Untouchable

Tomato Sauce and Unwanted Hand-holding

"She was pointing at the moon, but I was looking at her hand." —(from Richard Siken's piece, Anyway)

My favorite part of Thursday arrived. Usually, Nia comes to our classroom to walk with Brooklynn and I to drama, but this time, Nia wasn't called so it would just be us. "Ugh! I'm getting sick of drama. I have so much homework tonight." she complained to me as we were walking to the auditorium. 

"Yeah me too..but Oli's there, so it's fine," I told her. Oli being at rehearsal didn't mean anything to her, but I still tried to reason with her. 

To that, she said, "Ok? I don't flipping care if your little baby is there!!" I jokingly pouted and frowned at her, to make her feel bad. She didn't fall for my antics and we continued on our way.

We approached the doorway to the auditorium and walked inside. I loved the way the old building smelled, and the lights never blinded me. They surrounded me with sweet comfort and warmth. It felt like home. Walking up the steps, I heard a familiar voice. I could recognize that voice from miles away. The rasp of it, and the pitch. I'll never get used to how it sounded in the morning, and in the evening, when he cried, and when he sang. Even when he cried, most especially when he cried, he sounded and looked beautiful. I was an ugly crier. But he contrasted the ugliness and made it pretty anyway. Passing by him sitting down laughing with his friends, we made eye contact. "Charlie!!!", he said. 

"..Hi." I smiled and continued to follow Brooklynn to our spot. We always put our backpacks down on the opposite side, so I faced where Oli sat. He was always near the doorway, house right (if you face the stage, it's to your right). We were always on house left.

We set our backpacks along the wall and sat down. Brooklynn pulled out her phone and began to play a game. "Wait, I wanna do something.." I told her while raising my hand to touch her phone. The game she was playing was sort of like an interaction game. There was a boy with his shirt slightly unbuttoned in the game, so I decided to drag the "touch" button along the seams. 

The boy said, "What are you doing?" to my ploy. Doing this with my crush present in the room and a few yards away from me was not a good idea. But I did it anyway cause it was funny. 

"..Charlie, you try to take off his shirt every time, and it never works. Why do you keep trying?!" Brooklynn said to me. I laughed and shrugged it off.

When it was time to start rehearsal, our choreographer called all of the people who were grass into a separate room, which meant Brooklynn had to go.

To my left, was a girl named Mia. She played Sarabi, Simba's mom, and she was in my grade, but in a different class. Her hair was black, like mine, and her eyes were brown, also like mine. In my opinion, she looked like a cat. She was very respectful, and sometimes we would talk.
"Hi, Charlie!" She said to me. I said hi back, but she wasn't the person who I wanted to say hi to me.

Like always, I took out my phone and began to record. I was recording a very important rehearsal, which was for Can You Feel the Love Tonight. And since Oli was Adult Simba, I was horrified to watch the blocking and choreo. Thankfully, they were just singing it right now. Mia wanted to help me film by propping my phone on her supply bag. The quality was horrible, being that we were so far away.

"Do you wanna just go up to the stage and record from there?" she suggested. That was possible because we didn't have a pit, but that was weird, wasn't it? I decided to just take it and go up to the stage, taking Mia with me. I brought a book we were reading and a highlighter to make it less suspicious. In earlier rehearsals, Mia informed me that I wasn't necessarily allowed to record, but it didn't matter because I wouldn't show anyone. Slowly, we approached the stage. Now I could see him clearer. He sat next to the girl who was playing Timon. They began to sing, and Oli's part arrived. His voice was quiet, but I could still hear him well.