It seemed to be a theme for me that day, and not a particularly original one,

but that didn’t change the fact that I found myself storming out of Mrs Brown’s office in the dance studio and slamming the door.

To be honest, I likely could have avoided that,

if I hadn’t done it earlier in my classroom, and I might have been able to prevent -that- if it weren’t for an earlier incident with Lela.

If I had just taken the time to think about it,

I would’ve recognized how ridiculous the whole thing was, considering what had set it all off,

but I wasn’t quite ready for such introspection.

“Hey, Skye, what…?” Dale started to say before I brushed past him,

hardly in the mood to trade barbs with him,

nor to answer why my classroom was empty while there was still half an hour until his class.

He wasn’t about to let me go that easily, however.

He reached out, grabbed my arm, tried again.

“Skye, what in the world is going on?”

It started at some little girl’s house,

some kid I didn’t actually know,

though that honestly wasn’t hard to believe,

looking at her.

To put it kindly, she wasn’t the most…

athletic of children, and I couldn’t quite imagine her as even a preliminary a form of the ballerina as the kids who passed through my class.

Lela had introduced us, of course,

but I can’t say that I remembered the girl’s name, and I find it doubtful that she was interested enough in me to even listen to my name.

Lela and I hadn’t really been doing anything special,

but I would have been doing straight-up nothing if I hadn’t been with her.

Much like it had been the past few days when I’d gone to find her wherever she was babysitting that day.

The people in this house didn’t even subscribe to any interesting magazines,

so I’d been stuck looking through the newspaper,

listening to the music from that CD I’d found the other day –

it was strangely relaxing,

so I’d decided to rip it to my computer,

which,

oddly,

couldn’t find any information on it,

then put it onto my MP3 player – and snacking on one of the shortbread cookies Lela had baked for me.

Unsurprisingly, there was no interesting news to be reported that day,

nor, did it seem, any other day.

It was amusing to skim through the movie listings,

for a minute or two,

wondering if I should even bother trying to see if Lela wanted to go see anything that weekend.

Even if the answer was yes, we’d probably have to see some kids’ show, since, chances were, she’d be babysitting.

Again.

I’d asked her once what she did with all of the money she made,

but she hadn’t answered that any more than she would tell me why she worked so much.

Her parents were pretty well off, after all, and it wasn’t like she ever had free time to go out and spend much of her hard-earned cash.

“Do you wanna catch a matinee Saturday?” I’d asked finally,

deciding the momentary conversation it would spark would be a better diversion than trying to muddle through some old woman’s article on the correct way to plant tulips.

“Is there anything good playing?”

Lela had glanced up from the game of Candyland she and the girl were playing on the coffee table.

“That’s not the point,” I’d rolled my eyes.

“We should just go to the movies together, you know?

We used to go all the time!”

That wasn’t strictly true,

but I remembered going with her family a couple times when we were little,

back when the theater was in a completely different and far cooler building,

even if it’d had much fewer screens.

“So that means there isn’t anything good, huh?” she’d asked,

sharing some secret smirk with the girl.

“Oh, come on,” I’d whined, moving from the armchair I’d been sitting on,

flopping down on the couch behind her,

at least until she cleared her throat and I sat up with a sigh, to get my feet off the upholstery.

“You’re no fun, you know that?”

She’d smiled at me, friendly enough, shaking her head slightly.

By all accounts, her comment was innocent enough.

Unfortunately, I hadn’t quite been able to see it like that.

“You know,” she’d said, moving her piece on the board,

“Maybe I should start charging your parents.”

“What?”

She’d shrugged, pulling another card from the deck.

“Well, all this time I’m spending with you, it’s almost like I’m babysitting -you-.”

I didn’t say anything for a while, but I’m pretty sure she could feel my eyes boring into the back of her skull because she turned around.

“I was just joking…” she’d said upon seeing my expression.

“Yeah, whatever. If you want me to leave you alone, just say so.”

“Why would I want that, Skye? Come on, it was just a stupid joke.”

But I couldn’t help thinking of the book, and what I’d read there.

“Skye,” the passage began,

“was often afraid that her friend, despite being the more physically child-like, saw her as just another kid to watch,

and that was part of the reason they had stopped hanging out as much.

Perhaps, that part of her mind thought,

Lela was finally accepting that Skye was growing up,

and, as such, wasn’t interested in being around her anymore.”

Ever since reading that,

I’d been trying to convince myself I didn’t really think that way, nor did Lela.

After all, it was just a book, right?

Never mind the fact that it had described me and Lela exactly –

it wasn’t like we were unique,

no matter what our kindergarten teacher had tried to tell us.

And never mind that it had detailed the incident with my shorts,

though at that point things -were getting a bit freaky.

But I’m not the only person in the world to rip an article of clothing in the park, I’m sure.

To be honest,

I hadn’t gotten any further than that before stuffing the book into a desk drawer.

Hearing Lela says that, after reading that part of the book,

was too much for me, I guess.

“I have to go,” I’d told her stiffly, getting back off the couch and heading for the front door.

“It was just a joke!” she’d repeated.

“Yeah, you’re a freakin’ comedian,” I’d said, before slamming the door shut behind me.

I don’t think I really intended to be quite so dramatic with it, but it was a windy day outside.

By the time my ballet class rolled around, even I had to admit that I wasn’t in the best of moods.

And, considering I hadn’t done anything else that day besides mope,

occasionally staring at the drawer I had hidden book in,

it was pretty clear what I was unhappy about.

To me, at any rate.

My students weren’t in the loop,

so when I saw one doing pretty much the complete opposite of what I had just told them to do,

I don’t think she picked up that my yelling at her was more me working out my own frustrations than me actually being angry at her.

I didn’t really get a chance to find out for sure, however,

before she ran out of the room in tears.

“If anyone else here can only listen as well as her,”

I’d told the rest,

“get out.”

One timid little girl,

not particularly talented,

took my advice.

“Well then,” I’d said, “now we can all concentrate.”

But any expectations that the remaining students would perform any better were quickly shattered.

“Did you practice what we learned last time?” I’d demanded after a particularly frightful attempt from them of reproducing it.

A couple of them were actually honest,

shaking their heads shamefully.

Some of them nodded. Most of them didn’t do anything.

“You can’t just do this during class and expect to get it!”

I could remember all the hours of training I’d done, and felt a bit like an old woman, though I managed to prevent myself from saying,

‘Kids these days are so lazy!

Back in my day…’, out loud.

“I can’t teach you anything else until you learn this!”

I’d turned the music back on and walked past the rows of confused girls,

following me with their eyes.

By the time I’d gotten the door open,

one of them had the courage and stupidity,

to ask, “What are we supposed to do?”

“Practice!” I’d barked at them.

“Get it right so you don’t waste my time next class, too!”

But I wasn’t going to be there for the next class;

I could tell that pretty much as soon as I closed the door, only to find Mrs Brown,

the owner of the dance studio, waiting for me in the hall.

The angry-looking parents, two of which already had their sniffling kids with them, we’re a pretty big clue as well.

So, when I left Mrs. Brown’s office,

I can’t say that I was in the best of moods, nor that I was thinking straight.

The latter was made perfectly obvious when, after a minute or two of glaring at Dale after he’d asked the question,

I suddenly found myself kissing him.

I pulled away, just as surprised as he appeared to be.

“I-I have to go…” I said, blushing before I turned and ran away from him, trying to ignore the desire to lean back in towards his lips.

What was I thinking?!

I didn’t like Dale…

I liked Keith.

Even if Keith didn’t like me,

which I still couldn’t bring myself to believe,

not after how long we’d been together.

I slowed down pretty quickly,

as soon as I’d gotten out of the building,

a little annoyed at myself to find that I was kind of disappointed he hadn’t followed me.

I started back towards the door,

but the only people to come out was the mother of one of my students,

with her daughters in tow.

I’d seen the older daughter before since she was in my class, and pretty decent, but I hadn’t seen her younger sister.

Even I had to admit she was pretty cute if a bit silly looking dressed as she was,

with a tutu skirt on over her cut-off jean shorts,

which were themselves over a pair of rainbow-striped tights.

I shook my head, telling myself I hadn’t really wanted to see anybody else anyhow and turned around to start the walk home.

After a couple of minutes, I thought to pull out my cell and call mom.

She didn’t answer – probably in a meeting or something – so I left her a message, telling her I didn’t need her to pick me up at the studio.

I thought that I was walking slowly,

just trying to clear my head,

but even so I managed to beat my mom home.

I went straight to my room,

closed the door –

quietly, this time – a

nd over to my desk.

I stopped there long enough to question what the heck I was expecting.

Did I really think the book actually had all the answers, or -any- answers, for that matter?

It was just a book, that, by some weird coincidence,

had a few similarities to my life.

That was it.

But, of course, if that was the case, then there would be no harm in looking at it, now would there?

Surely after the first few pages,

I’d realize that those coincidences were just that when Skye and Lela went off and had some kind of strange,

magical adventure together.

I’m not sure if I was expecting the book to have vanished or something,

but I felt a sigh of relief escape my lungs when I opened the drawer and found it still there.

I started by just opening to the first page again, making sure that it was still the same,

then I started to flip through it.

I stopped a little way in, a certain paragraph catching my eye.

“She stormed out of the house, slamming the door on her way.

The sound scared her,

so, in her mind, she blamed it on the wind, assuring herself that she wasn’t -that- touchy about having her fears confirmed.

It became much more difficult for her to believe that,

however,

when she found herself still angry enough by the time her ballet class had started to start taking it out on her students.

All of whom, most likely,

Lela would rather spend her time with since their parents -would – and in most cases, did – compensate her for paying attention to them.”

I very nearly closed the book then, and I considered following that up with setting it on fire,

though I didn’t actually go through with either.

How could this be possible?

Still, I had pretty much been hoping for something like that,

something to tell me that there was more to the book than just featuring characters that were similar to me and Lela.

But now that I had that confirmation, I had a new question.

Had I gone too far, or not far enough?

What question was I really looking for the answer to?

Finally, I decided to go back a few pages.

I had intended to go a little further,

but Keith’s name came up quicker than I’d expected.

“’ Listen, guys,” Keith said from the shadow of the doorway,

not even daring to go inside,

‘I don’t think I can do this.’

‘What the hell are you talking about, man?’ Martin asked.

‘You already did it.

She was holding us back and you know it, man.’”

I stopped there, staring down at the words in shock.

Was that what they really thought? -I- was holding -them- back?

Please… My singing was no worse than Martin’s drum playing.

Maybe I wasn’t perfect, but did they seriously think they could find someone better in this town?

“‘Yeah, I know,’ Keith agreed with half of a shrug,

though his shoulders didn’t quite find their way back down.

‘But I can’t be around all this, not now.

t reminds me too much of her.’”

My heart stopped there,

along with my eyes,

while my brain did its best to censor out the first part of his response so it could focus on the end.

He missed me!