FicWad

Sousou, pirouette, pas de bourrée, voyagé, plié, soubresaut, sissonne…

I was doing a pas de deux with a guy I hadn’t bothered to learn the off. It was the final scene of the ballet and I still hadn’t spotted my mother in the crowd. She usually sat in the front row and came about an hour early.
“I’ll be a bit late, maybe I’ll sit in the back” she’d said. “I have to work late”.
“But you have to come; I can’t perform well enough without you in the crowd” I’d said.

Why isn’t she here? She promised. I hate her. Where is she? I need her. How can she do this to me?
I really hated her for not being there, for missing my big moment.

They were waiting for me back stage and as soon as I saw them I knew something was wrong.
“Are you Annabel James?” said one of them, the friendly looking one. I nodded, studying them from top to toe. They were two men in nice-looking suits and ties. One tall and with brown tousled hair and dark eyes. He looked like he was forced to be there. The other one a bit short with a face that said I’m your friend.
“Hi, we are from the London police” it was still the friendly looking one who spoke. “I am really sorry to have to tell you this, but your mother is dead”.

She had died while rushing to get to the recital. It was raining and the car had slipped of the road. It was my fault. I was the one who needed her there. She was rushing because of me. She wouldn’t have died if I’d never started dancing ballet. Now I had to move to my Grandma Rose in the USA, she was my only living relative.
She’d come to mom’s funeral even though I’d never meet her and my mom and her son (I didn’t want to call him dad sins he died before I was born) was never married. I guess she did it for me. I felt like I’d known her my whole life. She was really there for me.
We flew to New York were Grandma had a car waiting to take us to Belleville, right by Bellville Park. I couldn’t stay inside all night so I went down to the park and threw rocks in the pond when I saw some kids my age sitting under some trees.
“Hi, I’m Annabel”
“Hello Annabel, I’m Bob and this is my girlfriend Melissa, Alex, Hannah and Chris” Said the blond guy with his arm around the redhead girls shoulders he introduced as Melissa.
“I love your accent, how long have you been in the US?” Said the Asian guy I think was Chris. “Why don’t you take a seat?” He gestured at the grass between him and the other guy I guessed was Alex.
I sat down thinking my stay here would be much easier if I had some kids to hang out with.
“Yeah, I’m actually moving here, to my Grandma. I came from London today”.
The other guy, Alex, seemed a bit to interested in my life back in London, asking all these questions and giving comments as “oh, that must have been fun”, and “wow”, and “cool, so you’re really flexible?”. The last one was when I told them about me dancing ballet. He was all touching me on the leg and leaning towards me.
“So why did you move here if you had such a good life in London?” The question I was dreading, but had to come obviously. But I couldn’t deal with it there. Not that soon after her death. I could feel the tears behind my eyes dying to come out.
“I... hah... have t-t-to go” I had to force the words out before I got up and ran towards Grandma Rose’s house. I ran until I couldn’t hear them anymore. The tears were blinding me and I bumped in to something. Or maybe I should say someone.
“I’m so sorry!” I looked up at the most beautiful boy I had ever seen. He had brownish kind of short hair and dark beautiful brown eyes. He wasn’t that much taller than me, which meant he was kind of short sins I’m really short. He had a Black Flag band t-shirt on. I’d never heard of them before that day, but it was a band I’d come to love.
“It’s okay; just watch out the next time okay?” He smiled at me; he had such a beautiful smile! “Honey! Don’t cry!” He reached his hand up to my face and wiped the tears with his fingers.