Love, Hate and the Line

Chapter 10

After that last comment, Ben left the supply closet while I took a deep breath. His eyes had travelled down every part of my body and it had been.. uncomfortable.

I chose to forget it, though. It was just a joke. Leaving the dark closet, I made my way to my Drama and Retorics class.

I stepped inside the huge auditorium where we had the class. There were about 25 pupils there, most of the guys sleeping while the girls were oddly excited.

As I sat down, I heard my teachers high, nasal voice, screeching: 'Hello class, today we'll be leaving the beauty of Drama behind for some Retorics excercises. I expect all of you to participate actively."

I groaned. Even worse than acting was retorics, where you had to stand on the stage and speak in front of the rest of the class. When there were acting exercises, the eager popular girls always volunteered to be in the spotlight but in retorics, our teacher chose her victims randomly.

"This time we'll start off with something easy. Who doesn't know Martin Luther King's 'I have a dream' speech?" she continued.

To my surprise, some people actually raised their hands. All that money spent on their education was apparently a waste.

"Oh, well, just goggle it on those.. ByPhones of yours, isn't that what they're called?"

The boys snickered at her lack of technical knowledge.

"Anyway, the excercise is presenting King's ideas convincingly. You will be graded for demonstrated skills. Now, first up will be.. Brody Michaels, he will be followed by Ariana Courtance and lastly, I'd like to see Anna Samuels."

My heart skipped a beat when she called my name. It's safe to say that I didn't possess the skills Martin Luther King had, and I was getting increasingly nervous. I just felt so exposed on the stage, open, vulnerable. Everyone would look at you, laugh at you..

Brody was first and of course, he did very well. He was popular and had this natural aura, drawing in people. Ariana had it too and performed very well, despite her annoying, whiney voice. Mrs. Bellane didn't seem to mind, though, Ariana was her star student since she adored attention and, to be fair, was very good at acting.

As Ariana read the speech aloud, I grew more and more nervous. When Ariana finished, I walked to the stage, trembling. As always, the insults were highly creative.

"Huh, look at her, she can barely walk. Loser."

"She's totally gonna barf on the stage dude."

"Oh my god, did you see her skirt? A misplaced stitch and it's in the wrong colour too. Totally ragged."

I ignored them, taking a deep breath while making my way to the stage. Having reached it, Mrs. Bellane handed me the part of the speech that I was going to present.

I'm genuinely sorry for my public speaking skills, or rather the lack of them, desecrating your memory, Dr. King.

My voice shaking, I opened my mouth. Good, it's a first step Anna. Now all you have to do is speak. I looked away from my trembling hands, at the relatively small audience. Not a good idea. They were all.. looking at me, which I guess made sense because this was a class and they were supposed to. Besides, I had been standing there for 10 seconds or something, completely quiet. My nervous breath was hearable through the microphone and the fancy surround sound system in de auditorium.

Stop thinking. Speak. Opening my mouth again, my mouth formed the first word. It. Not the hardest of words. Yet instead of those two letters, I produced a sound closely related to the peeping of a mouse.

I knew the speech by heart, since I had read it in a book of my father's and I had a photographic memory. I didn't need the pages in front of me at all to know that what I needed to say was 'It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment'.

But the words were stuck in my throat. I still hadn't produced a word that could be found in any dictionary in the world. Well, maybe a Korean one, though. They always have these weird syllables.

Stop thinking. Start speaking. Now!

Oh, yeah, right. Heh. For the gazillionth time, I opened my mouth but yet again nothing came out. I was fumbling with the papers but my hands were trembling so the papers fell down. Inwardly cursing, I crouched down and started picking them up.

The pupils in the audience were now laughing at my clumsiness and sudden aphasia. Mrs. Bellane sighed loudly and spoke up. "Anna, darling, do you want to sit this one out? I'm sure Ariana wouldn't mind taking over your part of the speech.."

I nodded thankfully and quivering, I walked to the small ladder that would get me off of the stage - also known as my personal hell - all the while ignoring the pupils' laughter. I was still shaking, though, so setting foot on the first sport, I lost balance and as if in slow-motion, my feet slipped off of the stainless steel. My arms fladdering around me like a stoned goose, I fell backwards. I braced for the hit but it never came, two strong arms catching me just in time.

Catching my breath, I looked up to see my savior and was stunned to see that it was no less than Ben Ashford. His face sporting an amused look, he smirked:

"Falling for me, huh?"

A/N

Hey guys, I know it's boring and probably poorly written but it's late and I'm tired and I just had to update for the amazing NotANerddd and mary_vlopes . They are awesome and so supporting, thank you so so much.

Please please please help me gain some reads. I love writing but it's so much more fun when I know people are reading this. If you don't like things, please comment, I need constructive criticism and if you do like something, I love hearing from you too.

As always, this is not edited and written on my phone so there are probably a dozen grammar and spelling mistakes. If you spot one, tell me and I will fix it as soon as possible. If I have made a your/you're mistake I will die of embarrassment.

I'm not going to do the thing where I set a quotum for votes to receive before I update because I'm pretty sure I'd never reach it.

Funniest comparison of one of the characters to an animal using a comment on this section will get a dedication. Don't forget to include why you think a certain character looks like that animal, physically or mentally.

Oomph it's 2 am and I'm really going to sleep. Thank you all for reading, as always!

Love,

M