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, were 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 stared 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.