girl blue
life isn't beautiful and i'm not your cutie pie
At 8:00 PM two things happened. First, a phone alarm, muffled from being smothered by a pillow, went off. And then as if the home were under attack by an intruder, a black Great Dane came bounding in to the bedroom barking frantically. When it's human didn't respond the dog hopped on to the lump of covers on the bed, knocking the air out of the person underneath.
Alex wheezed. “Jolly! Off!”
Jolly whined. Her powerful tail wagged to and fro, vibrating the bed. Alex groaned groggily before popping her head up from beneath the blankets. "Yeah, yeah calm down. I don't like alarms either." The hairs on her head fell messily from the loose topbun it’d been in and she peeled her eyes open, the whites of them were red with fatigue.
God damn was she tired.
Today had been a long one. A coworker of hers had called out and as a favor, and also because she could use the extra money, she’d picked up their shift. So instead of working from 6am to 12pm, she ended up working from 6am to 6pm. As a waitress that meant being on her feet for just about 12 hours, running from table to table during the breakfast, lunch and dinner rush all while balancing heavy meal trays. Her feet and arms were still throbbing.
She’d gotten home about an hour ago. The first thing she'd done was strip down to her underclothes and collapse in to bed. By time her head hit the pillow she'd barely had time to set her alarm before her eyes had fluttered shut and she was out cold. And now what felt like seconds later she was back up, feeling like her body was filled with lead and her head stuffed with cotton.
She groaned again and rubbed at her eyes miserably. Then she pinched her arm in an attempt to pep herself up.
“Okay, I know you’re tired but remember this is the only free time you get to practice your routine.” She murmured to herself. “…Just 2 more weeks until auditions. Every second of practice counts.”
With that said, she threw the covers from her body and hopped in the shower. As the sweat and grease from her day job swirled down the drain, her fatigue went with it. Her mind wandered to the dance routine she had been trying to perfect for the past month. She'd been ambitious and added a last minute move last night that she couldn't get quite right. She hoped to make progress tonight. Everything needed to be perfect for her audition to Artists in Motion who announced earlier this month that they were looking for new dancers for their upcoming tour.
They were a dynamic dance company known for their eclectic style of dancing and usage of different genres to create groundbreaking dance pieces. Alex never wanted anything so badly. She’d auditioned for many companies. For some she didn’t fit the image. For others she just didn't have it. Whatever that meant. No matter how many callbacks she missed though she’d never give up. She wanted to be able to look back one day and be able to think that this was all worth it.
Fifteen minutes later she was dressed and ready to go, her backpack over her shoulder and stuffed with a large bottle of water, a banana, a small bluetooth speaker and a towel. Half way out the door she called out to her dog, “I’ll be back later, Jolly!”
Her dog just stared at her from where she laid lazily on her side by the kitchen heater. What a bum. Alex locked up her apartment and skipped down the steps two at a time. The arches of her feet were a little achey, but it’d be easy enough to ignore.
The brisk city air hit her in the face as she exited the apartment. She buried her nose in to the thick scarf wrapped around her neck. It cost too much money to practice in an actual dance studio and any empty spaces at her school would no doubt be full. Luckily, she managed to find herself a space in an empty building on the outskirts of the campus. Technically she wasn't allowed to be there, no one was, but if they were really concerned then they wouldn't have left the doors unlocked. At least that was her reasoning.
It didn't take too long to get there from her apartment building. On the first floor of the building there was a decent sized room with wood flooring. The only downside was it lacked mirrors, but the large windows in the room were reflective enough at night with the help of indoor lighting. Wasting no time she set up her bluetooth and connected it to her phone. A gritty remix of James Blake's Retrograde began playing and she lost herself in the music, her body moving with breathtaking flexiblity and precision.
