Salmonella

Chapter 19

🫧Nineteen🫧

After a boring week of work without an annoying manager (who's busy rehearsing for some mystery role), I'm trudging down the hall at Fish one day when I swim into Bloom and two of her athlete friends.

"We should all go to the show," one of them says. They're staring up at some sign on the wall.

"What show?" I pop my head into their huddle.

"Oh, Ella." Bloom drapes an arm over my shoulders and pulls me to her, nodding at the sign. "The theater department's spring musical. You wanna come?"

The Little Lonlass, reads the poster, bold letters floating over the black silhouette of a lonlass girl. It's a classic, of course, so it's not weird they're putting it on... but, lonlasses again? First Gen, then this. Is this a new trend I don't know about?

"It opens this weekend," says one of the girls. Pacific, I think their name is.

I squint at the poster where the showtimes are written really small at the bottom, trying to find ones that don't interfere with my work. "If it's a night show, then I can go."

"Is this Lavday* okay? That's the only day I'm free," says the other friend.

Bloom, Pacific and I all nod.

"I have to warn you, though," says Bloom in my ear after we've swam away from the others, "Asslas is in it. Do you still wanna go?"

Oh, of course he is. So that's the role he's been preparing for that he wouldn't tell us about.

"It's fine," I sigh and smile at her. "At least he can't yell at me from the stage."

Bloom loops her arm through mine. "Ugh, yeah. I can't believe he even gets lead roles. But if he gets everyone to kiss his ass, he must be a really good actor—I'll give him that."

𓆟 𓆟 𓆟

On Lavday evening, Bloom and I head into the theater with three of her friends and Blossom, who wanted to tag along. An usher helps us to our seats and I open my playbill to look through the cast list: Verity Ray as Princess Turquoise, Asslas as Prince Finesse, Tate Pole-Barnacle as Urseida...

Oh, right. I swallow, closing the pamphlet and staring ahead of me at the dark stage. There's a bear in The Little Lonlass. An evil bear, fittingly, but it never quite helped with my fear. It's a childish fear. I should have gotten over it a long time ago. I know I don't go out to the river anymore; it's not like I'll ever run into any bears. But it doesn't quench the sick feeling I get when I think of them, when all I can see in my mind are their sharp claws digging into helpless skin riffling red with blood...

Bloom's friend moans from a few seats over, saving me from my swimaway thoughts. She's holding open her playbill to the others. "Look at this pic of Atlas—Oh my god, he's so fine. I wish he would flatten me with his tail, I wish he would strangle me with—"

I wish I could erase whatever I just heard from my memory.

"Uhhh, okay," laughs Bloom.

"Oh, come on, tell me he's not hot!"

"Totally," says Blossom from the seat beside me. "I would let that man tie me up and—"

"Blossom!" Bloom stares wildly at her sibling, who knows how much she hates Asslas. "You are fifteen."

"So? Can you blame me? And age is just a number!"

"Not that I like men, but if I did, he'd be my type for sure," Pacific chimes in.