I Can't Cope (COMPLETED)

Chapter 33 - Emily

"Come on, Riley!" I shout supportively as I hear the voiceover. Watching her, I see her stop, like she's forgotten how to walk.

"Riley?" I say, looking at her. Her eyes are wide and anxious, and, noticing it properly, she's extremely shaky. It must be just nerves though...

I give her a gentle push forward – I know she'll regret it if she doesn't take this opportunity.

"Riley, come on, you can do this. There were more people at Nationals, stop stressing and dance!"

She eventually reacts to the nudge and stumbles forward slightly. Slowly, she turns and looks at me.

"Em, you don't understand! I can't do this!" Riley whispers urgently, tears beginning to form in her eyes.

"Why?" I ask, concerned.

"I... I just can't!" she replies, brushing past me quickly and running back down the corridor.

I turn to Miss Kate, who looks both shocked and worried.

"What should we do? The judges will only wait so long..."

Miss Kate sighs.

"Emily, if she doesn't want to do it, I can't force her. There's obviously a bigger problem here than just nerves, she was absolutely fine at Nationals... And we have no other costumes, so The Next Step will have to just not dance..." she says disappointedly.

"I'm going to go find her. James, you coming?"

"Yeah..." he says distractedly. I shove his arm.

"Come on then!" I say, pulling his sleeve with annoyance. He continues to only half-acknowledge me. "Ugh, you're so useless!" I add, giving up and running down the corridor after Riley by myself.

By now I've lost sight of Riley so I decide to run to the place she's most likely to be: her dressing room. Flinging the door open, I see her sat in the corner, shaking still, facing away from me.

"Riley?" I say, slowly walking towards her. She jumps as she hears my voice and quickly wipes her face before turning to face me.

"Yeah?" she says quietly.

"What happened? Why wouldn't you dance? It was your one chance to prove yourself as a soloist, and you didn't even perform. There are so many other girls on the team – and not on the team – that would have loved the opportunity you got, yet you didn't even dance." I stop, shocked at what just came out of my mouth. Her tear-stained face hardens.

"Oh thanks a lot, Em. You think I didn't want to prove myself? Well you're wrong." Riley stops and looks down. "Things just stopped me, again." she mutters. I frown.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Oh, it's nothing..." she replies, clamming up again.

"Riley, that doesn't explain anything."

"Oh, I just didn't feel well enough to dance. I... er... have a cold. Sorry about that." she says in a clipped tone. I know she's lying, she's been an awful liar ever since we were little, but I also know that she's extremely secretive. So if I want to find out what's going on, I'm going to have to find out with a different method than asking her directly.

Is it something to do with James? I don't know. I wasn't even aware of anything happening between Riley and him, or Riley and Michelle... or James and Michelle. I mean, there was that message... but I thought it didn't really mean anything. And I assumed the fact Riley hadn't said anything about it meant that everything was fine... but this is another occasion where her not saying anything means something completely different. I don't know why I didn't notice it before...