Her chuckle was dangerous, cutting through the silenced studio. He retained her undivided attention, and no one wanted to draw that onto themselves. She had almost been finished tearing this kid a new one, but that tone. As she circled him, she could feel his anger rising. He was making this fun for her.
“Oh, wow!” she said, her expression wickedly delighted. She wanted to see how far she could push him before he lashed out in frustration. Better for him to find out in class and learn how to deal with it than make her mistake out there. “You got some guts after all. Okay. If you aren’t homesick, what’s your problem? Or do you just suck?”
She was still coming for him? Blaine listened to Rachel suffer through her first six months with this woman. He should have expected nothing less than her ‘trial by fire’ attitude. But this? This was hitting him at the worst time possible and he was quickly losing whatever patience he was desperately clinging onto. If only out of respect for her position because she was rapidly losing it for anything else.
Blaine knew how people like her worked. He’d suffered worse by others who were better at it and far crueler. And also helped someone else do the same. A bully was a bully. Regardless of the wrappings. Or position at a prestigious arts school his family was paying a lot of money for him to be at to learn. Not to have a psychoanalysis done by someone who at one point? Was a psycho. Could you really say it was past tense listening to this conversation, though?
“I’m sorry but I fail to see how any of this,” he gestured towards the room beyond them by letting his hand fall free from where it was behind his back to gesture towards the room, “has anything to do with my personal life.” His tongue ran along the roof of his mouth like he was coaxing down the last bitter pill of tolerance he had left. “I apologized. I said I’d do better and it will not happen again. Can we, please, move on?”
She appreciated that he didn’t waste her time with feeble excuses but he sure as hell didn’t look ready to get it together. This one needed a healthy dose of tough love, and she believed in him enough to give it to him herself.
“Aw,” she said, lips gathering into a pout, mocking pity. “The novelty of the big city wearing off? You lonely? Homesick?“
It was tough on kids—she remembered her first months in New York, living off dreams, ramen noodles and weekly calls home. She’d pushed through it, throwing herself so deeply into her work that she couldn’t think about anything else. The sooner he learned to do the same, the better off he’d be.
Probably wrong of him to assume that an apology and a promise to not make excuses was going to get things back on track and let her give the students (all of them) her attention. Didn’t stop his heart from falling to the floor and taking his stomach along with it on the way down when she kept her focus right on him. So much for assuming. Everyone knows what ‘assume’ means in the first place. Right?
He could feel what guts he had left twist when she started to mock him. Deep down past the nerves he felt were sandpapering themselves against their own edges as they became undone, frustration and anger began to simmer. Hot, hotter… The back of his mouth tasted awful.
Blaine swallowed the flavor of adrenaline and bitterness that tone drug out from where it’d been buried deep. His hands swung behind his back and clasped together to keep themselves from fidgeting. “No. Nothing like that. As I said. Excuses. That’s all it’d be. Thank you for asking.”
“Rhetorical question, Lurch. Hold it, people!” The words were barely out of her mouth and someone had already rushed to turn off the music. “Take five or work on your double pirouettes. I don’t care, do something,” she said, narrowing her eyes at Blaine as she zeroed in on him. “What’s your problem today? That wasn’t rhetorical, by the way.”
The second time the pet name was used on him, he let it go. In the grand scheme of things? Being called Lurch because of his hair was the least of his issues. However, passing this class was near the top of them. Along with the rest of the others the normally overachieving, polite student who’d been becoming increasingly distant and not quite overachieving the past few weeks was struggling with. Blaine felt his stomach fill with ice and then plummet to the floor the minute Cassandra called out for everyone to stop. It was cemented under the floorboards when she turned her narrow gaze directly at him. Stuttering to say anything, his eyes were practically screaming an apology to make up for his lack of knowing what to say and not have it sound like some flimsy reason for his routine falling apart.
“I.. There’s nothing I can tell you that isn’t going to sound like I’m only trying to make an excuse for myself. I’ll get it together. Starting now..,” he swallowed the lump in his throat to keep from rambling on further as he felt himself close to doing the opposite.
“Higher! Is it possible your hair gel is actually weighing you down?”
“No. I don’t think that’s possible,” he was pretty sure he managed to sweat it off anyway. Breathing was beyond burning and he wasn’t sure if he could feel his lungs anymore. But if he managed to make it through Sue’s utterly ridiculously insane work out, he could survive a freaking dance class. Maybe. “Even if it was..it’s not an excuse right? I’m sorry, Miss July. I’ll try harder..” All he had to do was get his head back in the game and stop thinking of the world outside this studio.
pianokeysandbowties 