The saying goes, 'time flies by when you're having fun' and for the last five years Heather Morris had been doing just that. Since leaving glee at the end of season 3, she upped sticks that summer and took a long holiday in Mexico, where an amazing job opportunity had come to light.
She was in a bar dancing one evening when a guy approached her and asked if she'd open up a dance company with him, in New York. They exchanged details and had a few talks and within a few months they had opened up a brand new dance company that offered a course that combined contemporary dance with hip hop, jazz and ballet. It was trial course but it was became popular for teenagers.
The success of the dance company and the course did wonders for her pockets. She'd managed to buy a swanky penthouse apartment with killer views. She just wished she had someone to share it with.
Heather and Taylor broke up a year after the dance company took off. The strain of such a long distance relationship got the better of them. She was just glad she could throw herself into the classes to take her mind off the breakup.
It was late July in 2017 and she'd had a really busy week. They'd opened up some new classes so she was busy with that and also had a few dinner date with some old glee cast members. After leaving the show, she'd tried her best to keep in contact with with those the wanted to, a few drinks here and few dinners there and they were mostly quite pleasant, but she really missed one person.
When they wrapped season 3, she couldn't bear to not be with Naya everyday. They tried to see each other as often as they could, but if there was some chance they couldn't meet up, they skyped each other or they would make a quick call here and there. The others voice becoming a soothing comfort to the other. They missed the others touch. A simple hug, a small comforting kiss on the cheek when they'd had a gruelling day. Some kind of physical contact to let the other know they were there and weren't going anywhere.
As time went on and Hether became more busy with classes, their once solid friendship started to come away at the seams. Their phone calls became less frequent, their skype calls barely existing anymore. The invisible tether that tied these two together, the tether that was tied by divine intervention, becoming nothing but words on a card they'd written to each other. They would speak maybe every few months, maybe every six months. This time they hadn't spoken for at least a year. That Naya shaped hole in Heather's heart being filled with artificial love for her dance company.
That night she was alone in her dance studio choreographing a new dance for her new class, the under 10's class which offered an introductory to the course that kick started the company. One of the other instructors had left a cd in the stereo, she laughed to herself because he was so old fashioned for still using cd's. She pressed play and was surprised to hear the first few bars of her favourite Whitney Houston song 'I wanna dance with somebody'.
Alone and without a care in the world, Heather sung out loudly and danced around the studio, reliving the time she got to perform the song in glee and that's when it hit her, "I need a man who will take a chance.." and she remembered they changed that for her. She got to sing woman instead. That's when she remembered Naya. She hadn't thought of her in a long time.
She smiled to herself and walked over to her phone, scrolling through her contacts until she saw Naya's name and pressed the call button.
'The number you have called has been disconnected, goodbye'
She pulled the phone away from her ear, her heart beating rapidly in her chest. She must have hit the wrong key and so she tried again.
'The number you have called has been disconnected, goodbye'
As tears started to pool in her eyes and with Whitney singing the song in the background, with a heavy heart, she realised Naya had finally cut the tether.
She dropped her phone, tears falling from eyes that had just lost it's sparkle.
She realised it had been a while since they had spoken, but she always felt that no matter what happened, they would always be friends. There was some unwritten rule that meant that even if they didn't speak for ten years, if one day they did, everything would still remain and nothing would change. That there friendship would still be as strong as it used to be, that nothing could break them apart. Their love for each other still there.
She wasn't sure if she could get a broken heart from this kind of situation but she definitely felt something in her chest. A physical pain in her heart. Like in cartoons where the characters heart would actually split into two pieces, thats how she felt.
Naya was one of her best friends, the person who understood her. The one person who she connected with on such a deep emotional level that she thought never existed. It was such a rare thing to find, that they knew how powerful that was and they vowed to stay in each others lives for good and treasure their friendship like you would a precious stone or a delicate flower.
She fell into a pile on the floor and covered her face to try and block it out. If she couldn't see it, it wasnt happening. But it did happen, her best friend had cut all ties with her. She felt numb, she felt empty, she felt so many things all at once that she thought she would explode. She reached up to wipe the tears that were streaming down her face.
She cried until she felt like she had nothing left to give. In a way she felt desperate. Every fibre of her being wanting her to reach out and try and find Naya, to try and find that bond again and fix it. Was it worth fixing? Did she become nothing more than than a number in her contacts to Naya? She almost felt like booking a plane ticket and flying back to LA to look for her, to find her and tell her she was sorry. She had no idea what she'd be sorry for but if it meant she got her back in her life she would say it a million times over.
They used to joke about a time when perhaps they wouldn't speak as frequently and laugh and say how one would miss the other more. They'd say silly things like 'You'll be fine without me' and they'd giggle nervously knowing that they probably wouldn't. Until that became a reality.
Heather realised she had thrown herself in so deep into the dancing course that she hadn't given much time to thinking about being without Naya. Thinking back, it was probably an ideal thing but now, it was here and it was real and all those feelngs she'd kept at bay for such a long time came pouring put of her and that dreadful sense of loss overwhelmed her.