She doesn't consume your every thought.

She just makes whatever thought she touches a good one.

You like how when you think on her you're no longer in reality. You're not on a bus older than you are, five feet off of the ground with no air conditioning, languishing in the back by an open window and the sound of the moaning engine. You're not sure where you are- no beachside vacation or anything romantic- but you're not where you are, and it feels nice.

You can't force yourself to think of her. Hell, when you do there isn't much to draw on, but what little you have you get lost in. Like how when you dance, you leap with gusto and land with force. The earth shakes beneath your tiny feet. She doesn't seem like she ever took a step that wasn't perfectly light and poised.

At least, if she did, you would like to find out.

You stare at the back of the bus driver's head about forty feet away, awakened from your disgustingly pure fantasy. Gods, the least you could do is fantasize about the fact that she's crazy hot like normal people would. Hell, you've done it before with other women, but she just feels like… something a little bit more.

That little bit more is turning you into a friggin' cheeseball. Someone more classy and pretentious than you are (you hope).

Oh well.

You focus on your surroundings. There are scattered civilians further ahead, and you lay a leg out on the two seats next to you to mark your territory. You're close enough to the theater, but you forgot to stretch before you left because you're barely in your right mind today.

That, and there ain't a damn way you're gonna associate with anyone without your okay.

You close your eyes and sigh. You're a mess. Not like her. She's so frustratingly together that you don't think you have a chance in hell of breaking that. The most you get is the smile she has when you dance. That giddy, greedy grin that consumes her to unashamedly comic levels, but at the same time, doesn't feel real. You want to see her real smile. You want to see the real her, somehow, but all she leaves you with are questions-

You realize you're about to miss your stop. Shrieking for a bare second, you yank on the cord and clamber to your feet, nearly falling out of your flats. The driver pulls to a sudden stop and you apologize profusely, scrambling to the back door. The driver laughs in a detached sort of way as the back door opens. You nearly fall down the stairs on your way out, pulling your hair out of the way in a practiced manner that may profess to past abhorrent hair days suffered to the whims of the back door. (Your scalp still doesn't feel the same.) The bus leaves you a block from the theater, and you look more like Olivia the windstorm victim than anything, hair a stringy mess and loose top flowing dangerously to the right.

You smooth yourself down walk towards the theater and prepare to be Olivia the dancer, where none of your messy imperfections need apply.

You take rhythmic steps down the sidewalk despite you not having any music plugged in. There's a song in your head that walks up and down the piano keys on your legs, so audible you're almost tempted to pop in your headphones and find it on your music app. You let the thoughts carry you down the street towards the theater, and you briefly imagine yourself and Cherche dancing to this. Then you snap to again, and your first thought is disgust that you're thinking of a good first dance, when you should wonder why she would actually date you. If she just isn't being nice. If she has seen thousands of women more attractive than you, which she probably has. If she's even remotely gay in the first place.

(Though you have a hunch. A very gay hunch.)

You hear a wolf-whistle from a very male figure who passes you, and as he passes by you see the motion of someone lowering their shades so you can feel a set of eyes on your ass. You blush furiously, growling as you push your hair towards your face, and as you hear his footsteps dissipate, you wonder how many catcalls it will be before you're Olivia the pepper spray carrier. You aren't yet, because you don't want to be that person. Besides, some days where you just want to be left alone you think you would spray everyone who talks to you.

You think of Cherche feigning innocence after kicking him in the shin and you're… a little less angry.

Still pretty peeved, but less so.

You throw your bag in the backstage room where the five of you meet. It's always been just you five, for as long as the Galactic Shadows have existed, and by now you would imagine that you are all in the comfortable roommate zone. Before, Stahl was the pronounced leader and not just the most together adult human, and before every show he would give you all a pep talk that inspired you to think you were more than you were. Now, a year in, you've found that you can all survive without team exercises and mandatory bonding, and once you all figured that out, the boys faded away with the excuse of personal business and reoriented focus.

All the best, you figure. You were never the most social, and welcomed the return of old antisocial habits with only some apprehension.

Stahl notices your arrival. It's just him and Vaike, and Vaike is too busy with mirror Vaike to pay attention to your presence. "Hey, Liv," Stahl says with a wave. You wave back, smiling courteously, before sitting down and crossing your legs, brushing nonexistent foliage off of your shorts.

"You have the routines down?" he asks you, looking at you despite the fact that you don't return eye contact.

"I should by now," you respond.

Vaike turns in his rotating stool, round black hairbrush gesturing for him. "Yeah, we've only been doing the same shit for like seventy weeks or so. Think the whole damn city could train us if we forgot." He returns to the mirror, brushing his hair, arm on the desk before him.

Stahl smirks. "You know that, and I know that, but with Mr. Pompier giving us consideration, we have to show him that we're a worthwhile investment, you know?"

Vaike works out a tangle in his hair, wincing and seething. Yeah, have him deal with a double digit amount of tangles in the morning and then he can talk. "Yeah, yeah, but let's be real, if he saw potential in the first few days, he'll see it in the days after. All of our performances are the same, you know?"

"Yeah," Stahl admits. You look at him, hand on chin, breathing like he's taking in the courage to say something. You recognize it from every time you go to say something important, and all the times you don't say it.

Luckily, he is not you. "I don't know, maybe we should try something unique on the fifth day?"

"Unique?" you blurt.

"Yeah," he responds. "You know, something to show him we're not a one-trick-pony who just dance the same steps every time."

"Which we are," Vaike points out, smirking at his reflection.

"I think we could be more," Stahl argues, his smile fading into a grimace.

"Like how?"

Stahl doesn't answer, and you don't find any answers in the ground you're staring at. Vaike hmphs triumphantly, but you can't see what he's won. "Exactly," he says. "I say we don't take our chances. We're, like, a shooter on rails. Away from our routine, we can't even dance, much less come up with new plans."

"Maybe you can't."

You seethe and grab your bag as the other two turn towards you. "She speaks," Vaike tells Stahl, because apparently he forgot how to talk to you when it's not looking for your approval to drool over the women you saw first.

You shake your head and walk towards your dressing room before you're stuck there, the boys facing you, waiting for you to tell them why they're wrong. You don't have an answer. You just can't let yourself believe that you're little more than a tired puppet on the same strings.

If you can't dance, who are you?

Olivia the nothing.

Neither one responds as you walk down the hallway to your dressing room, slamming the door. You take shelter inside. This may be a dimly lit room with brick walls and a water heater on the other side of a marquee mirror and makeup desk, but you know that no one can bug you here. Truth be told, it's your happy place for when you are just done with people, and already you need a day-long vacation from them.

You lock the door and set your purse down again. Your skinsuit is alone, hanging from the single hanger on a nearby clothes rack, and an expensive, moderately useful makeup palette rests on the desk. Next to it is… usually nothing, but in this case, it isn't alone. There's a paper sticking out beneath it and something atop it, something about the size of the brush but decidedly not that.

Slowly, gingerly, you walk to the palette, as though the objects will bite. Thankfully, they do not. You see the non-brush clearer now, a soft pink rose clear of thorns. You're used to this, as a few spectators will request to have roses left behind by whoever manages whatever building you're in. They're messy, scattered, and even alone only speak of impersonal affection. A device of dance, not a person.

Seeing as that's all you aspire to be to them, you accept that... but this rose is alarmingly personal.

For one, you usually get them just after your performance, not a full day after. It also seems more... meaningful, somehow. Care was taken with dethorning it, and it lies atop the palette like Sleeping Beauty waiting for a kiss, peaceful and expectant- of what you can't say.

More curious than ever, you hold it by its stem gingerly, like it'll disappear. You turn your attention to the paper beneath the palette, lifting it up to grab the paper with your free hand. You hold it to your eyes. It's plain white card stock with a raised curly pattern at the header, an invisible binding of vines that feels like someone's personal touch- from them to you.

Written beneath it: Looking forward to an encore! CA

You feel a familiar feeling, more intensely than before. It's the feeling where everything in the world stops being for a moment, leaving only you, the concept of her, and the way you allow yourself to take a few seconds to revere the fact that nothing else matters. You hold the card close to your chest and dance in place. You're giddy, uncoordinated, and it's absolutely nothing you would show the world, but it's precious in its own way. It doesn't take the edge off of your racing heart, but you don't mind, because truth be told this makes you happier than the announcement about Mr. Pompier.

This accomplishment has a personal touch.

(Though, gods, her surname better start with an A or you're really in trouble.)