A/N: This is just a short one-shot I wrote a while ago and I hope you like it. Let me know what you think.
I do not own Shake It Up!
Makes You Human
Cold wraps around CeCe and presses in on her from all sides. The night is a night like any other in Chicago- lights dotting the streets below and the sound of traffic, almost muffled from the wind in her ears.
But tonight is not like any other night, not for CeCe Jones as she stands on the rooftop of her apartment building, palms pressed into cold stone as she leans against the short wall between her and open air.
Only a few tears glisten on her cheeks.
A noise rips through her dazed mind, the ring of one of her favorite songs, and she fishes around her pocket for her phone. A face and a name flash across the screen and she sets it down on the wall, ignoring the call.
She doesn't want to talk to Rocky right now.
She needs to think, but her chest hurts when she does. She wants it to stop.
CeCe shifts more weight onto her hands, boosting herself onto the higher level and- yes, this is better. She can see more of the city than before and the wind pulls at her clothes as if asking her to go over the ledge.
There is a metal rattling- a door being pushed open and slamming shut on its own. Someone else is on the roof with her.
"CeCe!" A familiar voice calls, for some reason, a hint of panic expressed in the shout.
The redhead closes her eyes, feeling the cold stone once warmed by the sun under her bare feet. Standing with her eyes closed is disorienting. It feels like she's swaying even though she knows she is standing completely still.
Fear makes her heart race and palms sweat despite the temperature. But she's not scared of the height, or falling, or the person coming ever hesitantly closer.
Rocky stops about a yard away and CeCe finally opens her eyes, though she doesn't take them off the cloud covered sky.
"CeCe, what are you doing?" her best friend asks hesitantly. When CeCe hadn't answered her phone, she had worried and decided to go looking for her. She doesn't know what possessed her to look on the roof but she's glad she did.
CeCe tilts her head back to look straight at a single star that had broken past a particularly thin cloud, and she wobbles slightly. It sends her heart racing again, and her breath catches.
Heights have always thrilled the redhead, sent her blood pumping and adrenaline coursing through her body. She loves the feeling, but right now does nothing to distract her from the way her heart aches.
"How do you want to die?" CeCe asks her best friend.
"What?" she says. "I-I don't-"
"I'd want to go falling. Did you know that if you jump from high enough, you can die before you hit the ground?" CeCe looks down at the ground, far below. She's never really noticed how high her building actually was.
"CeCe, please tell me what's wrong!" Rock begs.
CeCe flinches. She's tried to hide it from her dance partner, but she hurts so much right now and doesn't know if she can handle it alone.
"You and I both know that I'm incredibly selfish, but lately, it's been bad. I'm jealous when I shouldn't be, at someone I shouldn't be, and I cant. stop."
"Who?" Rocky speaks carefully, watching her friend shake with suppressed tears.
"You." CeCe allows herself to admit.
That brings the dark-haired dancer up short. CeCe was jealous of her? Why? She doesn't have to wait long because her best friend hurries on, desperate to explain herself.
"You're absolutely amazing in everything you do without even trying. Your dancing is brilliant, you're nice to everyone, and you're selfless, and everyone likes you, and you're incredibly smart! And then there's me who can't tell her left from her right, and is stupid, and is selfish enough to be jealous of her best friend.
I know I shouldn't be, and I know that it's wrong, but I know I'm not selfless and I can't help but hate myself for it!"
Rocky watches open-mouthed as her best friend admits her self-loathing. Something inside her clicks though and she is able to speak again.
"This is about your dyslexia, isn't it?" CeCe's silence is enough of an answer and anguish fills the taller girl. "CeCe, you are not stupid! You are smart, and strong, and-"
"I'm not!" CeCe gasps, finally letting a sob tear past her lips. The force of her crying makes her double over and teeter dangerously close to the edge.
Rocky stagers forward a step, then forces her feet to remain planted as the immediate threat of falling, passes.
"I look at words and numbers and I can't tell if it's English or another language all together. I can't do math because the equations are all mixed up, and today I had to read in class and when I feel pressured, everything becomes even more jumbled than before! I pretend that I just don't do my homework, but the truth is, is that I spend three hours on it every day. But I just can't do it! I try and every time, I fail."
Rocky's sob from behind her makes her keep from continuing on. She never meant to hurt Rocky; it was the last thing that she wanted. But she has to finish- Rocky has to know.
"Someone has been…sending me letters." CeCe says more calmly, voice becoming somewhat monotone. She lets her knees bend and sit on the edge. She was too shaky to continue standing right then.
Rocky ached to lunge forward and pull her distraught friend away from where she hangs her feet into open space, but something keeps her frozen to the spot. Her tears had long ago turned cold on her cheeks.
"They tell me things, things that I have thought about myself, but never really took too seriously. They were just stupid insecurities. But they're not just that if someone else thinks it too."
"CeCe," Rocky calls softly, unable to help herself anymore. "Please step away from that ledge."
CeCe can hear the worry in her voice. So she swings around, a sudden move that makes Rocky's breath catch in her throat, and lands on the ground on the other side of the wall.
Rocky lunges forward and engulfs her best friend in a hug so tight and full of feeling, that it momentarily stuns the shorter girl.
"CeCe, you are smart; you are brave; you are the most talented girl I have ever met, and probably the strongest person I will ever meet. You are good and kind and you are selfish, but that's what makes you, you and you are my best friend.
Yes you get me into trouble, but if you weren't who you are, I would never have done anything we get in trouble for. I would have never taken any risks and never accomplished anything. You are brave, and courageous, and you are you- who is my best friend. Having dyslexia does not make you stupid; it makes you strong and it's okay to be jealous because that just makes you human. I love you so much so don't you ever think bad about yourself because nobody else's opinion matters but mine, got it?"
The short redhead, who had been silently crying into the taller girl's shirt, gives a sob-like laugh.
"Okay," she says sniffing hard and gripping her friend tighter to her.
"Please don't ever think about killing yourself again," Rocky requests. CeCe pulls back in surprise, eyes wide.
"Killing myself, who said anything about that?"
Rocky's face screws up in confusion. "Wait, if you weren't going to commit suicide, then why the heck were you standing on the edge like you were going to jump?"
"Oh, I always come here when I'm upset. I like feeling close to the sky." CeCe admits shyly.
Rocky blinks. "Then what was all that 'wanting to die falling' stuff?" she asks.
CeCe can't help but smile. "Nothing, I just think that it would be the coolest way to go."
The taller girl just stands there for a moment, wanting to face-palm. She had been so worried about the other girl, she still is, though it's a relief to know that is wasn't so bad that she actually wanted to jump. It does, however, kind of concern her that the first thing her best friend does when she's depressed, is go to a roof. She'll have to try to break that habit- what if one day it is that bad?
Despite herself, the smile forces its way onto the dancer's face. She laughs, in a kind of giddy relief. Only CeCe can worry her that much while being so innocent.
"Don't ever change." She tells her best friend, pulling her in for another hug. She can feel the redhead grin against her shoulder.
"I won't; I promise…and thanks, Rocky.