Chloe woke up from her slumber, stirring in her bed not feeling the need of sleep anymore. She looked at her clock and saw it was 6 o’clock in the morning, it was better she should have woken up by now and now get use to being in her bed. Her window was fogged up from the cold, she pressed her hand against the glasses while after getting out of bed and putting her robe around herself. Sighing softly, the sun was still to rise. She didn’t want the day to come, she wanted the night to fall again over the horizon but then again there was no known way to stop time. If there were, Chloe would have gone to that method a long time ago. Her room was tidy and neat, for the fact she was liked having things organized. Lately Chloe has become quiet with her friends, she hadn’t told them she quit ballet and used different excuses to not be around them. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her friends it was because she was having difficulties with her life lately.
Her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, around Christmas vacation before going to New York with her parents for a dance recital, in the kitchen of their Meridian, California home they both of her parents had told Toby and Chloe the news. Explaining them that her mother would be attending treatment. Chloe had looked at her parents and had no words to explain the pain that she felt, the sharp agony pressing inside her heart at the news. But she smiled sweetly because that’s what they wanted, to have their children hold their heads up high and try to live life normally as they could. Her mother only agreed to tell them if Toby and her would continue living on normally. But it was hard to ignore, watching their mother’s figure slowly thinning, barely eating, going through treatments and sometimes it seemed like nothing was working. Her mother some days seemed like she was getting her old glow back and other days were slow and with the pain of treatment, pills: white, blue, yellow in the morning, green, red at nights. Chloe tried to pretend nothing had happened, she didn’t tell a soul because she didn’t want the pity and she couldn’t watch her mother suffer. Chloe’s mother still looked healthy but some days you could notice from the dark circles around the woman’s eyes and how quickly she had lost weight.
That time in New York, Chloe had done the dance recital and wondered about quitting ballet. She had. Her father questioned her reasons and Chloe said it was to have more time to help around the house since they would need it with her mother’s sickness, but in reality she couldn’t bare the fact of dancing because her number one fan being her mother was sick. She had gotten the main female role in the Nutcracker ballet and did her last dance on stage. She returned to Meridian with the same bright smile upon her face but not the same deep down inside. The glimmer in her eyes was fading.
Chloe walked to school, some days accompanied by the girls and other days she would walk with Pablo. Today she walked alone with the headphones over her ears listening to Ben Fold Five on her Walkman safely tucked away in her jacket pocket. The golden locks of hair brushed back in a ponytail. Her hands wrapped in purple and gray strapped gloves and a light coat with a scarf, under the coat wearing a button up white shirt and jeans. It was cold but she was use to it from the heavy winters they would have in New York. She missed the scenery of the city, the over crowds of people walking on the streets and the rhythm it would take, the rhythm which was so addicting and soothing to one’s ears after years of living there. Now there was that silence these streets had compared to New York. Her boots crushed the snow against it’s heel while she walked and getting to school. People chattering around one another, students at the stairs waiting for the bell to ring. Cars parking outside, boys throwing each other footballs and girls flirting with them once they glanced their way.
Chloe was one of girls everyone favored for her to become prom queen once she actually was a senior because of her nice figure, blonde hair and the grace she would walk with thanks to years of ballet classes. But it was the fact that she hanged with boys like Pablo Lopez that tarnished her from getting to be anything near a Vixens group and the fact she was related to Toby Appleton never helped either. Close to perfection, but not close enough they would think.
Yes, Chloe was a favorite between the popularity pole, not fully popular but if she tried she could be, but she wasn’t stuck up like most of the girls on that pole were. Too humble and too nice, she loved laughing and she loved being carefree.
She got to her locker in the freshman part and put away her backpack, scarf and gloves in her locker. Loosening her hair from the ponytail and letting the soft golden curls rest over her shoulders, fixing it a bit. She wasn’t fixated on her image but she liked looking nice, she looked at herself in her locker mirror and fixed her gloss a bit. “Hello, Chloe Appleton” said a male voice, Chloe looked to the side seeing Jason Kim, junior year, on the basketball team and good-looking guy. He was every girl’s dream guy you could say, tall, dark handsome. But he wasn’t so bright, and he wasn’t so dreamy in Chloe’s eyes. “I see you’re looking ravishing as always. So, tomorrow’s Friday I was thinking maybe you and me can see the latest chick flick, I hear 2 weeks notice is pretty romantic. How about we go watch it, as on a date?” he grinned charmingly, but Chloe wasn’t interested. “Sorry, I have plans that night, going to go out with some friends. Bowling.” She said, it was actually that she was going bowling with Pablo, with his sister and her friends, he just didn’t want to be stuck alone with them all night. “With Pablo Sanchez?” he said with a smirk on his face. Chloe took out her math book from her locker and slammed it shut, looking at him with her dark brown eyes they flared with a hint of anger but she smiled sweetly. “It’s Lopez, hun and don’t let your friends hear your tone, they might think you’re threaten by him.” She said and then walked past him, giving him a simple peck on the cheek in an insulting manner it would seem, but Jason had to laugh shaking his head, she had a way of handling herself.
She walked into her math class and sighed a little bit to herself, getting into her seat. She hoped that something would come up and bring back the glimmer in her eyes after so much saddness overflowing her lately.