The Punk and the Ballerina

Ramen

Ari's point of view. September 2005.

Another day of dance practice. Andy and I got the parts for the Dirty Dancing scene. One victory at least. It was hard for me to concentrate, Sebastian was still on my mind. Tomorrow was going to be our first rehearsal and for some reason, he was all I thought about. I knew he was going to amazing as Chris, I was weirdly excited to see him play the role.

Was I developing a crush on him? No, I couldn't be. I liked his character and he just happened to be the one playing him, I'd probably feel that way towards any guy that played Chris. As far as I knew, we both still detested each other and after the play was over, we were going to go back to being sworn enemies avoiding each other as if nothing happened.

"Where have you been today, space cadet?" Andy snapped me out of my thoughts.

"School problems," I sighed.

Andy went to a different school, a private school my mother wanted me to attend. Andy wasn't rich, his family was middle class that worked hard, but he managed to get into the school on a scholarship. He was a nice guy that deserved everything good. Despite being surrounded by snooty, rich bitches, Andy managed to find a small group of friends. Andy was the first "poor" friend I made and he was a breath of fresh air compared to my rich friends, he just saw a different side of me that nobody else wanted to see; he understood the pressures I was under.

"Let me know when your play is, I can't wait to see it," he offered me a warm smile.

Another person I felt like I had to impress.

***

First day of rehearsals. We were doing a table read of the entire play as a whole cast. I wanted to sit far away from Sebastian, but as luck would have it, we somehow ended up next to each other. Of course.

We got to the scene where Chris stands up to Star's best friend Amber. Sebastian struggled with reading his lines.

"I've seen enough pre...pent..."

"Pretentious," I interjected.

"I've seen enough pretentious girls like you in chick flicks. You're gonna fall off your p..." his eyes locked to the word.

"Porcelain," I tried to hide the annoyance in my voice.

"Porcelain...pedestal one day. You secretly envy Star because she's got it all and a pure heart. You have an ugly soul."

Maybe he didn't know long words, a small part of me feeling sorry for him. Maybe he wasn't as smart as he boasted himself to be. Okay that was mean, my conscience whispered, feeling bad to have such a thought. My mean voice sounded eerily like Mali.

As the table read continued, other members of the club would jump in to help Sebastian if he struggled with his words. I think I found his weakness. We spent the rest of rehearsal blocking the first scene, which had Star and her parents talking about her future. Sebastian watched the scene from the audience.

After rehearsal ended, I needed to apologize to Sebastian. I felt bad correcting him so much when he was reading.

"I'm sorry if I was rude during the table read, I was just trying to help," I said. I thought about my character in the play. She was a human doing the best she could and so was Sebastian.

And so was I.

"I wasn't offended, my dyslexia always makes me look like an idiot," he said gruffly.

He was dyslexic? The explained everything. No wonder he didn't get the best grades. I felt like a bag of crap. This whole time I thought he was a slacker that didn't care about school when he had a learning disorder.