(formerly all my love) Sean and Kaycee are best friends. They're incredible dancers. As they try begin to navigate the water of teen love, an unspeakable event occurs that leaves the two shellshocked and fighting to hold onto each other as they also...
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Sean
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Kaycee crumpled to the ground. "KAYC!" I cried, grabbing her head before she smacked the pavement. "Hey, don't worry, I'm ok, I'm ok, we're ok," I said quickly, the words rushing together in the air. "Come on Kaycee, please," the tears caught in my throat. For all we'd been through, she couldn't quit on me now. She never had. I needed her to be strong. I clinched her fingers tightly in my palm and directed all of my strength towards her.
Her eyes fluttered and she stirred, but barely. "Hey," I breathed over her. "We're ok. I'm here. I've got you. We're ok."
"S-Sean?" she got out. I shook my head. "It's just some bruising, Kayc. It's ok. I was stupid, and I let it happen. I'll be fine."
She reached out to touch my face and I let her hands flutter across my skin like butterflies, leaving hot trails wherever they lingered in the cold air. "Think you can stand?" I asked her. Her eyes watched me intensely. She nodded and slowly, I stood up and pulled her with me. "You know what?" I asked her. She tilted her head slowly. "I have a really good idea, but only if you're up for it."
"A-anything," she said slowly.
"Are you sure?" I searched her face for clues, but she was blank. I felt horrible knowing it was my fault, yet again, that she was feeling this way. I wished she hadn't seen the bruising. I wished I hadn't brought them upon myself, but at the time, it was the form of self-punishment I felt I needed the most. She squeezed my hand reassuringly so I broke apart and looked at her. Shivering, still in her costume and makeup from the dance, her eyes shining as they widened in the moonlight. I was in no position to go anywhere myself, but it was the city, and no one could question us.
Sometimes the best way to go unnoticed is to stand out the most.
People notice things when they're not right. But in society today, everyone's so sensitized to everything, that sometimes, you keep your head down so you don't make eye contact and just dismiss the event as "just another crazy person" or "well, that's how today is". So maybe, just maybe, our best shot at escaping the pressures of all of the eyes around us was being exactly who we were....but not the we they brought to interviews, the we that made us who we were in the first place...the us on stage.
Confusing, but it was worth a shot. "Do you trust me?" I asked her, extending my hand. She looked down at herself and looked at me again, shaking her head slightly as if she didn't understand. I waggled my fingers and she eyed them warily, but slipped her tiny palm in my hand. "With anything."
And we snuck away into the dark of night, away from everything telling us we couldn't, everything telling us who we should be, and everything that made us forget all that we were.
All that I was with her was everything I ever needed to be.
I needed to learn that before I could go out there.
