Stepping out of the cold but comfortable car, a wave of heat from the hot summer sun hits my now warm face. My all black outfit making the heat feel even hotter than before. I look around bite my lip from nervousness. “you ready to go inside?” my mom asks me when she gets out of the car. I step out and step beside her and look towards her.

 
“u-um yeah I guess” I reply trying my best to cover up my shaky voice. 

    “okay let’s go, honey” my mom said to me not noticing my shakiness. 

My black, soft, and fluffy slides on my feet step towards the side door. My warm hands holding the costume and ballet flats. We stepped into the building that had an unexplainably cool temperatures with strange fluctuations, another thought and feeling enters my head. Walking up the high steps feeling like I was walking up a mountain, I reach the floor I was suppose on. I notice many people that I know, some that I have never seen before until today. I see my group and walk towards them. I set my stuff down softly and slid onto the hard, scratchy carpeted floor.

  
The feeling that had entered my mind minutes before, now was starting to build up and getting stronger and louder. Waves of emotions clash together and splash in my face and spill into my mind. Knocking me over every time a large and brutal wave comes. Starting to feel like I can’t breathe, the waves hit me once more making the breath I barely had before, go away. My chest heaving and trying to get that breath that was there before back. I can feel my heart racing and beating heavily. People start to look at me, when I start to wheeze. They all look at me like I was going insane, I feel like I am drowning, the room starts to spin. I get up and run to the bathroom. I go to the farthest bathroom to make sure no one was around me. I lean against the counter and look down.  Breathe, breathe.

 
Walking back to the spot where my group was at before and I notice Mallorie, our choreographer, who was talking to the group.  “Okay girls, we need to do this dance right.” She was talking about ‘Little Do You Know,’ our lyrical dance number. 

   “Okay,” The girls reply as I stay silent unable to udder even a tiny sound, and then Mallorie is gone. My hands that just a half an hour ago were warm, are now cold and shaking. They clench into a tight fist creating crescent-shaped indents from my nails in the palm of my hands. I take as much of a breath as I possibly can and slowly unravel them and use them to pick myself up and get into the costume. I look down at the indents and close my eyes. Waves are continuously hitting the side of my head, my lungs feeling like they were full of water are only breathing the smallest breaths that keep me from drifting into the ocean with no control.  My mixed ocean blue and grassy green eyes open and drift upwards to see that my class had gone backstage. My feet move to backstage. I hear faintly the last groups song end. Then I see the light go off.  “Go girls.” Mallorie says then gives us a warm, comforting group hug. That feeling of warmth leaves me as soon as I walk out. 

   The waves get louder and harder to fight off, as we walk out. I can hear the waves clashing against each other than falling and trying to get to be the major thought in my mind. I close my eyes when the lights go on. The music starts, and I stop breathing. I do the walk to the middle of the stage trying to hide my worries as I fake smile. You’re going to ruin it. My mind tells me. You're going to fail. I start to feel like I was going to faint. Tears start to go in the corner of my eyes, blurring my vision.  The waves that were in my head wanted to leave and go back to being calm and in low-tide. I blink the heavy waves away and try to do my best to control them and stop them as we do our last turn to get off stage. I try to breathe before we must go back on. The last thirty seconds comes up quickly, and I was so focused on the waves that my heart had to move my body for me. We do small moves then; the other two lifters and I lift the tiny dancer up and all the other girls look up at her. Then the lights cut off and so does the music, and we let the light dancer down and walk off. I smile but this time it was real. I did it.