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Michelle was on top of a table, flailing her limbs about in a so-called 'dance' that would offend the sober version of herself. She was at somebody's house, though she couldn't remember whose it was, at a party celebrating the end of the dance season. More importantly, for the dancers from The Next Step who were present, it was a celebration to signify the end of Nationals.
Michelle had won Miss National Soloist, so of course she felt like she could let loose a little. She didn't drink much in her day-to-day life and often avoided parties in favour of debate club, but she had decided she was allowed to indulge just this once. It felt good, the loud bass vibrating through her feet as she tossed her hair around to the beat of the obnoxiously loud music. She should do this more often.
"Michelle?" A voice called from beneath her somewhere. It was buried by the sounds of shuffling feet and choruses of laughter from inebriated teens.
"Michelle!" It came again, and Michelle opened her eyes and looked down, frowning in annoyance at the disruption. Staring back at her, the same annoyed expression mirrored in her face, was Emily. She had swapped out her usual bright blue dancewear for a square-necked red dress with a navy blazer. Rather too formal for an event like this, Michelle thought, but what else could she expect from Emily?
"Michelle, get down from there. You're embarrassing yourself."
"No! I'm having fun!" Michelle shouted back, her smile returning to her as she raised her arms above her head and began to sway.
"You're way too drunk. Come here," Emily said, steeling herself as she shouldered through the tightly packed crowd until she was stood directly next to the varnished table. She extended a hand. "You're going to scuff that table with those god-awful shoes of yours,"
Michelle pauses and looks down at the table beneath her. "Oh," she said. She moved her attention to Emily's hand and took it, stepping to the ground. She didn't let go of Emily's hand, the jovial smile on her face not leaving her as Emily led them to the less busy kitchen.
"Here," Emily said, taking a flimsy plastic cup and filling it with tap water before handing it off to Michelle. As Michelle brought the cup to her lips and took a drink, she suddenly became aware of the pounding in her head, which was unsatisfyingly not in time with the music. She could feel herself droop as the cold water invaded her veins, suddenly making everything a lot more clear and, in turn, painful.
Emily shook her head, looking exasperated as Michelle carefully sipped the beverage without bringing it away from her lips.
"Come outside."
Michelle blinked, finally taking the cup away from her mouth. "Okay,"
They walked through the sliding glass doors and out onto the deck where they sat on the steps. Michelle leaned her head against Emily's shoulder and sighed. Having already stiffened from the unexpected contact, Emily looked at the blonde, whose hair was spilling over Emily's blazer and disrupting the surrounding darkness with its natural glow. Michelle was mumbling something, softly and incoherently, into Emily's sleeve.
Out of habit, Emily shrugs the girl off after she's had about as much as she was comfortable with, leaving Michelle to protest with a grunt.
Things were still kind of weird between them, and Emily would usually go out of her way to avoid Michelle in the studio, but she wasn't going to let Michelle embarrass herself like that. No, she was doing it so that The Next Step wouldn't be embarrassed. That was it. So that Miss Kate wouldn't hear word about her star soloist stumbling and falling off of a table that was only about a foot off the ground into a crowd of sweaty teenagers.
Michelle groaned and began to lean backwards as if she was sitting in a comfortable chair. Instead, she laid down on the rough timber beneath her. Emily huffed and pulled Michelle up, straightening her against herself.
"Don't lie down on that floor. It's disgusting."
Michelle collapsed into Emily's touch, though she was frankly becoming too sober to excuse this to herself the next morning.
"Sorry," She murmured. "I just wanted to lay down."
Emily stared at Michelle, her face blank except from the slightest pinch in her eyebrows. She sighed. "I can't believe you're making me do this,"
Michelle looked at her quizzically, her expressions rather exaggerated as a result of the blood in her veins that seemed slightly more insistent on pulsing than usual. Emily sat back, and dusted off her lap.
"You can lay down on my lap," Emily grumbled, as if Michelle was forcing her to say it.
Michelle considered her for a moment, which to Emily seemed like an eternity as she wondered whether she managed to freak out drunk Michelle, which had seemed impossible only ten minutes prior when she was watching her sort of friend practically skip around a coffee table. Emily watched as Michelle scrunched her nose up ever so slightly before adjusting herself so that she could lay her head in Emily's lap.
Oh. Oh. This was different than Emily expected. She had thought that the only tingling she would experience would be from numb limbs, but a strange sensation in her abdomen proved otherwise. Her breathing became shallower, almost minutely, as she stared into Michelle's eyes. Sometimes, she felt as if she would fall into them if she stared too long. Big, pooling circles of deep brown that were so mesmerising it was hard for Emily to think of anything else.
This wasn't meant to happen. It wasn't part of the plan. Sure, Emily knew that Michelle was pretty (infuriatingly so), but she had never quite realised how, even when her cheeks were flushed with the throes of alcohol and her soft curls were escaping in a million different ways from doing too many hair flips, she still captivated her attention.
Emily's gut wrenched in a way that told her she could very well be sick, but she instead chose to tuck an escaped lock of hair behind Michelle's ear. Michelle's cheeks dimpled in the way Emily didn't know that she knew off by heart, and her glittering lips parted in a slight smile.
This wasn't her. What was she doing? How did she allow Michelle to waltz into her life like this and turn it upside down? Michelle and her dizzying laughter, intoxicating fingertips and sweet cherry vanilla body spray. She supposed it was just the natural effect Michelle had on people. There was nothing she could have done to stop it, really.
Emily found that she was absentmindedly playing with Michelle's hair as she thought, alternating between twirling a syrup-like curl around her finger and carding her fingers through the golden locks in front of her. It was addicting, just like every other aspect of the girl.
She found a small part of her wishing that this hadn't happened when Michelle was clearly out of her mind on whatever cocktail of spirits the local dancers had managed to concoct, because then she might actually be aware of the effect she had on Emily. And maybe, just maybe, she might do something about it. Emily wanted to be more than the girl that would hold Michelle's hair back as she no doubt vomited into the upstairs toilet later.
Normally, Emily wouldn't allow herself to indulge in such thoughts. She had a plan, and her heart had been broken too many times to deviate from it again. Maybe it was the soft porch light that occasionally flickered, or the late summer air around them, which still held an air of sunscreen and denim shorts, but Emily felt... different.
It could have been Michelle, in all fairness, that was making Emily's brain veer off course. Sure, she'd spent a lot of time staring at Michelle in the studio (though most of the time it was in envy or anger), but she'd never seen her like this. Blinking up at her, the picture of innocence as the smallest specks of mascara fell off her eyelashes and littered her face. It just made Emily feel something she wasn't quite used to. Something she really wanted to feel again.