all i want :: s.m

8: improv

friday ¬ february 5, 2016

"You are terrible at this." Alice grumbled with a vexed expression on her face, directing her truthful remark to her improv partner, Jack Johnson. She rested her rear on her chair and folded her arms, eyes forward, avoiding Jack's amused stare and the laughs that left the mouths of everyone. 

"Hey, not everybody is born an actress, okay?" Jack replied with a nonchalant shrug as he sat down on his seat, accepting a high-five from Nash, whose laughter was the loudest and most projected of them all. Alice responded with a roll of her eyes and her jaw clenching as she tried to restrain her peeved mood. 

Miss Lawrence ambled to the front of the class, standing on the mini podium, a plastic clipboard in her hands and a sharpened pencil. She didn't look too satisfied with the shoddy performance of Jack, either, but hid her judgments behind a grin. "Okay, well, that was...a good try." She commented, "And Alice, don't worry, it's a separate grade." 

Alice exhaled deeply in relief, whispering to herself, "Thank goodness." 

"Okay, so class ends in five minutes, meaning we have the time to present one more pair." Miss Lawrence announced, looking down at her clipboard and ticking off two names with her pencil. There were only three pairs that needed to perform, Shawn and Ella being included in those last six students. 

Please not Ella, please not Ella, please not her, Shawn thought (like he had been thinking since the very start of the task), his chest feeling tense due to the anxiousness he was submerged with. But although Shawn prayed to any god hearing him, fate decided to piss him off, and the words left Miss Lawrence's lips like a demon spitting out venom. "Shawn and Ella, you two are up." 

Ella's smile suddenly slipped off her lips and she looked at Miss Lawrence in incredulity, her heart stopping for a split second before it beat faster than it ever did before. The class' laughter faded, and soon, everyone was engulfed into an awkward silence. 

Although the full story of Ella and Shawn's destructed relationship wasn't public, people knew something had happened between them—something that had the end results of negative, not at all positive. That was all they really needed to know.

"Shawn, Ella, you two were listening, weren't you? Come on! Everybody is waiting!" Miss Lawrence stated and chortled, walking back to her desk. 

Ella gulped and stood up slowly, trudging to the podium, her eyes on her best friend's, the both of them sharing the same consternation look with each other. Shawn had done the same with his abundance of friends as he made his way to the podium, beside Ella, yet so far away from her. It was like her skin was toxic, and he wouldn't dare interact with or go near any kind of toxicity. 

"Okay, you may start. And remember, say 'scene' when you're finished." Miss Lawrence said and rested her chin on her palm as she keenly observed the improvisation scene in front of her, the right hand holding the pencil ready to write down any remarks. 

Ella shut her eyes for a brief second, a profusion of curse words filling up in her head as she gained the courage to finally avert her gaze up and look into Shawn's brown eyes. He returned the stare, but with an expression of animosity, and that hurt her—but Ella knew she hurt him more. 

"Um...hi, Shawn." Ella begun, clueless as to what their scene was going to be about. But Shawn had something in mind; he took the improvisation task as an advantage to interrogate Ella, to finally gain some answers from her. 

"Yeah, hi, Ella. It's so destructing to see you again after a long, long time. You know, I didn't even know you were moving out of the country! So why don't you explain to me now...why did you leave?" Shawn asked while forcing a grin, trying hard not to shout at her in front of everyone, and also trying not to depict his agony through droplets from his eyes. 

Ella immediately caught on to what his plan was, and she swallowed a lump constructing in her throat. "Didn't you read the e-mail I sent to you?"

Shawn let out a disbelief chuckle and nodded, You want to play that way, Ella Rose? Then we'll play that way. "Oh yeah, I remember the e-mail you sent. I didn't know you could be so heartless, to not tell me in person that you were leaving! That really shows how much you don't care about me."

Ella's lips straightened into a straight line and no one dared to even breathe. They were all on the edge of their chairs, anxiously waiting for the response. "Don't care about you? Why are you saying that? Of course I care about you, Shawn. I just...I didn't know how to put it in words and-"

"If you actually did care about me and love me the way told me that you did, then you would have at least tried!" Shawn interrupted through gritted teeth, eyes the same as Ella's—filling up with tears. "And I said if...but now I'm one-hundred percent certain that you never did love me or care about me." 

"Stop saying that, Shawn! Stop saying that I never loved or cared about you, because you know that I did!" Ella sniffled slightly, her chest rising up and down broadly. 

"Then explain to me this, Ella," Shawn whispered in an audible volume, stepping just a little bit closer to vulnerable girl in front of him. "If you loved me...why'd you leave me?" 

"Because I..." Ella discontinued and pressed her lips firmly together, shaking her head slowly, a single tear escaping her eye and running down her cheek. Despite the desperation conspicuous on Shawn's face, she couldn't. She just couldn't. "And scene." 

"Are you fucking serious, Ella?" Shawn asked quietly, so only she could hear him. But Ella only rewarded him with a brief stare before trudging back to her seat beside Alice. 

She couldn't.

- 

when i made the plan for this chapter, i thought it would be better to be honest.