Two Become Three- A Joanne Story

In a Funk

When Joe woke the next day he wasn't nervous at all, he was fired up and ready to go, in fact. He felt he had had the best night's sleep he could have asked for being so far away from Connie thanks to Dianne. Plus his mum had sent him a video of Connie laughing, looking much better than when he had left her.

Dianne had already scurried out in the early morning and left Joe to get ready, with a little bit of excitement powering him on.

His day was going brilliantly he managed to have breakfast with his Nan, Aunties and Uncles and his Dad, as well as get some of Janette's birthday chat and hear from none other than Gloria Estefan that he was her favourite. To say it felt like a good day might be moving towards an understatement.

By the end of dress run however, the same could not be said. Dread had filled him up at the look of his Nan's face. But disappointment had replaced hit when he remembered Dianne's.

He could now be seen stood in the empty dressing room, because everyone was either eating or in costume, desperately trying to remember the routine that seems to have escaped his mind. Taking a deep breath he raised his hands, as if he was in hold, and started dancing on the spot, hoping he'd be able to do it all of the way through. He needed to nail this in order to show Connie why he had to leave her.

"Shit. Fuck. Ugh," Joe said, as he went wrong again and tripped onto the floor. Hitting his fist on the floor in anger, he just laid there, tears falling from his eyes. It was as though suddenly he just couldn't get it right, like the pressure of his Nan and blackpool and Dianne's dream and Connie being upset, had pushed it well away from his mind.

Joe almost laughed when he realised that he had never cried out of frustration in his life. Happiness? Of course. Sadness? Are you kidding me? But Frustration? Never in his life. But nevertheless, there he was, on the floor in a dressing room in Blackpool, in a pool of his own tears of frustration.

Never thought I'd be doing this.

"Thought I'd find you in here," he head a familiar voice say, as the door opened.

"Wait what's up, why are you laying on the floor? Tell me," and her feet appeared next to him. This caused a sigh of relief to exit from him, that he wasn't necessarily aware he had been holding; it was her and not somebody else. Though, he still didn't lift his head to look at her, ashamed he couldn't remember how to do it.

The shake of his head for a reply caused Dianne to crouch down and rub his back, hoping to relax all of the tense muscles. When this didn't stop him from crying, she pulled him upright and let him fall into her chest. Her hands twined around him, as he cried; everything had hit him like a ten tonne truck.

"I'm so stupid" he sniffed, a few moments later, as she held on tightly, kissing his head every so often. Dianne laughed at this remark and he could feel her shaking her head.

"Look at me" she said after a little while more, moving his chin so he was facing her. She wiped the tears away from his cheeks and said, "No you're not, you're just having a wobble. You're in a funk. Everything you're dealing with and having to think about got to you. That's understandable and totally okay. I'm sorry if I was raging when I came off or when I was dancing with you, it was just my natural reaction." Dianne apologised, the heat of the moment had made her say some things that she hadn't meant and she hadn't been angry or annoyed at all. More her heart was hurting that it wasn't going well for him. She knew how much he had weighed on this, knew how much he wanted to show Connie why he had to leave her.

"You had the right," Joe said, sighing, she had already managed to calm him significantly.

She shook her head but chose not to verbally argue, instead she suggested they watched through one of the recordings from the week and she helped him get the steps back.