Trauma

07 | Auditioning

Today is different. The people at school are staring for a different reason. They laugh at Evelyn, pointing at her and whispering behind her back. She chooses to ignore them and just go to her locker, not wanting to deal with people telling her how much of a coward she is, like her classmates at her old school told her.

Her heart drops as she sees Timothée waiting by her locker. He spots her and smiles that warm smile he always gives her, confirming he's not mad just like he had said in the text. "Hey!" he exclaims.

"Hi Timothée," Evelyn says, putting in the code to her lock.

"Where were you yesterday?"

"Um," she says, focusing on putting the books she doesn't need into the locker.

"Hello?"

"Yeah? Oh sorry. Um, I was on set with my parents."

"Oh! That's cool," he nods awkwardly, staring off in the distance. He suddenly seems to be reminded of something. "Are you okay? You haven't been answering my texts and you just left right as we were performing."

"Oh my god, Timothée, I'm so sorry about that! I was going to apologize but then I just forgot. Just uh, something happened and I . . . wasn't comfortable on that stage. I kinda panicked, sorry."

"Oh no, I totally get it! Everyone gets nervous and people deal with it in different ways, but I was wondering who's Lily? 'Cause you were muttering 'Lily' as you walked out."

"Oh," Evelyn says, looking back into her locker to make sure she has put everything she doesn't need at the moment inside. She closes and locks it. "Yeah, uh, Lily was my friend."

"Was?"

"Look, I really gotta go to class right now. Maybe we can talk about this later?"

"There's still 10 minutes left-"

"Yeah, well I also gotta go to the bathroom. See you at lunch?"

"Sure."

Evelyn walks away, feeling the tiniest bit of guilt seeing Timothée looking hurt, but she doesn't feel like telling him everything yet. It's not like she doesn't trust him, it's just that it's painful to talk about it. No one other than Evelyn's parents and her closest friends know what happened and she would like to keep it that way.

Later in the day, at drama, everyone is still gossiping including Timothée's friends. Evelyn notices that he's not here yet and starts to get nervous. The whole day people have been coming up to her and mocking what happened straight to her face when she's alone. She isn't ready for the drama kids to do the same.

Just as the teacher walks in, Timothée arrives the moment after and takes a seat beside Evelyn. "Sorry, I'm late," he whispers to her and she smiles in reassurance.

"Okay class," Mr. Davidson starts. "We are going to be learning about the history of acting today," the class groans, "I know, I know, it's boring. But it's part of the curriculum so I have to teach it. I promise tomorrow we will do scenes again."

He looks around and spots Evelyn. "Oh, Miss Thomas! How are you feeling?"

"Good."

"You gave us quite a scare."

"Yeah, sorry about that."

She hears giggling and looks down, Mr. Davidson moving on. "Hey," Timothée whispers. "Don't worry, just ignore them Evelyn."

"Well it's kinda hard when people have been teasing me all day about it."

"They're just assholes."

"Does Mr. Chalamet and Miss Thomas have anything to share with the class?" their teacher interrupts, Evelyn and Timothée both looking up in alarm.

"No sir," Timothée says, looking back down in shame.

"Okay, then I suggest you pay attention as this goes towards your marks."

"Yes sir," Evelyn nods.

For the rest of the lesson, Evelyn listens to her teacher going on and on about information her parents already taught her long ago. She tries her best to be respectful and pay attention but it's hard not to fall asleep like some of her other classmates.

"And that's the end of our class," he says, everyone starting to get up. "Oh, and I forgot to mention, auditions for Grease start after school, aka right now so stay if you're auditioning for that."

Most people, including Timothée sit back down. "Are you gonna audition?" he asks.

"I don't know the lines."

"Don't worry, we're just singing. Do you know Hopelessly Devoted To You? That's the song the girls auditioning for Sandy have to sing. Unless you want to play Frenchy or Betty-"

"No, no, I'll try for Sandy and yes, I do know that song. My dad makes me listen to it all the time," she says. "Are you auditioning for Danny?"

"Yes, I need to sing the song called Sandy."

"Ooh, you'll do great!"

"So will you!"

They are silent for a minute, feeling the awkwardness consume them. Luckily, it is finally time for the auditions and Evelyn feels the nerves kick in at how unprepared she is. 'I swear to god, if I hallucinate again,' she thinks to herself.

"And first up we have Timothée Chalamet!" Mr. Davidson says and Timothée stands up, looking confident, and strolls to the front of the classroom. The music plays and he starts singing while moving around at the same time, actually acting like he is performing in a play. He is really good at singing which Evelyn hadn't expected. Pretty soon, his performance is over and he bows, walking back to his seat. Everyone claps but Evelyn claps the loudest.

"Wow, that was awesome!" she exclaims as he gets to his seat, the next person going up.

"Really? I don't think I did very good-"

"Oh shush, you did. You are so gonna get that part."

"Don't get my hopes up."

After a few more people, Evelyn's name is called and she reluctantly walks up. She hears the whispers once again but they're eventually drowned out by the music. "Guess mine is not the first heart broken. My eyes are not the first to cry," she sings while moving around a tiny bit so she's not just standing there awkwardly. She finds herself lost in the music and in no time, the music stops and as she walks back to her seat, the room bursts into applause.

"Now that, was the best performance so far," Timothée says.

"Thanks," Evelyn blushes. Was it really that good?

After a lot more performances, some good and some not, they finish and head home. "That was exciting."

"Yeah, you did great."

"And you did too," Evelyn says. There is silence for a few seconds before she breaks it. "So now what?"

"We wait."

A/N

Another longer chapter for you! I hope you liked it. The next few chapters are going to be shorter so I'm sorry, but I promise the story will get better! Just keep reading!

- M