Behind The Spotlight

Chapter 15 --Regionals Final Day (Part1)--

"Wake up!", I hear someone scream excitedly. I open my eyes and see Davis being right in my face. "What's wrong?", I ask her all sleepy as I turn myself around. "Nothing, except for it being the Regional finals today", Davis tells me and my eyes grow big as I realize I'm at Regionals. "Oh yeah", I say nonchalantly as I get out of bed. Davis just laughs at me before I walk into the bathroom. I quickly brush my teeth and go to the toilet before dressing myself in my TNS-uniform. "You want to help me again, please?", I ask Davis, looking down at my stomach. She gets the hint and she nods her head. I lay myself down on our bed before Davis changes my old band-aids for new ones, and puts some make-up on to make them invisible. "Thank you", I say once she's all done. "You're welcome! Now sit up straight so I can do your hair", she tells me. I sit up and Davis starts doing my hair for my solos. I've decided to just put it half-up, half-down in the back with a twirl, and then curl the ends of my hair. Davis said that it looked really good on me yesterday so why not do it again for my solos today. And it's easy because now I can just leave my hair the way it is, and I only have to change costumes. When she's done doing my hair, I start doing hers. She just wanted a fancy bun for her solo, nothing too complicated. Once we're finished doing each other's hair, we start on our make-up. Just the same as yesterday. Some foundation, some highlight, eyeliner, mascara, natural-looking eyeshadow and some fuchsia lipstick. I take one last look at myself in the mirror before packing up my bag. "Okay guys, you all ready?", I hear Richelle ask. We all nod our heads and out the door we go.

"Good morning", Emily and Riley say in unison as we arrive at our meeting spot. I look around and notice that everyone is already here. "Are you all ready for today?", Emily asks us and we all nod our heads in excitement. "Good! Let's get breakfast then", she adds and we all follow her to the restaurant. We sit down at the same table we did yesterday before a woman comes over to us to ask if anyone wants coffee or tea, just like yesterday. Once we ordered our drinks, we get up and go and get our food. You can see that everyone is very nervous because none of us really have an appetite. "Okay guys, listen up! Yesterday was great, and I'm very proud of each and every one of you. Try to do the same thing today as you did yesterday because whatever you guys did, it worked. But remember, today is a new day which means a whole new set of judges", Emily says and we all smile from ear to ear. "First up are the solos, then we have duets and after that is the award ceremony", Michelle tells us. "That doesn't make any sense. How can you give out awards if you haven't seen all the dances yet?", I can hear Summer ask very confused. To be honest, she's not the only one that's puzzled. "Well, there are a lot of dancers that still participate in the solo or duet category even though their team didn't make it through to the finals", Michelle explains us and we all nod our heads. "Oh okay, I understand", Summer answers her and we all start giggling. "Okay, well after Awards, it's the team finals. Every team gets to dance their routine only one time. So it's sink or swim. Then, all the scores get added up and we'll know which team is going to represent region 8 at Nationals", Emily says and we're all so excited. I can't wait to perform today. "You guys all finished?", I hear Michelle ask. "Yes", we all say back in unison before we get up and we start making our way over to the competition venue. "Hi little nugget", I hear someone say as we're walking towards the competition venue. "Hey", is all I say back as I turn my head around and see that James is walking next to me. "You nervous?", he asks me, looking at my hands because I'm doing my criss-cross thingy with my fingers. "A little." "You don't have to be nervous. You're going to do great!" "I don't know. It's just... my dances are a lot more true to the story, you know. They're more personal then the dances I performed yesterday", I tell him and I feel a hand on my shoulder. "That's what is so beautiful about it. You are going to tell your story on that stage and people are going to look up to you. Maybe there are kids attending Regionals that go through the same stuff you went through. Then, you can show them that anything is possible if you keep fighting." "Yeah well, that's a lot of pressure." "Hey, don't even worry about it. You're going to kill it", James tells me and I give him a little smile before he runs up to the front and jumps on Riley's back. They're so cute and ridiculous.