Toe to Toe (On Pointe Book 1) by Penelope Freed (read with me TXT) 📕

(hannahbananaballerina): marvelousStanLey sent you a post by…

I unlock my screen to see a message from Trevor. It’s a post from an account called @biscuitballerina, a video montage of dancers falling on stage. Part of me wants to laugh and part of me is cringing so hard it hurts. I don’t know if I can find this funny right now, just as I’m about to go onstage myself. Watching all those falls is making me nervous, so I ignore the video to read the text he sent with it.

marvelousStanLey: I hoped this would make you laugh before your competition today. Break a leg! But not literally.

How does he know I’m competing this weekend?

I don’t have time to think about it, I need to focus. I switch apps before it can distract me again, put my earbuds in, find the music for my solo and mentally go through it with the music, concentrating on visualizing myself doing it perfectly. I get distracted halfway through wondering how Trevor knew I was competing and have to start the music over. This time I check to make sure I have space then practice a section with sweeping arm movements, feeling my body stretch from side to side before wrapping up tight around my torso. I let the music play to the end, half listening and half wondering about Trevor. Ugh. Focus Hannah. Focus. This is why I don’t date.

Starting the song over, this time I close my eyes and just listen to my song, It’s Fine, But It Hurts by Nico Casel, the ethereal notes building to a crescendo and then falling back down to near silence. I love this piece of music, Ms. Parker and I picked it out together. The moment I heard it, I felt it in my soul—the building of the notes, the ebbing and flowing of the piano, the yearning it makes me feel. I love dancing to it, I feel like I’m being pulled and stretched inside my skin as I flow across the stage, hovering on the verge of exploding or collapsing.

I channel my yearning to pursue my dreams, the swooping sensation of riding a roller coaster, the nervous excitement I felt when Tyler sent me that first text, the peaceful feeling of curling up on the couch with my mom, the little hiccup of happiness I feel when I see a message from Trevor and the confusion I feel whenever he sends me a message. I even grab hold of the weird obsessive feeling I had watching Tyler and Olivia in the parking lot after school yesterday. I take all those feelings and listen to my music over and over again, finding places in the music and the movement that match each of those sensations until they’re all interwoven in my mind and body. A swooping, stretching, building, sinking, breathless thing that is ready to pour out of me the second I step onto the stage.

I wait and watch the dancers before me, slowly creeping towards my turn. I turn my phone over in my pocket, debating responding to Trevor’s message. Olivia’s been gone for awhile, but maybe she’s just relaxing in the dressing room. I wish she was here, I waited for her before she went on and kept her company, but maybe that was her dad after all and she went to go see him. My phone buzzes in my pocket again.

Do I want to check? What if it’s Trevor again? But what if it’s Olivia or Ms. Parker? I debate checking it and ignore three more buzzes from my phone until the end of the solo currently on stage. I only have four more to go until it’s my turn. With a huff, I pull out my phone and check to see what it is.

Mom: Break a leg sweetie!!!!! Dad and I are so proud of you, love you forever!!!

Ms. Parker: Deep breaths, you got this Hannah. I’m proud of the work you’ve done, now’s the time to dance big and bold.

Katy: Good luck, you’re gonna be amazing!!!! (Lisa is yelling at me to put my phone away but she says good luck too)

Olivia: Sorry I bailed, my stomach hurt. Good luck chica!

Relieved and cheered by the messages, my thumb hovers over the Instagram app icon. Should I respond to Trevor? I open up the app and idly scroll through our message thread. It’s mostly Trevor sending me random photos of dancers, dogs and pretty landscapes, mixed with memes and jokes. There are a few short responses from me and a photo or two I’ve sent back, but no real conversation. Today’s text is the longest he’s sent yet.

hannahbananaballerina: Thanks for the vote of confidence. It definitely put my mind at ease to watch that right before going on stage.

I add an emoji with its tongue sticking out, then slip my phone in my pocket, unzip my jacket and tuck it in an out of the way corner of the wings, so I’m not tempted to keep looking at it. I wonder again how Trevor knew about the competition today. I know I didn’t post anything about this weekend, and I know I never mentioned it in the few messages we’ve exchanged since our weird, almost date in January.

Focus Hannah. You have more important things to worry about right now. Boys are a distraction. I hear the announcer introduce the dancer right before me, so I push the worry from my mind and focus. Time to get my head in the game. I pull my warm up pants off and focus on breathing deeply, stretching my arms and shoulders out, bouncing up and down on my toes and jumping a few times to get my blood flowing and my heart pumping. I feel good, a bone-deep sense that this is my time, I’m ready.

Chapter 13 Olivia

“Babe!” Tyler calls from near the front of the building as I emerge from backstage.