*Media is song reference*
Alice was getting ready for the show in her dressing room when Pierre and Cory came knocking. She let them in and they could sense her somber mood.
"Are you alright to perform tonight?" Cory asked.
"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?" She retorted.
"Well, we're just worried about you, Alice," Pierre stated. "You've been less bubbly these past few months."
"I'm great!" Alice told them.
"Alice, something happened and you're not telling us." Cory spoke.
"Nothing happened." She glared at the two.
"We can tell when you're lying." Pierre raised his brow.
"It's just... for some reason, Tom just decided to grow cold towards me. He said I should call him Professor and whenever I finished his tasks, he would ask me to leave. No conversation, no small talk, nothing! I don't even know what it is I did to upset him. So, I wanted to hurt him back and I've stopped being his assistant since October." Alice explained to them.
"What? Why would he do that?" Cory inquired.
"I don't know!" She shouted.
She threw her make-up brush at her mirror and the two rushed to her side. Pierre wrapped his arm around her shoulders as Cory took a seat next to her.
"I'm sure everything will be fine. Who knows? Maybe he's going through something at the moment." Pierre told her.
"I feel bad for dropping the office duty. It's just that he gave me so many wonderful opportunities and made me feel special. Not a lot of people go out of their way to do that for me. You guys have been so great to me. He made me feel wanted and now I feel like he just threw me out like I meant nothing to him. He was my friend."
Alice broke down into tears and Pierre and Cory were quick to try and cheer her up. Cory got a tissue to collect her tears before they ruined her make-up as Pierre hushed her, kissing her temple.
"And I know you guys tease me about having a crush on him, but it was so much more with him. He made me feel loved." She confessed.
Pierre and Cory shared a quick, knowing glance before turning their attention back to Alice.
"I know you're hurting. It was shitty what he did to you. Someone like him doesn't deserve you. You're a kind, caring, loving, and sensitive woman who's gifted in so many different ways. You deserve nothing but the best. Don't forget that you have all of us here in the theater to talk to and listen to you. Now, tonight, you're going to get on that stage and be amazing! You're going to forget everything that's troubling you and embody the spirit of Emile du Boux, the sexy, alluring, and mischievous lady she is." Pierre spoke to her softly.
Alice smiled weakly and the two wrapped their arms around her before exiting the room to give her time to change. Once in her costume, she looked at herself in her floor length mirror. She gazed up her body and landed on her eyes, staring at herself. She repeated the kind words Pierre had told her and she smiled at herself before walking to her table and going over her vocal exercises.
Tom just ordered another drink and clasped his hands tightly together on the table as his foot shook underneath, his eyes focused on the stage. When the lights dim, his heart began to race in his chest as he adjusted himself in his seat. As the night progressed, the tapping of Tom's foot became erratic when Alice didn't appear on the stage. Towards the end of the show, when the act that just finished was getting their applause, Tom stood from his seat, grabbed his coat and went to head out of the theater.
YOU ARE READING
Temptation
Fiksi PenggemarAlice Sherbrooke spends her days as a college student and office assistant to her Shakespeare professor, Tom Hiddleston. The two share a bond and have grown close over the past four years. During her nights, she headlines a cabaret show that she lik...