Abi drags me towards the dance studio, I pull away as hard as I can.
"Tori, we need to rehearse!" She moans at me,
"But I'm tired, and I don't want toooooo" I protest, in truth ever since the whole miss noticing my arms situation I have just been avoiding the dance studio, and the teachers within it. I can't handle any more questions or any more judgemental looks from them. Eventually she manages to pull me in. I look around hastily; I breathe a smile of relief. There are no teachers in here. Abi walks over to the centre and I follow her. She, of course, looks effortlessly stunning in a black leotard and small blue hot pants. Ugh, why does she get to look so good! I feel like a lumpy oompa loopa stood next to her. I have a black leotard on to, but I have 3/4 length jogging bottoms on over and my black and purple dance hoodie to cover my arms. I turn away from the mirror.
We rehearse the dance a couple of times and we choreograph some more, I start to relax and actually input.
“How about we add in a backflip at the very beginning?” Abi gets up to demonstrate. She stands on one side of the room. “So I’d do this” she backflips to the centre, “and you would do it from the other side, and then we would go into the rest of the dance?” she suggests to me. I force a smile, and try to ignore the envy I can feel rising inside of me as I watch her tiny frame effortless spring across the room.
“Sure thing,” I say and turn the music on. We backflip across the room and then continue the dance from there. As we finish I hear clapping from behind us. I whip my head around sharply to see Miss Osborne standing there with a smile on her face. She walks over and starts discussing with us what we could do next but I’m not listening, I fiddle with a loose thread on my hoodie and keep my head down.
“I like that, what do you think Tori?” Abe’s voice brings me back to the conversation.
“What?” miss rolls her eyes at the lack of interest in my voice.
“The lift, Abi come over here.” Miss says, Abi curls onto the floor, miss effortlessly pulls and lifts Abi off the floor and into the air before spinning back around her torso (video attached, 3rd lift, when girl is on the floor, around 1:20) I smile, that was pretty cool.
“Yeah, I like it” I say.
“Good, Tori, just copy exactly what Abi did”
“Wait... what?! You’re not lifting me” I squeal, miss raises an eyebrow.
“Abi is a lot stronger than you,”
“Yeah but I bet Abi weighs a lot less than me!” I point out.
“Tori, we will try it with you first ok.” Miss says, I sigh and give up arguing, I can see I won’t win. I copy everything Abi did, but at the same time overly aware of the fact that my tiny, petite, thin dance teacher is stuck holding my heavy weight. I glide to the floor. Miss smiles but raises an eyebrow; she’s been doing that a lot today.
“See tori, it wasn’t that bad!”
I shrug, not really wanting to have to do it again. I try to remain cool and composed on the outside when on the inside I’m screaming and my heart is beating so fast I’m scared it will pop out.
“And tori, you seriously weigh like nothing.” She looks at me for a little bit too long, I shrink into myself not keeping eye contact with her.
“That’s such a lie miss.” I mutter softly, her ears pick it up though and she looks at me for a second with a sad expression on her face.
“Right you girls can try this out, I need to go grab some lunch. Have you girls eaten yet?” she asks with a pointed look at me. I force a smile,
“Sure, I have” Abi looks at me weirdly,
“Yeah I have to, I didn’t see you in the cafeteria though Tori?” I wince slightly and my fake smile falters.
“Ah really? I was definitely in there” I lie through my teeth in order to get them of my back. Abi just shrugs and says alright and miss, even though she seems unconvinced walks off.
“Right let’s try this lift” Abi says once miss has gone.
“Are you sure? I’m not sure it looks that good?” I say, desperate to get out of her having to lift me.
“Ugh yes! It looks effing amazing!” she says, I sigh,
“I’ll break your back you know” I say she just laughs; I sigh again but crouch on the floor. We perform the lift and from what I can see in the mirror it looks alright, apart from the whole tiny girl lifting an elephant look about it.
“Oh my gosh Tori!” she says as I go down onto the floor, I look at her arms, actually she is pretty muscular. Well she would have to be to carry my weight. “You’re bloody weightless!” I force an incredibly fake laugh. As if. “No seriously, you’re tiny.” I roll my eyes. “And I definitely didn’t see you in the cafeteria at lunch… Tori? Are you eating?” she says, she rests a head on my shoulder, I shrug it off. “I’m. Fine. okay” I say to her. “I eat, I never stop eating!” she just looks at me, “okay so maybe I wasn’t’ in the cafeteria but that’s only because I never like to dance on a full stomach! I’ll definitely eat something on the way to next lesson!” I say to her. She seems convinced.
“Promise me you’ll eat before next lesson.” She says,
“This is stupid…” I start to say but she stops me. “Promise!”
“Alright! I promise”
AN: ballet lift is in the video link at the side of your screen :) it's around 1:20. sorry this is so badly written but i wanted to update
