Snake Bite Heart With a Bubble Gum Smile

"Bye, Ms. August," one of my young students says.

"Bye, Elizabeth," I reply.

I'm finally done teaching for the day. I can head back to my bench now.

I mean home.

Why is that a hard concept for me to grasp? I have a home now. I can go there. That bench doesn't belong to me anymore. It can go to some other runaway. It can provide them comfort. Not me. I don't need it.

I still feel like I do.

I still feel like the bench belongs to me.

I still feel like I should be living on my bench.

I shouldn't.

Home is still awkward for me. I can't grasp the possibility that my family cares. Though I keep telling myself they do.

My mind doesn't want to change its opinion and I'm not forcing it to.

The last student has left from the room. I grab my dance bag and head out the door. I can't keep my eyes from glancing at the pictures on the wall as I pass. In some pictures, I see younger versions of me from dance reviews past. They bring back happy memories, as well as bad ones. Like when I broke my ankle coming down from a jump wrong. It healed nicely with doctor help. I just had to pretend that my dance instructor was my mother. My real mother probably wouldn't have noticed.

The trophy case in the lobby holds our team's accomplishments. Each defeat of an opposing team clearly documented by gold medals and trophies.

We are amazing.

That's very conceited sounding but you have to be somewhat conceited to compete. Believing the team will loose will just bring down everyone's morale.

We're good and we know we're good. We compete to win. We each have a passion for dancing and can only quench it by practicing an insane number of times a week.

It can be exhausting.

I step out of the door and run into something or someone. We both fall to the ground. I jump to my feet.

"I'm so sorry," I rush to say.

I look at the person. It's Alex.

"Its cool," he replies, standing.

"Why are you here?"

"I came to pick you up."

"How do you know where I practice?"

He shrugs.

I'm confused. I don't remember telling him the name of this place. I didn't tell Jack, mom, or dad. I didn't tell anyone. How would he have figured it out? He didn't follow me. I left in too much of a hurry.

Unless he called David.

Did he really call him?

Alex walks to his car that is parked on the curb.

"Come on," he says, holding my door open.

I slid in. He closes the door, walks around, and sits in the driver seat. The engine roars to life. Alex drives through the empty street.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"Why?"

"For getting mad at Jack. We had a long talk about it."

"And how did that go?"

"You'll find out soon," he pulls the car into the driveway.

What does that mean?