Being with Michael: Part 1 (Book Two)

Chapter Forty Nine

The next morning, Paige calls her physical therapist, Scott. "I can't make it in today. I'm sorry, I just have some stuff to deal with."

"That's okay, you need a break. Am I going to see you tomorrow?" Scott asks.

Michael walks in to the room and Paige says in to the phone, "Yeah, I'll be there."

"Who was that?" Michael asks when she hangs up.

"Scott," Paige says. She's curled up on a lounge chair in the sitting room off the master bedroom. Michael sits down on a stool next to her.

"Where do you want me to start?" Paige asks him, turning her head to Michael.

"Wait, you want to talk about it now?" He asks her.

She shrugs her shoulders, "We're going to have to talk about it sometime and I just made my day free."

Michael shifts his weight on the stool, "Okay then."

Paige just looks at him, so Michael asks her, "What?"

She smiles and shakes her head, "I asked you, where do you want me to start?"

"Ohh," Michael thinks about this. "Start at what happened after Adam moved. I basically know everything before then, right?"

Paige nods, "Yeah." She takes a deep breath and runs her hand up and down her arm.

"Don't be scared," Michael comforts her.

She shakes her head, "No, I'm not scared, I want to tell you. It's just not the prettiest of memories."

"Well, when do the pretty memories start?" He asks her this thinking maybe she can talk about those first.

"The day I auditioned for your tour," Paige says.

Paige bites her nail and then starts by saying, "Well, when Adam moved away, I was probably around eleven or twelve. When he was here, I would use his shop as a place to stay when I couldn't stay at home because my parents were dangerous. After he left, though, the only place I really had to go was the park when the weather was good. So, I would camp out there if I needed to. But I wanted to keep dancing because it was the only thing I loved at the time, and the only thing that kept me sane probably, and as much as I loved the park, it didn't work as well as the room with mirrors in Adam's shop."

Michael kind of begins to see the stuggle she was faced with between what she wanted and what she was only capable of having.

"Since I didn't have much parental supervision, I would walk around the town. And one night, I walked down this alley following the sound of music playing. I opened this door on the side of a building and inside I saw a troop of people dancing, singing, flipping, doing anything you could possibly imagine."

Paige chuckles, "I just walked right in and looked around at all the people. Of course, some of the people saw me, but they just kept doing what they were doing until the song ended. A guy came up to me and asked me what I was doing there and I told him I followed the music. He seemed kind of impressed at my answer and he asked me if I could dance or anything. My exact answer was, 'I thought I could before I came in here.' I made everyone in there laugh and then before I knew it, they were training me to be a part of their troop. It was just a group of people who created music and performed for fun, never spending or making any money. And the building we used was an old, abandoned one no one payed attention to. So, I found myself another place to escape to and dance at."

Wow, Michael thinks, resourceful.

Paige scratches her neck and swallows. "I was there the night my father killed my mom and then himself when I was thirteen. All I remember is hearing sirens going down the road, and a couple people went out to check on it. They said police cars were heading west, in the direction of my house, and I just had a bad feeling in my gut. I left to go to my house, and some of the others wanted to come with me, but I told them no because it would cause a scene and the police would find our hangout and kick us out. So, once I got to my house, there were police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances, all flashing their lights. I tried to run up to the front door and an officer stopped me, explaining I couldn't go in. Then he sat me down and told me that my parents were dead, and in one of my most shameful moments, I was almost happy about it."