Burning Touch

Chapter 36

It had been a couple of days and Isabelle was going bat shit crazy with nothing to do. The one week off she had, in the beginning, she thought she'd spend every waking day with Andre but now she didn't even want to think about him. Or she was trying not to think about him by keeping busy which was not an easy task seeing as she had nothing to do except dance. She'd gone to the studio to dance but it had been packed. She had tried other studios and they were all booked out and she was out of options.

The only thing she could think about was going back to the hospital to help out any way she could. She wasn't looking to get paid, just to occupy her mind with something else other than André and of course to help out the best way she could.

Kelsie, the full-time physiotherapist at the hospital, was a new addition to the staff and over a couple of days she had spent at the hospital, she had gotten to know her and Izzy was glad to have someone to talk to. While Mia and Josie always called to check in on here's she missed the face to face conversations and Kelsie was sort of the only one she talked to.

"So, it's your last day today," Kelsie said during lunch. "Are you excited to head back to the world of dance?"

Izzy smiled.
"What do you think?"

Kelsie rolled her eyes at her questions.
"Of course."

Izzy laughed because she has just answered her own question and obviously felt silly for asking it in the first place.

"It's been great being back here and as much as I love helping out any way I can, I need to get back to what I'm meant to be doing."

Kelsie smiled.
"It'll be good to have you here once in a while."

Izzy looked at her and thought of that for a second.
"It would."

Izzy kept it at the back of her mind to visit that later. She really needed to find a balance and with that thought, once again, he popped into her mind.

André stood with his back to his desk and his entire office as he stared out the floor to ceiling window. Every second not doing anything was filled with thoughts of her, her smile, her laugh, her essence, just everything that made her her. Even when he was deep in work, she wiggled her way through his thoughts and danced about like fireflies in the dark.

"André...?"

"Mr. Leon...Mr. Leon. Sir!"

André snapped out of his reverie and turned around to face Vincent whom he had forgotten had been in his office.
"Yeah. I agree with Fred." André said having no idea what his friend had spoken to Vincent about. "That'd be all Vincent."

Vincent stared at him confused but got up and left André with Fred still on the video call.

"What's going on with you? Where's your head at?"

André looked at his friend and Fred immediately knew.
"It's been a week."

"Which feels like barely a second because everything reminds me of her."

Fred sighed knowing exactly what that was like.
"It'll take time of course, but you need to keep yourself occupied."

"Did that work for you?"

Fred looked away.

"I'll take that as a no," André said. "How are things going on over there?"

"Smooth," Fred said. "Got a few more staff resuming next week, we've got a lot of great ideas coming in and most of them only have a visual of what the next great tech looks like, so we have the engineering division on them like a hawk trying to get it to match their vision."

André nodded.
"Sounds good."

"Josie told me about your lunch date."

"Did she tell you anything else?"

"No." Feed frowned. "Was she supposed to?"

André shook his head.
"I got to go, got a meeting with the staff."

"Alright. Talk to you later bro."

"Yea." Andre said and ended the video call before he spilled the beans on Mia's whereabouts.

Izzy was more than thrilled to be heading back to dance rehearsals the following Monday morning. The first few minutes of being back, she had a little chit chat with everyone before Laurieann came and the real fun began. Except it was not Izzy's day.

Laurieann had called her out on her moves, on her arch, on her turns, on her... everything. Izzy was beginning to regret wishing to be back here.

"Get your head in the moves, Isabelle. What's up with you today?"

Izzy sighed as she went again and again and she still wasn't making Laurieann happy.

"Isabelle, a second."

Izzy walked away from the dancers and towards her at the front of the class.

"Yes?"

"What's going on in your head?"

"Nothing."

"Exactly. I need you to feel everything and I need you to put that into every single move."

Izzy was scared if she felt, she would only feel the hurt and nothing more.
Izzy nodded.
"Ok."

"You seem a little distracted." Laurieann pointed out. "Are you ok?"

"I'm fine. Great." She said with a sigh.

"You can sit today out."

"No!" Izzy said a little too quickly. "I want to do it. I can do it."

"Alright."

Izzy nodded and joined the rest of the dancers as they all took their positions.

"From the top."

The few seconds before the music played, Izzy opened up everything she had shut for the past week and she let all the buried emotions rush to the surface and engulf her.

"5, 6...5, 6, 7, 8."

Izzy danced with everything she felt putting all her emotions into each move letting herself feel what she had denied herself the past week. It was in the best sense "dance or die".

"Yess Isabelle, that's it." She heard Laurieann's voice at a distance.

Her head overloaded with her emotions and she felt her eyes grow wet and as she nailed the turn, the next thing she heard was a snap then she felt a sharp pain radiating through her entire body as she fell to the floor.

*****************************************************
Hey guys,

So, I've got one more paper which is on Monday before I've over and done with exams. But I'll be traveling home on Tuesday and wouldn't be able to post till I'm settled.

So, let's just say next weekend would be when I'm back to this full time with no distractions. I'm not promising a daily update but maybe thrice a week.

Thanks for understanding,
J.L.