THE THINGS THAT HOLD US DOWN

- C H A P T E R 7 -

"Hey, Malia." She looked up briefly as I entered the room but went back to staring at her phone.

"I thought we agreed on arriving at five." She raised her eyebrows, still looking at her screen, "Not fifteen minutes after that." I rolled my eyes at her snarky tone and pushed the door shut behind me.

"It took longer than I anticipated to walk here with all of my stuff." One of the bag straps slid down my arm, jerking my body to the left as it caught on my wrist. I dragged myself over to Malia sat as quickly as you could possibly go while saddled down with bags. I shrugged all the weight off, sighing as the tumped down on the carpeted floor. Malia jumped slightly at the sound and then frowned, surveying the pile of bags.

"You should have called me, I would have given you a lift." She eyes my bags again, "Well if you could fit it with all that."

"That would have been more of a hassle, think of all the fuel you would use just to drive all the way past the school and then back." I rolled my neck in an attempt to stretch out the ache and slumped down on the floor ungracefully.

"True, but anyway, are you ready for tonight?" She grinned.

"We should be, with the number of rehearsals we have been through, I reckon that we could do it easily in our sleep." Our first rehearsal had been last week on Thursday. Since then, every day had had at least one run through. Even the weekends, which were supposed to be a respite from school was spent doing hours of practice. Maybe a few years ago I would have complained and whined about not being able to be at home on the weekend but now I really was grateful for it. Declan had been getting more hateful, instead of an icy but silent glare whenever I came near him he had been getting quite vocal with his thoughts. I tried to brush his comments off but unfortunately for me, I wasn't made of titanium. I was interrupted from my thoughts when girls came pouring into the room. Some made for different corners of the room but two separated from the crowd and headed for us.

"Alex, Whitney, hey." I smiled as they came closer. These two girls were in a lot of my other classes but we had bonded in dance and became close friends.

"Hey." Alex waved and sat down, Whitney following. "You guys are always here so early." She shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"Commitment, Alex." Whitney pushed her bag behind her smirking at Alex, "I know its something you don't understand seeing how quickly you dump guys."

"Rude," Alex muttered looking away from Whitney. Her eyes landed on something and she frowned, turning around to survey the rest of the room.

"Where are Lexi and Hazel?" She turned around to face us.

"Uh, late? I don't know, we haven't seen them yet."

"But their bags are here?" She pointed to the pile that lay to my side. I burst out laughing, Malia joining in. The other two soon were affected by the contagious giggles even though they still had no idea what was so funny.

"That's just Rowan's stuff." Malia snorted, holding a hand to her mouth in order to stop.

"What? Just Rowan's?" Whitney's mouth had dropped open.

"What did you pack, that's like two weeks worth of stuff." Alex leaned back on her hands with a single eyebrow raised, a skill that I will be forever jealous of.

"I have a completely different costume for every single dance I'm in."

"That's what? Five?"

"Nope, six."

"How do you even remember all of them?" Alex looked completely baffled. "My memory is shit."

"Same here, I'm failing maths because I only remember the routines." I scrunched my nose at the taught of how dismal my grades were in maths. Whenever we had a test, my mind completely erased all of the rules we had learnt. All I could summon was the dances I had learnt over the course of my whole life. Instead of equations covering the pages, I had sketches of formations and moves. Let's just say that Mr Henshaw wasn't impressed with my artistic ability.

"Why are you talking about maths when you could be talking about boys?" A new voice chimed in from behind me.

"Is that why you're late Lexi?" I push my bags away to make more sitting space.

"Yeah, she spent about ten minutes talking to the cashier in the store." Hazel leaned against the wall and slid down into a sitting position.

"Well it earned me his number, guess who has a date this Saturday."

"Is that before or after the matinee show?"

"Oh shit, we have one?" She whipped her phone out from the impossibly small pockets on her jeans.

"Yeah, don't you remember? The dance teachers had a big fuss about it because it was supposed to be Wednesday to Friday but a sports coach had organised the sports awards for that day too."

"Oh, sure I remember." She mutters, then adds a comment under her breath, "Fucking sports coaches." I wait a couple of seconds before interrupting her angry ramblings.

"What's the time Lexi?"

"Uh..." She speeds up her typing, then stops, looking, I assume at the time.

"Ten to six." The phone vibrates and then chimes, Lexi grins.

"Spill," Malia says, and we all lean in closer to Lexi.

"He said that-"

"What's his name?" Whitney questions before Lexi can say anymore.

"Kaden." Lexi and Hazel speak at the same time.

"How do you know his name?"

"It was on his nametag, don't be so territorial."

"Anyway... carry on?" Alex rolls her hands in a gesture to start talking.

"Well, he just said that he would love to come to watch the show and take me out after if I was up for it." She smiled again and everyone else has similar silly smiles.

"Aww."

"That's so cute." We chimed in, collectively.

"So yeah, should we start getting ready? We have an hour and a half until the show starts." Lexi reaches over to grab her bag. "Rowan?"

"Mmhm." I turned my head to face her.

"Which bag do you need first?"

"Uhh.." I ran my eyes over the pile, trying to remember which had what, "The black and orange one.."

"Are you sure? You don't sound too certain." She was leaning over, hand hovering over the strap.

"I guess I'll find out." She grabbed the bag with one hand and tried to lift it but failed so pushed it over to me instead. I partially unzipped it and peered inside, various bags were stuffed in. The clear plastic material of a few of them allowed me to see the contents of makeup.

"Yep, this is the right one." I unzipped the rest of the bag and begin pulling out the makeup bags. I glance up enjoying the looks of shock as I finally empty my bag.

"Mary Poppins who?" I laughed and finished assembling my stuff and started layering on the makeup.