys of Fall by Kenny Chesney came across and Brooke grinned at herself in the mirror. Friday was upon her, and that only meant one thing, football games.

That year was Brooke’s sophomore year at Franklin Regional High School, and she was a cheerleader for both football and basketball. Brooke was glad she was able to cheer that year. Brooke was still being filmed for Dance Moms, but everything seemed to work. Ryleigh had done both dance and cheer, along with Elissa. So why couldn’t Brooke? Abby didn’t even mind that much, as long as she was in rehearsal when she needed to be and at the competition on time, what Brooke did outside of the studio was none of Abby’s business.

Brooke wasn’t one of those girls to wear their uniform as soon as they could. She didn’t like to rub it in other girls’ faces. Lots of girls tried out every year and lots of girls didn’t make it. Brooke didn’t make it her freshman year, and Friday after Friday seeing those blue and gold uniforms and the blue and gold bows and the blue socks just got annoying. It hurt her feelings. But luckily, that year was her year. Brooke was a cheerleader cheering for the Varsity football team and the JV basketball team. Brooke would have been cheering for the JV football team, but they needed more flyers for the Varsity squad. They were going to pick a girl from the JV squad, and it wasn’t originally going to be Brooke. Brooke wasn’t even supposed to cheer that year. JV games were on Saturdays. Freshman games were Thursdays, so she couldn’t do that either. They picked Brooke, and she couldn’t have been more happy. But Brooke had to hide the excitement. Her friends were JV cheerleaders.

Brooke had a lot that she could hold over her friends’ heads. For one, the given one, she was on National television every week. That had it’s ups and it’s downs, but it was still something to hold over her friends heads. Adding the fact she was on the Varsity cheerleading squad only inflated her head even more than it already was. Brooke tried her best not to brag and show off all that she had, but it was hard. It was hard to tell her friends she couldn’t hang out because she had to film. Or she couldn’t spend the night because she had to do a photo shoot. Keeping her friends was Brooke’s biggest challenge, especially because they weren’t on the same cheerleading team.

“Come on, Brooke! We’re going to be late.” Kelly called as Brooke laced her belt through the loops. She slid into brown sandals and fixed her hair in a braided headband that Chloe got her for her fifteenth birthday just eight months back.

Brooke grabbed her phone from the charger and turned the music off, calling down the stairs, “I’ll be down in a sec!”