Jade Awakening

Flirty Girls

Dad's presence at home has been minimal lately. It turns out that I guessed it right -- he has been at that lady, Melissa's house for several days. He'll pop in every now and then to grab some other item of his that he needed or forgot. The few appearances are enough to fool Jasper into thinking that he's just really busy with work, but I know better.

Neither Mom nor Dad have used the word yet, but I can feel it coming any day now: divorce. I had to admit though, it was nice to not have to mentally prepare myself to enter a house that was bound to be filled with the sounds of their petty arguing.

Things were finally starting to feel a little bit better, a little more normal again. Home was calm even if it was broken, Ryder's tweet had begun to lose public attention, and I was thoroughly enjoying rehearsals for Spring Awakening. Little did I know that I was in the eye of a hurricane.

***

I was looking forward to the weekend. School this week demanded more work than usual and I couldn't wait to relax. All I needed was to get through was this last class and then rehearsal after school.

Cat had asked me to hang out since we rarely spend time with each other after school. In a way, we were still each other's only friends despite school being in session for over two months. I got along fine with the cast of Spring Awakening, but I wouldn't exactly call them my friends -- since most of them were older than me and we didn't really share any classes with each other, we never got super close.

And in any case, the girls were too air-headed at rehearsals for me to even want to be around them for longer than I needed. They all bat their eyes and act way too flirtatious whenever Beck is around. Their behavior made me cringe. Perhaps my personal experience made me cynical, but I no longer believed that any boy would be worth displaying the amount of desperation that they do.

So at the moment, it would just be me and Cat. After rehearsal we planned to go to El Taco Guapo for food, and then maybe go to a mall or something afterwards.

When the final bell rang, I headed to the Black Box as I always do on Fridays. Lyndsey, Jessica, and Fran were already in the theater, no doubt waiting for Beck to show up. Lyndsey was fixing her naturally red hair, Jessica was applying a fresh coat of mascara on her lashes, and Fran was checking her skin in a handheld mirror for any pimples or blemishes. They were definitely cast well for their parts.

"Oh! Hey Beck," Lyndsey said when she saw him enter behind me. "Those jeans fit you great."

What a weird comment, I thought to myself.

"Uh, thanks," he said.

He pulled out his script from his backpack and flipped to a scene to study before we got started. Jessica broke the beginning of his concentration though by sitting right next to him.

"I could watch you study all day."

"Thanks?"

"It's just hot, you know, when a guy is passionate about something."

"Yeah.." he said impassively, "I guess."

"Hey Beck," Fran chimed in, "I bet you can't guess what color my bra is."

I couldn't believe the gall of these girls. I sat down in a chair and tried to focus on my own script as well before Sikowitz got here. Tuning the girls out was a challenge, though.

"I don't know, pink?" he offered.

"Oh come on, you know pink is too innocent of a color for me," she giggled, "It's red. Do you want to see?"