The Spark

Practicing

"So, what do you know about being on camera?" Terrek asked.

"Absolutely nothing!" I said in my fake enthusiastic voice.

"Oh." He looked around for a minute and then back at me. "It's alright, we can work around that."

I crossed my arms. "What first?"

"Well, first you need to know how to lie," he said, "and how to fake emotions."

"I'm alright at lying, not great but alright, and I would say I have quite a bit of practice faking emotions."

"Why is that? I thought you weren't an actor or anything like that."

Do I trust him enough to tell him? May as well not like it will do anything.

I sighed.

"Well for one, I have actually been in a few plays when. I was a lot younger then, but it still counts! Two—" I paused, looking at him for a second then looking back at the floor, "—you tend to learn a lot of things when you're scared of someone and think saying the wrong thing will get you hurt."

I looked back at him, and to say he was shocked was an understatement.

"When?" was all he could get out.

"Seven-ish years I think. Doesn't matter anymore though. I've been away from my father for about a year now and won't ever be going back."

His face contorted into a look of sadness and worry.

"Again, I've gotten away from it so don't give me that look or I might kick you, alright?"

He took a few moments to change his expression.

"Well then, I guess we should work on your stage fright," he continued to focus on practicing for the interview. "Are you sure you've been in a play before? Your stage fright is pretty bad."

He had returned to joking which was good, I didn't want to stay on that topic for long.

"I never said I had a big role or talked by myself, just that I was in one."

"So you were in a group whenever you were on stage?"

I nodded.

"Hmm. You'll be alone—"

"No need to remind me," I interrupted.

"—but what helps me is to pretend like my friends are behind me," he finished.

"And what if that doesn't work?" I blurt out without thinking. "Sorry. I didn't mean to snap at you, I just always think about the worst when it comes to things like this. My mind has to go over every possibility and then my anxiety gets to me."

"You're alright," he said softly. "If it doesn't work... Actually, maybe I can ask if the two of us can go up together... I don't know if they'll let us, but if they do, would that make you feel better?"

I stared at him for a few moments. "Why does it matter to you?" I asked, a bit too defensively. I start to worry over what he could say next and if something bad will come out of my question.

Terrek doesn't respond. He just stares down at me with a somber expression. He's not looking at me as if I'm a broken little kid, he's looking at me as if I'm a person. And he's not making a joke out of a serious expression, which is nice.

"No one really cares about my problems," I say, my voice rising. "Not many people, anyway. So why would you care, when we weren't really friends in the first place?"

It takes him a few moments to respond. "I guess I just want to help someone feel better before... before the end."

I stayed silent for a few seconds. He actually wanted to help, and not just by helping me prepare, he would go out of his way to help make me more comfortable when it came time for the interview.