~CHAPTER FOUR~

“Five, six, seven, eight!”

Andrea watched as the group of fifteen or so people began to move, trying to dance in the same way Andrea had just spent a half hour or so teaching them.

It wasn’t a very long or complicated dance, but it would certainly show off their talents—or lack there of—to Andrea. It would show her who could fit into her crew. She needed people who were just as determined as she was to make an impact through dancing. She had already tried to do this once, and apparently she had failed. She wouldn’t need to do this again if it had worked. So this time, she had settled on making a decision only when she was certain that the people she was interested in were in it for the dancing. Friendship would come second.

She had already auditioned a group of roughly the same size earlier in the day, and based on what she was seeing from this second group, she was glad she had thought to bring a camera to film the tryouts. A few people were obviously going to be chosen, but most seemed to be on the same level dancing-wise. They knew what they were doing if you showed it to them, but once technical terms were used, they didn’t know what they were doing. That was fine for Andrea anyway; she had always preferred action to words. Terminology can always be learned.

The short dance finally finished, and most people ended right when they should have, coming to a perfect stand still. It gave Andrea chills. No matter how many times she had seen a dance, if they all move in unison, and particularly ended in unison, it always affected her.

“Good job, everyone,” Andrea said, applauding the group. “I’ll review the video and call those who make it. I may need to hold individual tryouts, so be prepared for that.” She paused, allowing the candidates to head for their stuff that they had left on the sides of the practice room. “And please be sure to leave your phone and email with me, so I can contact you. Thank you for coming out you guys. You have no idea how much it means to me that you all came.”

A few dancers stayed behind to talk to Andrea a little more about how they did and what would be expected of them if they did make it. Andrea managed to answer all questions, no matter how repetitive, with a smile.

After everyone had finally left, Andrea packed up. She was excited about this new group, even though it hadn’t been officially formed yet. The first time she had formed a group, she had invited a group of friends who liked dancing, thinking that she could train them in the art. What she had managed to do was give them the tools to raise their confidence enough to make them think that they knew everything and could leave her behind. She wasn’t going to make the same mistake again. This is way she targeted people at the dance battle. She knew people there would at least have a passion for the art.

Andrea shook her head to get thoughts of the dance competition out of her head. The last thing that she wanted to do was think about what had happened there; seeing Jay and the members of her old crew, and the following fallout with Matt and Ryan. She was trying to work up the courage to call Matt, who had called about ten minutes after she had left Ryan’s place, leaving a voicemail apologizing over and over again when she didn’t pick up.

Right now, between being too busy with the auditions, and her pride being hurt, Andrea wasn’t quite ready to call him back. But she would eventually. Naturally she was a forgiving person, despite certain events. Plus, she didn’t have a whole lot of friends right now, so she wanted to all she could to keep the ones she still had.

She finished packing up her camera and its stand, and glanced at the clock up on the wall of the dance studio. She had booked the room for two hours, not knowing how long the auditions would run, but she was shocked to see that she still had ten minutes left of time left. Money was scarce for her, so booking this room had been a splurge, and there was no way she was going to leave any earlier than she had too. At least, that was the reason she gave herself as she stood and walked further onto the dance floor, facing the mirror that covered on wall of the studio.

The real reason was that she just missed dancing for the heck of it. It had been a while since she could dance without worrying about choreography, remembering what she was doing, or thinking about what others would think of it. It had been one of the things that had attracted her to breakdancing. So much of it was unscripted. The dancer just let the music move them.

Andrea didn’t even bother turning on music. She just started moving. She allowed her emotions and memories into her limbs, giving them complete control of what she was doing.

The world went quiet. Andrea couldn’t see anything. She could only hear her feet hitting the hardwood floor to the arbitrary rhythm.

The problem wasn’t the loss of sight. It was the loss of thought.

Andrea went to attempt a move, a leap that she hadn’t tried in a while, and that just as she started it, she knew something bad would happen. She snapped out of her trance just in time for her to land.

For a split second, she was proud of herself for landing on her feet.

Then she wished she had fallen.

She landed with her knee too straight, and much of the landing’s shock went straight through there. Her knee had already been weak, and the jolt was too much.

It gave, bringing Andrea painfully to the floor.

She landed on her side, her arm breaking her fall. She hadn’t had time to put her hands out, but she was immediately glad she didn’t hit her head.

Right away, she tried to get to her feet, but quickly realized that, though her arm didn’t hurt too much at all, her knee refused to work without screaming in pain. She hissed as the pain shot through her.

Before she could register anything else, she heard rushed footsteps come towards her.

Great, she thought. Someone saw that.

A pair of feet stopped right in front of her face. She didn’t look up, knowing that her face was already bright red from realizing that they had been watching her and had seen her fall.

The person knelt down so they were more on her level as she laid on her side on the floor of the practice room.

“Are you alright?” the person asked.

Andrea forgot her embarrassment immediately and looked up to see the person’s face.

Jay.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Andrea spat.

Jay looked down at her, confused. “I saw you fall. When you didn’t get up, I thought I should make sure you were okay.”

Andrea groaned. Of all people to see her fall while dancing, the last person she would have wanted to see it would be the person who stole her dancers. “Go away,” she said, trying to drag herself up to a sitting position.

Seeing what she was trying to do, Jay reached out and took a hold of her, trying to help her.

“Don’t touch me,” Andrea cried, kicking at him.

Unfortunately, in her embarrassment and anger, she had forgotten her throbbing knee and kicked with the injured leg, aggravating it more when it came in contact with Jay’s leg, making Andrea cry out involuntarily.

“Look,” Jay said with a sigh; as though he had been kicked by an angry woman lying on the ground before. “I’m just trying to help. But we should probably get you to the hospital to check to see if you’ve broken something. Do you have a car? I’ll drive you.” He reached for her again, and this time, Andrea didn’t protest. He was probably right, but she couldn’t believe he was helping her.

“Why…why are you doing this?” she asked.

“You don’t remember me?” Jay asked as he finally pulled her to her feet. He pulled the arm on the same side as her injured leg over his shoulder and began walking. “We met at the dance competition a week ago. I’m Jay, remember?”

He doesn’t know, Andrea thought as he helped her out of the studio, even grabbing her stuff for her, and taking her towards his car.

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