Ballet Slippers

24

Harry, Ed and Louis all walked back with me to the hotel that night, Louis and Ed hugged me and said goodnight and Harry came upstairs to tuck me in. He helped me get changed and take off my makeup, and then he laid me in bed and pulled the blankets up,

“Can’t you stay with me?” I mumbled.

He smiled softly, “there’s nothing more I’d love, but you have an early start tomorrow for training. Ill see you tomorrow night though” he kissed my head.

I didn’t let go of his hand as he tried to leave, “Harry”

He smiled, “yes Ella?”

“Thank you for tonight...”

He kissed my hand, “no, thank you love.”

“I will see you tomorrow?

“Of course” he leaned down and kissed me sweetly, before he walked out the door and left.

I laid in the dark for a few hours just thinking; why did Jack keep this from me… if he really did have a family how did I not know about it sooner? I knew I had to speak to him, and I knew I had to end it – but how was I going to get ahold of him; surely he wasn’t going to answer my calls of course because he said there was ‘no cell reception’. My stomach turned in knots thinking about how he had been lying to me for the almost two years we had been together. I know I couldn’t be mad about him cheating, what made what I was doing any better? But I couldn’t excuse the lie… I couldn’t excuse what he was doing.

And then I thought about his child; what if it was a little girl… she barely even sees her own father and that, isn’t fair to her…

My thoughts eventually drifted me off to sleep; and when I awoke I was hung-over. It was 6am and I had to be ready by 7:30 for training. I walked into my bathroom to grab an aspirin and get ready to go.

“Open up baby girl!” Nicko knocked on my door outside.

I smiled and opened the door and he laughed, “good night?” I nodded, “please tell me you brought coffee”

He held up a cup for me and smiled, “1 cream 3 sugars just how you like it”

I smiled and kissed his cheek taking the cup, “where’s Dani?”

“She went early to make sure we got space in the studio; there’s a sign up sheet for practice time so we are going to take turns every day going to do it”

I nodded, “sounds good to me.”

We drank our coffees and headed over to the studio; when we got into the large main room the whole management team was there, we all sat down chatting and stretching at the same time.

“Can I have everyone’s attention please!” a man stood up on a chair in the middle of all of us.

We all turned to the man who smiled, “Thank you all for being here today, and welcome to your first day of official training!”

Everyone clapped and the man continued, “today is the first of 12 days that you will spend training for the show we will put on; there will be agents and scouts at the show so you will need to bring your best skills. I assume most of you have picked your partners already; due to the girl/boy ratio it will be 2 girls: 1 boy, and that means 2 performances per dancer.”

He continued to speak and introduced our supervisors; the people that would pop into our rehearsals every day and keep us on track; they would choreograph our routines but we would have a say in the style and music that was going to be around. I was excited that they didn’t want to babysit us; they didn’t treat us like children; the future of our careers was in their hands, but we got to make most of the decisions.