Army of Two

two

2 weeks later

My alarm obnoxiously went off at 7:30am, dragging my heavy eyelids open. That heart sinking and annoyed feeling anyone could get this early in the morning came over me as I reluctantly sat up and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, stretching before fully getting out of my warm bed. I shivered to myself as I looked around my small bedroom for my phone, and I found it on my nightstand. Unlocking it, I saw a reminder bright in the middle of the screen.

Audition day

It's audition day. My eyes went wide as I finally realized why I was waking up so early. A feeling of instant adrenaline and excitement ran through me, causing me to quietly cheer to myself and rush around my room. Tripping over one of my shoes scattered on the floor, I hit the floor with a thump. My gaze came into contact with the floor, and I shook my head and scolded myself. I mentally told myself to calm down at least until my audition, I got up and ran to the bathroom to get myself ready. I decided on wearing plain black yoga pants and a baggy white tank top, throwing my hair up into a tight pony tail for now. When I perform for the faculty, however, I'll probably let it down like I usually do. To me, having your hair down when you dance looks better. I grabbed my stuff and headed out to the kitchen.

Quietly, I tiptoed over to the pantry, grabbing a granola bar and water being careful not to wake my parents up. I packed up my usual things and headed to the downstairs bathroom to give myself one last look before I head off. An odd yet reoccurring feeling of guilt washed over me as I thought about my parents. They don't know I'm auditioning today, nor do they accept dancing as a career. Don't get me wrong, my parents love me and I love them but they don't always understand or try to compromise things considering their old fashioned style of parenting. They would always say, "Oh Aria, why do you still dance? It's not a career," and "Aria it's been 15 years. Don't you think it's about time to give up dancing and focus on a different thing? You know something that will actually get you far in life?"

I guess they don't really get it. Actually, scratch that. I know they don't get it, and they stopped supporting me and my passion a long, long time ago. They used to support me, but maybe it was only because they thought a 15 year old who could pop and lock was "cute." But, no matter how many times they have tried to talk me out of taking classes and pursuing it, I didn't care. Dancing is all I want to do in life. If I have to go behind my parents back to do it, unfortunately, I would.

I slid into the driver's seat of my car pulling out of the garage from my apartment building and heading towards the only possibility of fulfilling my dream. There is a performing arts high school in Baltimore where auditions are being held, and as much as I wanted to go there for my four years of high school, of course, my parents didn't want me to and we couldn't afford it. We've always been tight on money and that's the main reason why I need a scholarship to the Los Angeles School of Performing Arts. And plus, as I've thought many times...LA is the place to be.

It only took about 20 minutes to get there, but my heart began to pound as I pulled into the parking lot of the big grey building. "Baltimore Performing Arts Academy" was printed in big black letters across the front, and reading it made part of my heart wish I could just stay in Baltimore and the other half even more excited to get to LA. I could already see the doors held open, and a few people dressed in similar clothes as me walking in. I pulled into the nearest available parking spot I could find, shutting off my old 2011 Nissan and sitting back against the soft seats. I stared out to nowhere, my mind whirling with both excitement and fear. I'm not one to have a lot of stage fright...but at stakes this high, I admit I was shaking a bit.

Slowly but surely I got out of my car, grabbing my bag out of the back seat. I walked into the entrance of the school, already hearing the music and singers practicing from outside. The corridors were filled with dancers, singers, actors, directors and more. It looked like something out of a movie; people everywhere, getting ready to do some of the same things I was. They all looked so...professional; the way they were stretching their ballet legs or warming up their voices or tuning their guitars. I walked through the crowd of people attempting to find the sign in sheet, feeling out of place and quite awkward. I managed to push those feeling out as I finally spotted the table with an administrator sitting behind it. People bumped into me as I tried to swivel my way through the crowd, some being incredibly apologetic, but I shook it off and reached the table.