‹ Prequel: Wretched and Divine
Status: active

Ohio Is for Lovers

Chapter Ten

"Alright, before I let you go, frappes real quick." Erica announced. All the girls rushed to the barre and the boys just kind of followed because they weren't sure what else to do.

"Oooh frappes? I love frappes! Like those ones from McDonalds?!" CC exclaimed.

Lena shook her head. "No, CC. That's not what frappe means in ballet."

"Idiot." Jake playfully hit him upside the head. Jake was trying desperately to impress Lena and if that meant working as hard as he could to try and understand the terminology and perfect each step, that was what he was going to do. He could see Andy wasn't bothering to take it seriously and Jake didn't want Lena to think that he was just taking this class for granted.

After class, Jake stopped Lena just before she reached the door to the studio room. "Lena?" He asked hesitantly. "What does it feel like being in pointe shoes?"

Lena half smiled. "Pain." She said. "But I love them. There's something about pointe shoes that keeps you coming back to them. It's almost like an addiction. You know how a cutter becomes addicted to the pain they feel from their blade? It's like that with pointe shoes. You become addicted to the feeling you get from going en pointe and dancing on your toes, making it look as graceful as possible but being in excruciating pain. My shoes become my lover; my child. You definitely grow an attachment to your shoes, even though they're just blocks of glue and wood covered in satin."

As he listened to her talk, he couldn't help but notice the passion in her eyes as she talked about ballet. Dancing was truly what she loved to do and he could see it written clear as day all over her face. He wished he had taken the opportunities to see her dance when she had asked him so many times.

***


Getting to see Derek again was a dream come true but having Jake and Andy around again made things weird for Lena. It was hard to focus on just Derek now that she had constant thoughts of Jake and Andy lingering in her mind. She had moved back to Ohio for a reason, and it was to get away from them. But now they were back and everything she had been feeling in LA came back with them.

"Thanks..." She said as Derek sat down across from her, handing her the coffee she had ordered.

"How have you been?" He asked, cupping his coffee with both hands, trying to warm them from the bitter cold that had begun to take over the world outside the window they were sitting next to.

Lena shrugged. "I could be better, I suppose."

Derek furrowed his eyebrows. "Is everything okay?" He asked, reaching his hand across the table to touch Lena's cold hand.

"Yeah," She pulled her hand away. "Just... Andy and Jake are in town and I--"

"Andy and Jake?" Derek asked.

Lena forgot that Derek didn't know who they were. "Oh... My two ex-boyfriends..." She informed. "They came to visit from LA unexpectedly and my mind has just been kind of jumbled up because I really like you and want to focus on our relationship but--"

"You still have feelings for them, don't you...?" Derek assumed. "I get it..."

Lena felt guilty. She could tell she hurt Derek's feelings but she hadn't meant to do it intentionally. "Everything is just really confusing right now."

"Look, Lena," Derek began. "I really do like you, too. But exes are exes for a reason. It didn't work out with them and you have to move on. I'm sitting here right now. We're here together for a reason. Think about that."

She wanted to think that Derek was right but the thing with Andy and especially Jake was that there was so much history there. Jake wasn't just an ex to her. He was her best friend, and the only other guy she had ever dated before. Jake and her had been together for so long, it wasn't like she could just "get over" him that easily. And there was no way Lena was ever going to be able to explain that to Derek.
♠ ♠ ♠
So thank you guys for kinda upping the comments a bit. That's actually why I decided to update today. I really appreciate the people who have commented in the past couple chapters. Like I have said, I just get very discouraged when no one comments because it gives me the impression that no one really cares enough to tell me what they think. like, yeah people are reading this because I can see the reader count on a chapter but it's just nice when people actually say what they liked, didn't like, about a chapter I posted. it lets me know what kinds of things you guys like and don't like and that sometimes propels a chapter forward.

On another note, I finally just got my very first pair of pointe shoes! For those of you who are dancers or pointe dancers, they're Russian Pointe Brava and they're amazing. I love them soooo much. We're not allowed to wear padding at my studio so they definitely hurt more than Bloch which has a tiny bit of padding built into the bottom but like Lena had said, the pain is definitely addicting and worth it. I'm currently working on breaking them in since they are so incredibly stiff right now but I can feel them easing up a bit the more I wear them and work in them.

Third note, I was thinking of maybe putting together a sound track to this story (and maybe WAD) on 8tracks.com; if you guys are interested in something like that, please let me know and I will be happy to start working on that! It would be like each song would represent a chapter of the story and kind of help set the mood for that specific chapter I suppose. I kinda got the inspiration for this when I was listening to Ohio is For Lovers by Hawthorne Heights.

Shout outs:

-WretchedAndDivine
-REBELOVESONG14
-prawndumpling93