Cause I'm A little Unsteady

2. I'm Free to Be The Greatest

Poppy slams the door shut with perhaps a little too much force. She casts a glare at the mirrored wall, through which she can hear Solo still playing. For just a moment, her mind is filled with the memory of Kalani dancing, how smooth and precise her movements were, how hypnotizing... but then the moment is gone and Poppy is throwing her bag on the floor before stomping across to the cord.

She jams it into her phone before pulling up her playlist once again. She hits it on shuffle and, not surprisingly, nothing but a loud crackle comes out of the speakers. She sets her phone down on the table, turning it just so, and draping the cable gently in just the right way. And suddenly the smooth opening lyrics to Glad You Came comes in clear, followed by the opening beat. Nodding her head in time, body already bouncing along, she digs the bluetooth remote from her pocket. Honestly, the best twenty bucks she's ever spent.

Turning up the volume to effectively drown out, and maybe overpower, the music next door, Poppy shuffle steps her way out to the middle of the floor, turning on her heel and giving herself a spin, arms up. She stops, facing the mirror, and flashes herself a bright smile. Then the lyrics pick up and she's moving.

Her eyes drift closed and she moves, arms and legs, her whole body. Each step, each gesture, each roll of her hips is in time with the music. Nothing is precise and calculated like Mikey's dancing. It's not all jarring big movements like Lacey's, or smooth and elaborate like Cristi's and Daniel's. Hell, it's not even as energetic as Mr. Symons. But it's real. Poppy has always let the music just flow through her, and her body moves on it's own. Sure, she learns moves and styles, but when it comes right down to it, she just does what feels right.

She bounces on the ball of one foot, her other foot shifting her around in a circle with small, quick steps. Her arms are held out wide and angled as she spins. Then she points the remote at her phone and switches to the next song. It only lasted less than a minute.

She throws back her head and laughs as What is Love starts playing. Her dance style changes immediately to match. That classic lasts only thirty seconds before she's already switching to the next.

In the pause between songs, she can hear that Solo has ended in the other room and a new song is playing. One she doesn't recognize. But it's soon drowned out by Sia. She can't help himself. She sings along to LSD as her feet shuffle across the floor and she gestures to himself in the mirror.

That song lasts much longer. Nearly a whole minute before she's switching to the next one. Rewrite the Stars. Her movements get more smooth, more flowing, more like Mikey's lyrical style or Cristi and Daniel's ballet styles.

And this is how it goes. This is Poppy's beloved process. It drives Mikey up a wall, and they refuse to be in the same room as Poppy when she does it. Hell, she's mildly surprised they're not texting her to stop it right now. They can no doubt hear her in the room below. When looking for the perfect song to choose to dance to, everyone has to do a little shuffling. But while Mikey does it at their computer, actually looking through their songs, Poppy does it like this. She sets her whole playlist to shuffle and actually feels out each song, hitting the next button on her bluetooth remote.

Some songs last nearly a minute, and some last only five seconds. Most average out at around thirty. She hasn't found anything yet, and she's not sure what she's looking for. But when she knows, she'll know. She trusts her instincts. It's worked for her so far.

She goes through songs decades old and new hits, everything and anything she's got on her phone. She loses track of time and how many songs she goes through. Five minutes? Ten? Thirty?

She's in the middle of Give Me Everything, and singing along to it of course, when she hears a banging. She stops in the middle of spinning on her heel, nearly toppling over. She glares at the floor, expecting to hear Mikey's shout. What she hears, however, is another banging on the wall and Kalani's voice.