One and A Two

The First,

It was Thursday evening, which meant it was dance practice time. The atmosphere was intense and filled with sweat smelling like the inside of an indoor playground. Kara was sitting with her usual group consisting of Winn, her best friend of two years, who was one year older than her and had been dancing for 10 years. Lucy, Winn's sister, who was two years older than Kara. Also, there were Lena and Santana who were both the same age as Kara, but the difference was that Lena had grown to be one of Kara's closest friends, and it had turned out that Santana had a pretty different personality from the other four, but she enjoyed spending most of practice with that squad. They all seemed to go along pretty well surprisingly, since they had only just become friends a while ago after all these years of dancing alongside each other. These five had become pretty much inseparable over the past season, except for during formations where they would never end up next to each other because their heights didn't match.

"So, today's going to be a bit different as we're going to be joined by the A team in half an hour so that we can start with our cross country practices since we're going to join both groups for the final number." Announced Mr. Anderson.

This year, after their annual dance concert, the group was going to be traveling cross country to be part of a dance festival. One thing that had made Kara grow even more excited than she already was about traveling with her best friends, was the fact that they were going to be dancing with the older group, the A team, the group she dreamed to pass to one day, but as the rules stated, one must be of age 21 to pass onto the A team, and Kara being only 18, had three more years of waiting ahead of her. She always tried to stick around a bit longer after practice had ended to get a glimpse of the dances the A class had been preparing. She knew each dancer by their name and all about them, especially one of the older dancers, and also one of the best, Alex, who also happened to be her youth group leader.

Upon hearing the coach's announcement, she was barely able to contain her excitement, a huge goofy grin appearing on her face.

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It was break time, Kara and Lena were sharing a bottle of water as Kara rested her head on Lena's shoulder while Lena had her hand on Kara's thigh, all while casually having a conversation with Lucy, Winn and Santana. It had become pretty normal for Kara and Lena to be so physically close with each other. Even though Kara seemed to be one of the friendliest people, she was pretty reserved when it came to physical contacts most of the time, even with friends. Oddly enough, Lena was her parallel opposite, not the most social person you'd meet, but once she formed a friendship with someone, she'd become quite touchy with the person.

It had been 2 months since the gang had hung out for the first time ever and they had already gotten really close with each other, having already made a tradition of hanging out at the rocky seashore close to their home on Tuesday nights.

It was almost half past eleven, Winn and Lucy had already left, and Santana was the only one who actually came with the intention of swimming, so she was still in the water, alone. Kara had convinced Lena to stay a bit longer because she was enjoying the calmness and the soft breeze as waves crashed onto the rocks they were sitting on, also because Lena was her ride back home.

"Can I ask you something?" Lena asked, as she leaned her head on Kara's shoulder, feeling Kara's body tense up. "Why don't you like having physical contacts with people?" She continued.
"What do you mean?" Kara answered, trying to hide how nervous she was.
"Kara, I just felt your whole body tense up right when I rested my head on you. Also, it's pretty obvious that you don't really enjoy hugs. I mean I get being awkward with random people, but why are you like that even with friends?" Lena elaborated.
"I just," Kara sighed, "I'm scared I might make someone feel uncomfortable. And since I can't even talk to people without thinking about what im about to say at least 5 times, keeping away from physical contact with people is just me escaping my mind overthinking things." She continued, "It's not that i hate hugs and stuff, I actually used to love them, but ever since I started avoid them myself, feeling uncomfortable from gestures like that from others just developed with it." Kara explained.
"Well, I can assure you that you can never make me feel uncomfortable." Lena smiled, "You're like one of my closest friends, you don't need to think about what you're doing around me more than once, especially if it involves tight and warm hugs." She ended her sentence while opening her arms wide open.
Kara laughed nervously as she pushed her glasses back on her nose and then went in for the awaiting hug, letting herself actually enjoy it for the first time in a long while. It felt weird, how Lena was able to make her feel so safe. She definitely hadn't felt like this with any of her other friends before. This was different. She liked it.