Flying (Fight Song Book 2)

Chapter 20: The Last Ten

Dianne's PoV
Joe's dating Sophia?! After everything that happened?!

"He's doing it to get back at you," Lola says as we're walking to dance class. "You blew off the rehearsal to go out with someone else and to him that was the last straw. You know he didn't do anything deliberately, so in reality you're kind of overreacting."

I glare at Lola. How dare she accuse me of overreacting when my own boyfriend had kissed another girl in front of me.

"So he thought dating Sophia would help that?" I roll my eyes.

"I'm pretty sure Neil told him to do that and he'd argued against it," Lola raises her eyebrows. "But clearly he changed his mind the moment you decided to skip rehearsals."

I feel a little bad about that. It was a pretty low move, and in reality I've bought this upon myself now.

"Well, I'll just have to one up him," I say.

"What?" Lola looks at me, confused.

"I've decided I'm going to dance in B Troupe instead this year," I say. I know it's an absolutely terrible move, but I also know that Shirley has submitted the names for Nationals now and so nobody can replace me. I'll pin it on Joe and boom, they're down a dancer and people won't blame me.

"Okay you know how I just said you're overreacting," Lola stops dead in her track. "That's the definition of being a dumbass drama queen. Snap out of it and grow up."

I glare at her, and decide she's no longer any help.

"You're too young to understand," I sigh.

"Excuse me?" she looks at me, and I know I've hurt her. "I know better than you think, and I'm literally only two years younger than you."

I ignore her and carry on walking, and to my surprise she doesn't follow me.

———

When I make it to the studio, I go straight to Shirley's office, and know what I have to do. I start to cry, and knock on her office door.

"Dianne?" she asks, looking concerned as she takes in my appearance.

"I can't dance in A Troupe anymore," I sob. "It's too much with Joe. The rehearsal yesterday went so horribly, you saw it. And we actually didn't even rehearse after everyone left last night. I'm sorry, but I can't do it. I don't want to leave the studio though. I wanna dance in B Troupe if I can."

"Dianne," Shirley's concern was masked by annoyance now. "You know full well I've already submitted the names to the Nationals board and you're choreographed into the routines. I won't let you do this."

"I don't really think it's your choice," I glare at her, surprising myself at how cruel my voice sounds.

Shirley purses her lips. "One day, you'll be looking back on this and wondering why you let something as silly as a teenage crush get in the way of a dance career. Get out of my office. You can join B Troupe if you so wish." She turns back to her desk, and I leave feeling even worse than before. I know she's right. I know Lola's right too. But I also know that until I can actually look Joe in the eye and have an honest conversation with him, I can't be a part of that team.

Joe's PoV
When Dianne doesn't show up for ballet class, I'm honestly not that surprised. When she doesn't show up for acting class, I can't say I'm too shocked about that either. But it's when she doesn't turn up to A Troupe rehearsals that I know somethings wrong.

"Let me know now if any of you are thinking of quitting," Shirley says, sounding madder than I've ever seen her. "Joe? Want to quit?"

"What?" I look at her. "No, of course not."