Our Everlasting Melody

Our Everlasting Melody (27)

On the night of the show, everything was going well. My costumes stayed in one place, Cassie finally showed up after being twenty minutes late, and Mona's black eye from our fight was able to be covered by makeup. Lots of makeup.

We hadn't talked to each other since the fight, but it wasn't like I had been expecting her to strike up a conversation or anything. And she sure as hell knew I wasn't about to talk to her.

Jane, Thomas, and Jaz all kept the fight to themselves. They didn't tell Cassie or any of our other friends, which I was really thankful for. Cassie would have a hissy fit if she knew what had happened in the mall.

"Are you nervous?" Christian asked me, rubbing my back when he saw me trembling just a little bit. "Don't worry. You'll do great."

He was supposed to say that. Not only was he my boyfriend, but he was also a fellow cast member. We had to wish each other luck or else we were going to get in trouble.

"Leah!" a new voice suddenly shrieked, and I wanted to strangle Cassie. Was she aware that there were people on the other side of the curtain? "Leah! Where are you?"

I nearly tackled her when she finally found me, but she didn't seem to notice that she was being incredibly too loud. She just continued smacking on her gum, which she wasn't even supposed to have.

"So, I was thinking," she started, and I let out a very short breath. Here we go. "We should all go out for a late dinner after this. Like a cast dinner. Except us, not any of those loser freshmen that got extra parts."

I couldn't even respond to this right away. First, I looked around to make sure that none of those "loser freshman that got extra parts" were around to hear Cassie's insult. They weren't, thankfully. Second, I didn't exactly feel like going out with Cassie. Even though I was sure I'd be starving once the show was over.

"Who's going?" I asked instead of declining, since she didn't really make any specifics.

Cassie thought for a moment. "You, me, Christian, Mona—"

"No," I declined, right away.

Cassie's eyebrows furrowed. "Why not?"

I didn't feel like explaining everything to her ten minutes before we started, so I only shook my head and waved it away. She was able to tell by this that I didn't want to talk about it right then and I'd tell her later. Even though I really didn't want to.

When it was time to begin, my pulse was rushing in my ear. This was it. Months of rehearsals had come down to this moment right here. It had to be perfect.

Or as perfect as it could have been.

"Good luck," Christian whispered right before the curtains opened.

I smiled. "Good luck."

Summer Nights was my favorite song in the entire show, so I was very energetic while we performed it. It was basically the opening, the song that got everyone's attention, so I wanted to make it perfect. And I really felt like we made it as great as it could have been.

It was really awkward pretending to be friendly toward Mona, especially when there was lots of makeup covering the black eye that I had caused. But she was able to act like she had no problem with me, so I guessed I could have done the same.

While Cassie sang Look at Me, I'm Sandra Dee along with Mona and the other girls, Christian and I were backstage mouthing it obnoxiously to each other. It was a song we both enjoyed, and since we weren't on stage while it was going on, we rocked out to it in the back.

There weren't as many slip-ups on stage like I thought there would be. I nearly tripped once, but that was because I was focusing on not tripping. Yeah, that didn't really work out for me very well.