A Readers Guide to Romance

Chapter 4

Tuesday, May 24:

Tuesday morning Avery got the email. It was from the audition agency, with the time and date they expected her to be auditioning. It also included the address of the studios where the movie will primarily be shot, and where auditions will be held in less than a week. The script was attached to the bottom of the email and she pulled it up on her laptop.

It was still early, the sun was barely up as Avery crept through the quiet house and downstairs to the printer. The script was more condensed than the book, but still long. She printed eighty pages in total, then sat in her mom's office chair and started reading, only stopping after a couple of pages to grab herself a bowl of cereal and a highlighter.

It was obvious who she was going to audition for. With Avery's bright red hair and a never ending love for the romance between Liz and Wes, who else would she audition for?

Of course, Avery had never auditioned for anything before, (besides the class play she performed in fourth grade), so she had no idea how to prepare for something like this. So she simply went through and read the whole thing, highlighting all of Liz's lines, which was a lot.
How was she meant to memorize all this by Monday?

***

"Did Charlie send you to find me?"

"No, I haven't seen him. I'm just hiding."

"Trouble in paradise?"

"Nah, I'm just bored." Avery takes a deep breath, looking down to her script for just a second before looking back up at James and continuing, "As it turns out, I don't really like Micheal that way. And he and Laney are super into each other but just terrible communicators."

"Is that right?" James responds, with no emotion in his voice, just reading the words on the page.
Avery takes another deep breath as she continues the scene without even looking at the page, simply trying to emulate Liz as she had pictured her the first time she read this very scene, "Yes. And it turns out that I actually do like Wes, but he actually does like Alex now. So."

"Um-"

"And. It turns out that I'm so, so, sorry. And, I miss you."

"Do you think the fact that everything blew up in your face is going to make me forgive you?"

"Of course not. But you can at least take comfort in the fact I'm suffering."

"I don't want you to suffer."

"Listen. I know you don't want to hear this but I'm so sorry for lying to you. I knew you'd call me out for trying to land Michael, and instead of actually listening to you, I just kept it from you so I didn't have to think about how absolutely right you were."

"Such a wimp move."

"Right? And I shouldn't have let you think that I liked Wes either. I mean, it ended up being a self-fulfilling prophecy, but it was pretty despicable."

"Yeah, it was."

"Yeah. I'm gonna go back now, so-"

"Sit. I miss you too. I'm about to forgive you over the whole prom debacle. But. I feel like there is something wrong with us lately. Like I'm constantly chasing you." This was it, the big emotional part, Avery was good at the funny banter of Liz's personna, but the emotional bits were more difficult. She didn't look at her script, throwing herself into the moment, "It's our senior year. I kind of pictured us doing, like, everything together and making the most of every second we have because we're going to be living in different places in a few months.
"Homecoming, prom, senior pictures, senior pranks-I thought we'd made all of those things totally epic. But you just keep disappearing on me for the big things."

"I know."

"You're there for everything else, every little thing that doesn't matter. But, like-are you even going to show for graduation? Am I going to have to walk alone? I don't know what your deal is." James sets down his version of the script on his knees, looking up to Avery for her part.

"It's complicated," Avery sighed and set the script down entirely, so she wouldn't be tempted to look at it, "I know we weren't friends when my mom died, but it sucked. Like, of course losing a parent sucks, but it suck-sucked. Everything felt lonely and sad - every single thing. You could've given me ice cream cones at Disney World with Tom Hands doling out pony rides, and I still would've cried every night because she wasn't there.

"But eventually it started getting better. Not quite so terrible. I learned that if I could make it through the day without crying, I could go home and watch her movies, which always made her feel close."

There was a long pause as Avery waited for James to say his line, but instead he said "do you need to look at the script?"

"Do you? It's your line, genius."

"Oh," James scrambled to pick up the script and flip to the page, scanning the words then saying far too loud, "I'm sorry, Liz."

"It all became normal and fine, but lately it's just... different."

"Different how?"

"I'm a senior. I..." suddenly everything was blank in Avery's mind, "shit, I don't remember." Avery let out a long groan and plopped down on her bed face first beside where James was sitting.

"Sorry Ave, that was my fault," James said, poking at her shoulder. "Come on, let's go again, I'll pay closer attention this time."

Avery said something in response but with her head face down onto the covers it came across as a mumbled bunch of incomprehensible sounds. "What was that?"

Avery turned her head to look at James, "It's no use, I'm not an actor, I don't even know why I'm trying."

"Hey, don't do that, you're actually really good. You just need a better cast mate, one who won't forget their line and mess up your flow."

"Thanks Jamie, that's going to make me feel so much better when I embarrass myself in front of a bunch of actually talented actors. Which is tomorrow if you've forgotten, I'm nowhere near ready."

"Hey, Ave, look at me." James leaned forward and met Avery's eyes, her face still firmly planted on the covers of her bed, "you're ten times more prepared than any of those people in there."

Avery began to roll her eyes at James' words, but he kept talking, "How many times have you read this book? Like, fifty something, right? Probably more. I guarantee you know this book better than anyone else in there, probably better than the author herself, so just ignore everyone else and do it, because I know you can, Liz Buxbaum."

"Who knew you were so good at pep talks?" Avery laughed at him, but couldn't help but feel a little better about it. "Thank you James."

"Yeah you're welcome," he said, and rubbed a hand on Avery's head, breaking the sincere moment, "and while I'm handing out all this fantastic advice for free, you should really get some sleep. Stop stressing about it, you've got it. Get some rest and tell me how it goes tomorrow." James was simultaneously pulling on his sweatshirt and talking at the same time, Avery just laid on the bed, watching him get ready to go.

"Night Jamie," Avery said as James walked out of her bedroom, the small smile on her face still present from James' pep talk.

James turned around and smiled at Avery, then shut off the light and closed the door while saying "Night Ave."

***

AN: Hey y'all, just wanted to get this one out there because I've been way ahead of schedule recently. This chapter maybe isn't my best work and I really need to edit, but I want to plan out the story and get a good rough draft out there, then work on going through and editing after it's finished.

Anyway, change of subject, what do you guys think about James? I think I've fallen in love with my own character, he's cute and sweet and so loving, plus he loves books and music, I tried to make him funny but I'm really not all that funny myself so...

Anyway anyway, thank you so so much for reading, lots of love to you all! Hope you enjoyed, hope to see you next chapter!