Dear Ocean Sky

Chapter 19 | Alex

It was tech week. Also known as heck week. A.k.a. H-E-double-hockey-sticks week, and it definitely lived up to its name.

Alex ran up the back ramp, leading to the hallway behind the stage. She wasn't in costume and she only had five minutes before she was supposed to be on stage to do a full run.

The cast and crew had just finished eating dinner, and it was now 5:17. Mr. Benj had given them twenty minutes to eat, but Alex decided to help Kata, who was trying to give Zoe a break, with some lighting issues. Apparently, someone decided to move all the LEDs into the wrong places during the five-minute break they had. Why someone would do that is beyond Alex, but everyone was accounted for in the cafeteria during the break, so everyone, including Mr. Benj, was pretty sure someone on the basketball team had done it since they just finished their game. However, Mr. Benj hadn't wanted to waste rehearsal time on fixing it so he told Zoe to fix it right before dinner as the cast was getting out of their costumes. However, Zoe had ended up helping Jake find a prop and then chewing out the kids who lost it because Jake was too shy. Kata and Alex both knew that Zoe had already missed lunch because Mr. Benj had asked her for help during rehearsals, but being the theatre saint she was, she decided to do it during lunch instead. Kata had taken pity on her and told her to go eat while she handled the lights, and Alex tagged along because she liked being around Kata and thought the job would go twice as fast with twice the people working.

Since the first time that they talked back in rehearsal a month prior, everyone in the theatre department thought that Alex and Kata had become inseparable. They would be right, however, it still came as a surprise to both of them when they called each other "friend."

Alex made Kata promise that whenever she had something she needed to get off her chest she would come to her, and Kata said Alex had to do the same. Alex had already broken her end of the deal though.

Alex wanted so badly to tell Kata about Adrian, but at the same time, she didn't know if she could.

No one really knew what happened to Adrian. Adrian hadn't gone to Alex's school, and since he was a few years older than Alex, none of Alex's friends had any interest in getting to know him. On the off chance that Adrian was brought up in a conversation among her friends back in New York, they never really discussed him much. Adrian's parents tried not to let too many people into the loop about what happened to their son either. They blamed themselves. They moved away the day after his funeral because, the pain, the guilt, it was all too much.

Alex knew how they felt.

Right after Adrian's death, Alex insisted that she go back to school, but ended up being too much for her. It seemed like everyone she knew was suicidal. She talked to all her friends non-stop about suicide and how to seek help, and the stress became too much. Alex thought she had gotten past that, but really, she just started pulling away from everyone. Finally, when Alex's mom was offered a job in Texas, the two of them decided that the best thing for them would be to move.

When Alex started getting close to Kata it just seemed so natural, but then Kata started talking about her problems to her, and everything came rushing back. She loved that Kata could trust her, but that night she just hadn't been as ready as she thought she was, and she felt horrible about it. She wanted to be there for Kata but she had done a pretty bad job of it.

However, Kata ended up talking to her about the fact that she was bringing an extra set of clothes to school as the two were fixing lights. Kata said she did this so she could change out of the nice ones her mother kept putting her in because she was afraid of getting catcalled again, or something worse. She felt trapped. She said that her father hadn't had enough time to listen to her yet because as soon as he got home each night, which was pretty late, she almost immediately heard yelling. Alex listened to everything she had to say and didn't really have any words besides that what Kata was going through absolutely sucked. Kata told her that was okay, just the fact that she listened and didn't judge was more than she could have asked for. She said it was more than she deserved, which Alex instantly argued with, but Kata just brushed her off. Alex wished she wouldn't do that. Kata was so amazing, and passionate, and funny- why couldn't she see that?