notfaking_it: (imprecise but effortless)
It doesn't surprise Lily even a little to discover just how much she likes having T.J. around the studio.

He'd played for the artistic director and the instructors while she had watched under the pretense of needing to rehearse when all she'd really wanted to do was watch their reactions to him. She'd been sure, seeing their faces, that they'd want him to take the job and it doesn't come as a surprise to her when he's there for rehearsal the following Monday. He's talented, he's a much better player than the woman they've been using for the past year, and Lily is excited that he'll be around the studio.

More than that, she hopes it grows into something more. It might never be a full time job with the company, but the symphony director comes in, especially when they near the dates for their shows, and she's hoping he might hear something in T.J. that he'll want. She doesn't say this part, she has absolutely no control over something like that, but she hopes for it all the same.

Smiling, her face and hair damp, she shakes her arms out as she wanders over to T.J. as soon as the instructor calls their lunch break. She rolls her shoulders, then sits down beside him on the piano bench and nudges him with her shoulder. "Wanna eat lunch with me?" she asks, smiling. "You can sit with the cool kids at my table."

She mostly eats lunch alone in the studio and there are no tables, but she's actually looking forward to changing that. She has no problem with the other dancers and she gets along with them well enough, but this is different. This is better.
notfaking_it: (calm)
When she's invited to come visit T.J., Lily nearly jumps at the chance. The past few months have been awful, worse than she thinks she's ever had, and although she still has Delta and Eden, she feels like her small circle of friends is quickly disappearing and she isn't sure what to do with that knowledge.

This is why Lily's never really let herself get too close to people. This is why she's always stayed just separate enough for it not to hurt when someone has to move on. She's never blamed people before and she doesn't blame them now, but she also doesn't like how painful it is, how much her chest tightens when she thinks of Nina being gone. Forever. There's really no coming back from death, no matter what she wants to believe. A movie is one thing, but going to the funeral, knowing what had happened, having it happen here in this city, it's all completely different. It's much more real.

But she's invited and so she collects a few newer magazines for T.J. and brings a couple of books along as well, then submits to being gently searched -- they don't call it that, but they go through her bag and ask her to turn out her pockets -- before she's allowed inside to see him. There are no bars on the windows and it's hardly prison, but at the same time she feels weirdly violated. It's for his protection, she knows that, and she's sure there are plenty of enablers who'd encourage him to go back to cocaine, but she knows she can't be one of them.

She might have been, once upon a time, but not anymore.

"Hi," she says when she spots him inside, giving him a bright smile. "Holy shit, you look good."

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notfaking_it: (Default)
Lily

June 2020

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