Courage

Chapter 5

It was 5am when Lydia woke up to the sun shining through her window directly onto her bed. She groaned, not wanting to get up. That was until she realized what day it was. Saturday. It was the day she finally got to complete her heart-warming solo. She knew that this could be a winner, if she performed it like she had in previous rehearsals. Lydia jumped out of bed eager to start the day and get her solo judged. She ran into the living area, where the majority of her team mates stood, watching a video around somebody's phone. Lydia went up and joined them to see what they were watching, that was when they realized it was a video of her doing her dance to 'flawz', she wondered how they had got the video as from her knowledge nobody had a video of it except her. As she came to the realization that somebody must have taken her phone whilst she was asleep she started to walk closer to the group, making her presence known. As she carried on walking closer to the group, they started to brake up and return to their rooms. Only Holly, a girl in Lydia's group, was left. Lydia made her way over to her teammate with a questioning glare. Holly giggled at Lydia's suspense. Her teammate handed her back her phone before quickly running out the room grinning. Lydia forgot about it, whatever they were doing was not going to ruin her performance. She got lost in her own thoughts before she heard Sandra shouting.

"BREAKFAST" Lydia wondered back into her room, not wanting to eat anything before the big day. Nothing was going to ruin this performance, not even her appearance. As she got back to her dark hotel room, she knew exactly what she had to do. She went over to the large-sized overnight bag that she had packed the night before and got out her precious journal. She looked at the L on the front, that had been specifically made for her, smiling at the memories. She opened the journal seeing all the calories at the front. She flicked through the last year of entries, disgusted at the fact, that at the start of the year she had been eating over 500 calories a day. She made her way to yesterday's entry and looked at the number. 0. She had made it through another day of fast, she had hoped that maybe she would be able to go another week but Lydia now didn't feel this was possible with her dance team not leaving her alone. She snapped out of her thoughts when she heard footsteps coming down the hall. She quickly rushed to put the journal away not wanting anyone to know she had it and defiantly didn't want anyone finding out the content. She had just about put the journal back in her bag when Sandra came rushing in.

"Lyd. It's breakfast." Sandra said to me, angry that I had not come down originally.

"Sorry. I wasn't hungry. I should have told you." She replied, anxious about what her dance teacher would say.

"You really should eat something Lydia. You have a big day today and I want you to be healthy." Sandra answered concerned about her best student. Lydia just stood still, not wanting to speak about it. Sandra took this as a hint to leave her alone, but made a mental note to make sure Lydia ate at lunch. As soon as Sandra left the room, Lydia relaxed having that attention off of her. She picked her phone off of her bed and started to plug it in to her portable speakers. She started playing 'flawz' listening to every word relating it to things in her life, to make sure that her performance was going to have full emotion when doing it on stage. She ran her solo a few times before it was time to leave for the competition.

The short journey from the hotel to the competition was uneventful, with all the girls doing their makeup and Sandra sitting at the front checking out the program for the competition. Once they pulled up outside the huge arena, Lydia couldn't believe her eyes. It was massive. She looked at the huge lettering, above the oak-painted door, which said 'Dancing Your Dreams Away.' She loved it. She walked into the long, narrow hallway which lead to the backstage dressing rooms, where each of the girls would wait until their dances were called. Lydia couldn't wait to be out there preforming. As the got into their dressing room, it was much bigger than any of Lydia or her teammates expected, there was a light up mirrored wall, dressing tables and a huge room sectioned of for the girls to get changed in. The room was painted a plain white with glitter splattered around on the walls. She was so excited to get going with her solo.