Breaking

Practice

Needless to say, the preliminaries were a success. When Leo heard the news, he smiled in relief; however, he knew that the worst was yet to come. He had to prepare himself and find the courage to confront his father, the judge, and the people about all that happened to him.

So while between practicing for the concert and participating in school, Leo had to meet with Michael to figure out what was to take place.

Michael listened to the boy's story, Smith hadn't exaggerated. Once Leo was finished with his story, he dismissed the boy, leaving him sitting there in shock as he processed all that he had heard. This was his first child abuse case that he had had to go through; Michael hoped that he would never have to do another one. He slammed his fist on the table in anger. Just thinking about what Leo went through pissed him off, no it didn't tick him off, it grieved him. The emotions that went through him were so sad that the only way to get them out was through anger.

Leo was still shaky as he was practicing with the others. The stretches they went through first seemed to take forever as all Leo wanted to do was to sing and dance the pain out of his heart. Leo pulled his leg over his head, pulling it as far over his head as he could. Nicholas went over to him.

"How was it?"

"What?"

"Speaking with the lawyer, he didn't push you to hard did he? Didn't press you?" Leo shook his head.

"It's always hard talking about that kind of thing, but no, he was nice about it and let me take my time. He really just asked me about what my father did. Same as Officer Smith really." Nicholas caressed Leo's cheek, the bruise that was there was slowly fading away.

"That's good. And you, you're ok?"

"Yeah, I could be better honestly, but it's different. Things are different now, I'm not where I was."

"Gosh, we sound so cheesy and cliché." Leo gave an awkward chuckle.

"It does sound like that doesn't it?" By then, the others had finished their stretching and were just about to start the dance practice. Nicholas pulled Leo towards them.

"Ok, let's go." Leo nodded.

The music started and the group began practicing. Ryder kept bumping into Hadrian, causing the other to begin to hit Ryder.

"I swear I'm going to start strapping swords and knives onto myself so that each time you do that, you get hurt." Ryder just chuckled nervously as the green-eyed boy sent him a deadly glare.

It was slowly starting to come together, they were almost there. Leo danced to the beat of his hart, which soon became in tune with the music as he did his best to perform his moves perfectly. He, like the others, had a little solo dance of his own which he made sure to practice while the others worked on theirs.

Chase handed him one of the waters that he had bought for the group. Leo gratefully excepted with his shy, "Thank you."

"No problem, you're looking good there. Why don't you take a break with me?" Leo hesitated; he really wanted to keep practicing, but he was starting to become fatigued. In the end, whether voluntary or not, he joined Chase on the floor.

"So, Ryder just told me, his mother said that the costumes should be ready in about a day or two. Isn't that great?" Leo nodded. "She's apparently really excited to show them to us, "Her best creation!"" Leo couldn't help but smile at the thought of it.

"I can't wait to see them. But do you think that we'll even be able to see them? I mean, considering that it was supposed to be my father who was doing the judging this year." Chase's smile dampened a bit, but he soon brought it back to smiling.

"Don't worry, I'm sure the school will think of something. They might delay it, but I know for sure that they wouldn't cancel it; it's way too important. Many companies have already been invited to watch and recruit." Leo nodded, reassured. Little did they know, that who was judging would be the least of their worries.