Page 5 of Cheer
The owners of the studio had seen how hard she worked, and how great of a dancer she was.
And she was asked to teach the younger girls and loved that.
She got paid to do so and it was amazing to her that she got paid to do what she loved.
It was her favorite thing. She studied for school at the studio and never came home.
Her dad bought her a car for her birthday, but it was mainly so she didn’t bother them for rides since she didn’t have a nanny to take her places any longer or take his driver when he was needed.
She loved that bit of independence. And she escaped the house more and more.
Payslee and her dad fought endlessly the longer they were married and Payslee found out that David had been cheating on her with at least two or three different younger women that worked in his office.
Payslee would scream and yell and break things in the house and Eva would do her best to keep quiet and stay as far away from their drama as possible.
She was so close to turning eighteen and leaving their house forever.
She wanted to never be beholden to them or their money either. She would never ask them for a handout. But her dad would give her money into a small trust and she invested the money her dad had given her when she was younger.
She had saved up enough money from working at the studio to pay her bills for a while and with the money she had invested it was also a nice little nest egg that she wouldn’t need to touch if she didn’t need to.
She told her dad about her high school graduation, but his secretary let her know he would be out of town for that week and he didn’t wish to reschedule.
It smarted, but she learned long ago that family wasn’t always blood and everyone that loved her would be there, supporting her.
He was her dad though, and he didn’t care. Didn’t know the accomplishments she had achieved at school and in dance.
But he didn’t matter. Brooke did. Her real family did. And when Eva graduated from high school, they were all there cheering her on and she felt like she could do anything with them at her back, supporting her.
She moved in with Brooke after she turned eighteen. And it was the most freeing thing she had ever done.
She still worked at the studio and that was what mattered.
Until one day, about a year after she started working at the studio full time, she was teaching a small tumbling class and showing them how to do a few backflips and cheer moves when Brooke walked in.
“Hey girl. You have an appointment in the front office.”
Eva felt her eyebrows pull down, “Okay?”
She never spoke to the parents. She let the owners of the studio do that.
She told the girls to listen to Brooke and she walked to the office, where a man and a woman sat, quietly talking to each other.
“Hi.” The sound came out a little too high and loud and she cleared her throat, fighting through her shyness to talk to them.“Can I help you?”
The woman turned and smiled at her, “Yes. I think you can.”
She looked Eva up and down and Eva had to fight to keep from squirming, knowing what the woman saw.
She was tiny, only five foot one, and had a wealth of brown curls and blue eyes.
She knew most people thought she was younger than she was, but she was eighteen and old enough.
“Yes. You can absolutely help me. Tell me, can you do more of the tricks that you were teaching those girls?”
Eva slowly nodded, along with dance, Brooke and the other teachers taught her about tumbling and staying safe when doing tricks.
The woman grinned wider, “Perfect. Are you a good dancer?”
