Welcome Back!

[KamiKaze]

The student center looked different from the last time Bella saw it. The holiday decorations, the paper snowmen, the ‘have a good winter holiday!’ messages, the fliers for the winter dance, they all disappeared from the corkboards like nothing happened. The ones about staying safe in winter weather remained, but the others were now about an upcoming trivia event on the 12th, or adorable little groundhogs reminding everyone that Groundhog Day was in a month.

It was something she was used to, of course, but in a way it was… magical? Magical. That was the word. It was kind of fun to see how the signs changed, especially if you’re been gone for a while and come back.

Bella liked being in the student center on the middle of the first floor, because it was cozy, and warm, and it smelled nice like old books and furniture, and the chairs were plush so it was nice to reach scripts in here. It helped that the lockers were nearby, too, so if she needed anything she can grab something from hers, locker 302 with the mixture of ballet dancers and stage actors and action heroes posted on the inside of the door, huddled around a mirror. Nothing outside the locker, though, someone got in trouble for that. But there were also vending machines, even the one that dispensed hot beverages.

Bella had a script placed on the table in front of her, along with the aroma of hot tea drifting from the paper cup sitting within arm's reach. She wrote on her copy with an ink pen, mostly notes, or circling certain lines or script directions. Sometimes she’d tap out a melody with her finger in thought.

She wouldn’t have noticed if someone decided to sit nearby her.

[The Honeless Beard]

"Are you tapping All The Stars?" asked Travis, after the third cycle of Bella's tuneless tapping. It was a bop - a beat that you could truly kick your keds to, but it wasn't exactly the best background noise for the English essay he was marking the fuck out of in angry charcoal.

It was his fault that his only music was Bella's drumline - his airpods had died two days ago and he had lost their case immediately.

[KamiKaze]

“Huh?”

Bella stopped tapping. Her pen fell from her other hand and rolled. She tore her gaze away from the script she was studying, and towards Travis.

“Oh, sorry. What’s ‘All the Stars’? Is it a song?”

Sometimes Bella tapped out melodies with her finger. She would picture a song in her head, sometimes formless, sometimes something stuck inside her head like peanut butter. She would picture a dance, a choreography, to it, whatever it may be. Sometimes she did it without thinking. Parts of it were inspired by a dance number they were working on in class. But, she couldn’t remember the song. Other parts of it were inspired by something she heard on the radio. But she couldn’t remember the name of that song either.

Bella slid her hands under her legs, keeping them confined with her weight.