Melissa sat watching Kalani dance at the LA studio. Melissa had become Kalani's legal guardian because Kira was having a baby and unable to travel with the team. Melissa thought Kalani was a lovely girl and a beautiful dancer but today something looked off.
Her neck and chest appeared sweatier than usual, she would hesitate after doing multiple turns in a row. She put her hand to her head, or her stomach several times between dances. Kalani and Kendall were dismissed from learning their duet. Kalani headed straight for Melissa, who reached out her arms as Kalani crumpled into her. "What's wrong baby?" she pulled her back and looked right into her eyes.
"I really don't feel good" Kalani said weakly.
"You didn't eat much for lunch either, were you not feeling well then either?" Melissa had a serious look on her face. Kalani nodded. "When did you start not feeling well? why didn't you tell me?"
Melissa's daughter Maddie had also been sick at dance class once before, but she didn't have any physical symptoms, she said her stomach hurt. Melissa had Maddie dance through the pain. If Maddie wanted to do commercials or dance in music videos, she really had to have the stamina to keep going until it was physically impossible. Commercial actors and backup dancers don't get sick days, they get replaced. With Kalani it was different, she was not her daughter for one, she wasn't going to force someone else's child to do something, and Kalani appeared physically weak and unwell.
"When I woke up I felt off, but I thought I would be okay and dance through it." She started tearing up. Melissa wrapped her arms around her once again and rubbed her back.
"Oh honey," Melissa started tearing up as well. That was a quirk of hers that Mckenzie also inherited. Whenever someone else around them was upset or crying, they also would start to cry. "I know it's hard with your mom being gone, but you have to tell me how you feel so I can take better care of you".
Holly patted Kalani's back "If you don't feel well, you can ask her or any of us for some medicine, or just to take a break."
Jill put her hand on Kalani's head "You feel a little warm, maybe if you would have told us sooner we could have gotten you some aspirin to bring down this fever". Kalani nodded pulling a warm long sleeve top out of her dance bag.
"I'm really cold" she said pulling it over her sports bra.
"You must have chills, it's warm outside, warm in here, look Kendall is still sweating," Holly gestured to Kendall who was playing with Kalani's hair.
"What hurts?" Melissa asked with concern.
"I feel cold and shaky, my stomach hurts and my head hurts, doing my turns was making me dizzy" She whimpered.
"Maddie and Mckenzie have like ten more minutes of class, why don't you lay down right here, you can put your head on my lap and rest" Melissa said. Kalani laid down and fell asleep right away.
