One Last Dance

One Last Dance (Chapter 30)

VANESSA's POV:

I slept restfully that first night back. It was like sleeping on a pillow, my old bed.

I awoke to the sound of footsteps.

My eyes opened as Rydel was racing out of the room, followed by loud footsteps coming from the stairs, and a yell announcing that pizza was arriving.

Sitting up, I rubbed my eyes in a slow, exhausted yawn.

I pulled the blankets off of me, and stood up.

I walked out of the room and down the down the hallway to the stairs.

I stopped when I encountered the sound of loud muffles coming from Riker's room.

I put my head against the door to listen in on what was going on in there.

"I can't believe this is actually happening," Ross' voice rang.

A chorus of happy laughs filled my ears.

"You're plan is so going to work."

Riker. What are they talking about?

"I'm just glad we got that call in time for Prom. If we hadn't the plan would've been a dead shot."

I rolled my eyes. He's probably trying another way to get Laura back.

I took a few steps away from the door and headed downstairs to yells and shrieks of happiness.

My sister was sitting next to Rydel, with a slice of pepperoni on her plate, and a slice of cheese in her mouth.

Everyone looked at me when I entered the room.

"Hey Vanessa," Rydel said. "Sit down on the other side of me!"

I did.

"Did you see if Ross or Riker were awake up there?"

I nodded. "I didn't see them, but I heard them."

Laura spoke up. "What were hey talking about?"

I shrugged. "Beats me. They were just rambling on about a phone call."

Delly's eyes widened and she stared at me with a stern face as if she was telling me to shut up.

"Who called them or who did they call," Laur asked.

I lifted an eyebrow at her. "Why are you so interested to hear about it?"

She opened her mouth as if she were about to say something but she quickly shut it and continued eating.

"That's what I thought."

Rydel sighed silently and leaned over towards me. "You can't say anything about what you heard to her," she whispered in my ear. "They're trying to plan something special for her. She can't know about it!"

I nodded in understanding and mouthed a sorry to her.

She smiled slightly and said, "It's okay."

I took a slice of pizza from the box on the table and started munching on it.

In only moments, the sound of Ross and Riker's voices traveled closer to us, and they soon appeared in the kitchen doorway.

Ross sat down next to Laura despite how much all of us knew she would hate it, and Riker sat next to me.

Laura looked at Ross and without hesitation, but with sassiness in her voice spoke, "Why are you sitting next to me?"

That was what everyone in this room wanted to know.

But of course, Ross just looked at her dumbfounded.

She repeated, "You know that I don't like you. I know that I don't like you... So why are you sitting next to me?"

When Ross just continued to stare, Riker sighed and yelled across the table, "Earth to Ross! Ross! Earth to my brother! Come back down from Heaven and look at me."

He turned his head to his brother and blinked.

Laura looked at me and laughed. "Did ET phone home this morning?"

My eyes widened.

"Laura Marie," I started. "That is very rude of you!"

She smirked. "That was what I was going for."

"No," I yelled. "That's not something to laugh about! Ever since you got that glass stuck in your leg, you've been different! Remember what we talked about before we got here yesterday, about turning to the people that love--"

"Hey," she interrupted. "Don't bring that up right now! This is not relevant!"

I stood up as my jaw dropped. "It's completely relevant!"

"You are not my mother!"

"Who cares? I'm older than you!"

She closed her eyes in frustration and rubbed her face with her hands. "I'll shut up, okay," she said. "Just don't say anything about it! Not now. Not in front of everybody."

I looked at everyone and I realized it had become dead silent. They were all looking at me, waiting for me to say something. I sat down awkwardly. "Alright. Deal."

As I sat, Laura stood. "You know what? I'm going upstairs to take a shower. No one follow me."

She left the room and I hit my head against the table.

How could I be so stupid, yelling at her like this?

I felt a hand on my shoulder.

I looked up.

Riker.

LAURA's POV:

When I left the kitchen, I stopped right at the wall outside to listen to what they were going to say.

"You okay," I heard Riker ask.

My sister answered. "No. It just seems like she keeps getting more and more like my parents everyday." That hurt. "And I thought that through everything, she would've learned something. I thought she did. She told me she did."

"I guess some lessons take time to sink in."

I heard Ness chuckle nervously. "It's been so long."

"Well," I heard Delly say, "You know how in like sixth grade, our teacher talked about the Pythagorean Theorem? And then the next year, our teacher talked about it again but it felt like we never even learned about it the year before? Then in eighth grade, when we really studied the subject, we began to actually understand how we were supposed to solve it? I think maybe life lessons are the same way. Sometimes just one or two hard situations can't show a person what's right or wrong or what's meant to me. Sometimes, it takes a series of problems for a lesson to finally sink in."

Silence.

Damn, that was fricking deep.

But what was my lesson again? What was I supposed to be learning? To be nice? To let go of the past? To surround myself with people that love me?

Or all of the above?

Haven't I done that though? I'm here with people that love me. I've sort of let go of the past. Not really, but that's not necessarily my fault. I mean, my own sister just compared me to my goddang parents for goddang sake.

As for the nice thing, I definitely need to work on that.

I don't like how my sister has so little faith in me though. I wish she could see things through my eyes.

Maybe I could do something to show her that I can change, that I will change for the better good of things. Maybe, I could show everyone that all these lessons I'm supposed to be learning, are lessons that I've already learnt, that it's just difficult to adapt them to my life.