"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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Returning to rehearsal like it was a normal Thursday was so strange. Nothing felt normal, and yet everything seemed so ordinary. The stage was fully lit. The only two people in the audience were Anton and Jamie. I stood across from Shayna, and somehow, she wasn't glowering.
In full costume, it all felt real. I was here not as Jack Garrison, a minor scandal celebrity, but as Orlando. Beside me stood Celia and Rosalind, not Samantha, the drama queen, and Shayna, the cheerleader.
My lines came naturally. "I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind,
for, I protest, her frown might kill me."
Shayna smiled. "By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now
I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on
disposition, and ask me what you will. I will grant
it."
I stepped forward. "Then love me, Rosalind."
"Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all," Shayna said.
"And wilt thou have me?" I asked.
Shayna's change in attitude still confused me. She'd been helpful the past two days, but I hadn't seen her in person since she left the hospital with her brother. Mary had mentioned yesterday that she'd come to visit her, but she hadn't asked about me.
We'd come to a truce somehow. I wasn't sure if I could call it a friendship. It was possible she just felt sorry for me.
Shayna looked at me. "Ay, and twenty such."
"What sayest thou?" I stared back at her, trying to judge any modicum of emotion on her face, but she seemed completely in character.
"Are you not good?" She asked.
I nodded curtly. "I hope so."
Shayna's smile widened. "Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?
Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us.
Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?"
"And cut," Uncle Anton stood from his place in the audience. "Good work. I need a coffee. Go ahead and take five."
He walked into the lobby where the ancient coffee maker was in the concession stand. Jamie followed him with a concerned hand on his shoulder.
The rest of the cast poured on stage from the wings. Rita came out front holding the textbook she was reading backstage, followed by Novah cradling what looked like knitting needles. Carson hung his headphones around his neck while Hugh and Kai put what looked like physics homework in folders. Juan slumped behind them with Jules in the back.
"I can't believe you're still doing this production, Jack," Rita said. "I mean, your mother is in the hospital, and they locked your father up. Don't you have three sisters too?"
