Behind The Spotlight

Chapter 12 --Just One More Day--

"Blakely", I hear someone whisper. I open my eyes and sit up to be greeted by Richelle. "Richelle?", I ask her confused as I look around the room. Why am I at the dance studio? "What are you doing here? Didn't you stay with Davis and Jacquie last night?", Richelle asks me. "Yeah", I tell her, looking down embarrassed. "Hey girls", we hear Noah say as he walks into the TNS-lounge. "Okay great. Please, take over. I'm not good at this", Richelle says to Noah as she stands up and walks out of the room as fast as she can. I look towards the door, confused. "Don't take it personally. She's just not good with 'feelings'", Noah says, slightly laughing. I just give him a smile before he sits down next to me. "Weren't you staying with Davis?", he asks as she turns to face me. I nod my head. "What happened?" "I panicked in the middle of the night and ran away", I tell him, thinking about what I did. "Why?" "I don't know... I just don't want to be a burden to her family." "Why would you be a burden to anyone?" "Because I've always been a burden to my own family, my father hated me and my mother killed herself because of me." "That's not true! None of that happened because of you", Noah tells me sweetly. I just shrug my shoulders before standing up. "Are you going to stay here, or are you coming with me to studio A?", I ask him, kind of irritated. "Okay okay, I'm coming", he says as he throws his hands up in the air. He stands up and follows me over to studio A. "Oh Blakely. I'm so happy you're here", Davis screams as soon as we enter studio A. She immediately comes running up to me and embraces me in a big hug. "I've been so worried about you. Why did you leave?", Davis asks me. "I'm so sorry. I just felt bad. I felt like a burden and I needed to get out", I tell her honest. "You will never be a burden, Blakely. We all love you", she tells me sweetly and I can't do anything else other then smile. "I've got some spare dance clothes in my bag", Davis says as she leads me to her cubby and takes a pair of black leggings, a black sports bra and a dark purple sweatshirt out of her dance bag. "Here", she says as she hands them to me. I give her a little thankful smile before running over to the bathroom and changing into Davis' dance clothes. "That looks really nice on you. Purple is definitely a good colour on you", Davis tells me as I enter studio A again.

"Good morning A-Troupe", Emily and Michelle say in unison as they walk out of their office. "Gather round", Emily says and we all walk over to her and Michelle. "We just quickly want to say thank you. You guys have worked so hard the past few weeks, and we are extremely proud of each and every one of you", Michelle tells all of us. "All the dances are finished, so we just want you to go over them on your own and get into the right mind-set. Don't over-rehearse, don't burn your body out, just take it easy and get yourself ready for tomorrow", Emily says and we all nod our heads. "We want you all back in here at 4 o'clock so we can drive you over to Davis and Jacquie's house. Are all your bags ready?", Emily asks right before I feel a hand grabbing my arm. "Don't worry. You can borrow a bag, suitcase, clothes, stuff, anything you need", Davis whispers. "Thank you", I whisper back at her. "Okay great. Put your bags in our office and we'll load them into our cars during the day so they are all ready to go. Then we can just come and pick you guys up at Davis and Jacquie's place tomorrow morning", Michelle explains as people nod their heads and start getting their luggage into Michelle and Emily's office.

"Hey sister", I hear someone scream. I look over at the door and see both Riley and Amanda enter. Emily walks up to them and gives them both a hug. "What are you doing here? I thought you didn't have time to stop by anymore?", Emily asks Amanda and her sister. "Yeah well, the shooting for the project we were working on got postponed so guess what, if you still have space available in your car, we would love to come and support you guys at Regionals", Amanda tells her. "Really?", I ask excitingly as I run up to them. They laugh at my cuteness before both Riley and Amanda wrap me up in a hug. "Of course. We want to see our little nugget perform on the Regional stage", Riley says and my smile only grows bigger. "What about you go ahead and use studio 1 to go over your solos with them", Emily tells me and I nod my head. Amanda and Riley follow me out of studio A and over to studio 1. "Before we start, we just want to say that we're sorry about everything that happened", I hear Amanda say as soon as we enter studio 1. I turn myself around and give her a confused look. "Emily told us what happened", Riley tells me, "Are you okay?" "Yeah, I'm fine", I say back to her, not really sure if I believe it myself. But I don't have time to think about that right now. I need to get through Regionals first, then I can think and cry about everything that happened as much as I want to. "We kind of wanted to ask you something", Riley begins. "Yeah, because of everything that happened with your father, we thought it would be a good idea to incorporate your own life story into your solos", Amanda continues. "You want to changes all three of my solos one day before Regionals?", I ask them shocked. "Well, not everything. We got together last night and we have three amazing songs that we think would be perfectly fitting. We don't have to change the whole choreography, we just need to make it more fitting for the storyline." "How am I going to do that in only a few hours?" "You learn fast. You can do it." "And we really think with your story, you'll stand out and you will leave people feeling something", Riley finishes. "Okay", I say as I sigh. "Amazing. Let's start", Amanda says before I start warming up and Riley, Amanda and I start re-choreographing my solos.