𝖢𝗁𝖺𝗌𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝖲𝗍𝖺𝗋𝗌 || 𝖣𝖺𝗇𝖼𝖾 𝖬𝗈𝗆𝗌

Blame It On The New Girl

TW:

I could never do anything without being questioned.

It was tiring enough that the teacher asked me about every single thing every day, but to have my brother question me was ridiculous.

It all started back when we went back home after the last competition. We were about to start the Christmas break, which I did not feel excited about. With all the things about being "more mature", I already had planned out what I had to do, but then we had to spend most of our time in other places, so I didn't get to work with what I wanted to work with all the way until two days after Christmas.

And Christmas didn't feel like Christmas at all.

Two years ago, I spent Christmas with Kara in New York. It was simple, but it was really fun, but I didn't feel happy enough to celebrate what would now be last year as of eight days ago. I just couldn't get into the holiday spirit, and the fact that they started a new tradition with Ava made me feel like an outsider. I hadn't been there for her first Christmas, but the rest of them had. Also, the floor seemed too crowded with four kids, so I opted to sit on the couch and let my three siblings occupy the space.

Both of my parents attempted to persuade me to join my siblings, but I wasn't interested. The wooden floor was way too cold for my liking and I didn't want them to notice how fake my fake smile was. And for the first time ― possibly since I was a toddler who was eager to play with her brand-new toys ― I cried on Christmas Day. And Christmas Eve. And the day after Christmas.

I didn't know what I was crying about. I didn't know if it was because of the frustration or the desperation. If it was for Miss Abby's words echoing all over my head or Ava staring at me confusedly. If it was because I hadn't been able to feel the Christmas spirit or because I didn't feel like I belonged, it went on for days. So the morning of the twenty-seventh, I woke up and sat on my bed, soon noticing something in the walls. And the desk. And the bed. And everywhere.

That's when I started packing stuff up. With the "you should do everything more mature" stuck in my head, I started packing all of my toys up. I felt a wave of something weird as I grabbed the Spider-Man and the Lizard figurines from my desk and threw them onto the blue plastic container that stood on the floor. When I turned back to my bed, I realized something else, so after asking my mom for some help, I was able to get rid of the hideous Tinkerbell comforter and all the decorations.

Turning back to one of the other walls, I caught notice of the many photos that were on it. The first one I grabbed was from back when we auditioned for the Joffrey Ballet School. Maddie, Chloe, and I had all been given scholarships, but we weren't able to attend due to the show. Five of the girls sat on a wooden bench while smiling nervously. I felt my eyes tear up as I looked at it for a moment before throwing it into another one of the containers.

How could I have been friends with people like that?

The next photo I grabbed was one with Chloe in a park. In the photo, we basically looked like twins. Our blonde hair was tied into pigtails and we wore twinning purple tees that had a colorful rainbow. On the bottom of the rainbow, it read "Be Kind". We also were matching shorts and some white sneakers. Little five-year-old me was halfway through the monkey bars while Chloe stood on top of the ladder in the back. Both of us were smiling widely and looked like we were having fun.

But neither Chloe nor her mother was sincere.

I continued throwing different framed photos into the pink plastic container. Photos of me with my so-called "friends". Photos of me and my family, but then I stopped when I saw a photo of me and my two older siblings. We were in Disneyland in the summer of two-thousand and five, about six to seven months after we first started dancing at the ALDC. Zane stood in the middle while Giselle stood to the left and I stood to the right.