"This is all your fault, director's pet. This is a play. I'm not falling in love with you, and I would never ever go out with you, Jack Garrison."
Jack and Shayna can't get through a rehearsal without fighting.
Cheerleader Shayna loathes perfect Ja...
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The theater had one shower in the backstage bathroom. The water didn't heat up, so I rinsed myself and scrubbed the green paint the best I could without getting completely wet. Novah located some towels, and Jules found a plaid dress in the costume room for me to wear. I hated dresses, but it was better than nothing.
There was a bit of soap, but I didn't know how long it had been sitting there. I washed the green paint from my short hair. Then, toweling off, I put on the ugly yellow and pink dress.
"Could be worse," Jules shrugged, and they handed me a pair of fifties-style saddle shoes and a pair of bright orange and black striped knee socks. "Sorry, it was all I could scrounge up in your size."
"I'll just look like an extra from Peanuts," I shrugged and put on the shoes and socks.
Novah smirked. "All you need now is an outlandishly big bow and some bad curls."
I squeezed the water from my hair and sighed. My short hair stuck up in all directions like I'd stuck my finger in a light socket. Green paint still crusted a few ends.
"Well," Jules said. "You've looked worse. Remember that homecoming promposal?"
The football players left the glitter bomb in Shelby's locker to ask her to homecoming a couple of weeks ago. I'd been in the locker below her, retrieving my books, when she triggered the mechanism that set off the mess.
It forced me to skip half a day of school to clean up. Jules and I spent hours trying to get all the glitter off me.
They were trying to make me feel better, but I still looked, in places, like the Wicked Witch of the West—not my best look.
"We could leave," Jules suggested. "If you don't want to go back out there."
"No," I said. "I'm not going to run away this time. Besides, if Jack can show up to rehearsal with a black eye, I think I can deal with a little paint."
"That's the spirit," Novah smiled.
Jules nodded at me. I opened the door of the dressing room, and that's when I heard the scream. We rushed into the theater just in time to see Kai and Carson pulling Juan off Jack as Hugh dragged the quarterback further from the fight.
"What's going on?" I asked. "A girl takes five..."
Hugh released Jack. His right eye was still blackened, but now his nose was bleeding, and there was a cut above his left eye.
Juan's face was a bit bloodied as well. His lip was split, and he was fighting to escape Carson and Kai.
"Let go of me," Juan spat, and Kai released his arm. He pulled away from Carson and glared at them both.
My father's favorite line from Shakespeare he used when my sisters and I fought when I was little, spilled out of my mouth. "Where are the vile beginners of this fray?"
