Sweetest Devotion ||Troy Bolton||

Chapter Fifteen

"Chad's still following us," Troy whispered, as if it would be the answer to all of the questions Sophie had running through her mind.

    "Okay, so you're dragging me through the school-quite urgently by the way- because your best friend is...following you?" Sophie panted as her boyfriend dragged her down another staircase. The pair made their way outside and were currently by the autoshop wing of the school.

    "No-" Troy began before he was slammed onto the other side of a nearby wall by his girlfriend. Before Troy could question her, she slapped her hand over his mouth and pointed to the door they just came out of. Mr. Bolton was exiting the building, and considering Troy's haste to get away from his friend, Sophie took a wild guess and assumed Troy wouldn't want to be seen by his dad either. Sophie knew she was right when Troy's eyes grew wide and he grabbed her hand to drag her into the school garage.

    "That was close," Troy whispered as he tiptoed his way through all of the vehicles being repaired.

    "Okay, first of all, why are you still whispering?" Sophie laughed as she walked behind Troy at a normal pace, "And second of all, why are you crouched behind that pillar?" Troy shot her an annoyed look from his hiding spot.

"What are you even hiding from?" Sophie continued to laugh. The mechanics teacher approached the pair. Before the teacher even opened his mouth, Troy had straightened from his hiding spot and began to make multiple excuses.

    Sophie just signed before she smiled at the teacher and grabbed Troy's hand to lead him out of the garage.

    "Short-cut," Troy continued to insist, even as he is being dragged out of the room by his girlfriend, "We're late for class."

As soon as the couple were out of the room, they were greeted with the back entrance to the auditorium. The flyer for the musical auditions was posted on the door.

    "Wait, we just did all of that so you could audition for the musical?" Sophie asked incredulously. "Troy we could have just walked here and if you didn't look so suspicious no one would have known about you coming here. Although I still don't see why it has to be some big secret-"

"Soph," Troy started as he grabbed his girlfriend's shoulders, "I'm not trying out for the musical."

"Well, then why are we here?" Sophie questioned.

"I don't really know," Troy confessed. Sophie's face softened before she grabbed Troy's hand.

"Well, what do you want to do now?" Sophie began, "We can just go in there and watch if that's what you want to do."

Troy smiled at the level of understanding Sophie always seemed to have when it came to him. "I think I'll take you up on that offer."

When the couple opened the door they realized that they were backstage. They quickly grabbed the janitor's cart to hide behind as they made their way to the edge of the stage. They hid behind a large camel before making their way to the curtains. Ms. Darbus and all of the musical hopefuls were filing into the auditorium. As Ms. Darbus and a girl Sophie faintly remembered to be named 'Kelsi' took the stage, Troy and Sophie returned backstage and out of view.

"This is where the true expression of the artist is realized. Where inner truth is revealed through the actor's journey-" Ms. Darbus starts before being interrupted by the school bell. She immediately turns irritated as she barks, "Was that a cell phone?"

By this point, Sophie and Troy had made it to the back entrance of the auditorium. Sophie silently giggled as she watched the students in the audience check to see if their cell phone rang. Troy just smiled before hugging his girlfriend from behind as he, too, watched the frantic students from behind the janitor's cart.

"No, ma'am. That was the warning bell," Kelsi tried and failed to whisper to Ms. Darbus. Sophie immediately clasped her hands over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud while Troy muffled his laughter in Sophie's neck.

"Ah!" Ms Darbus realizes before she decides to continue, "Those wishing to audition must understand that time is of the essence. We have many roles to cast and final callbacks will be next week." Sophie and Troy slowly crept into the last row of seats and made their way to the middle of the row where the light was dim.

"First, you will sing a few bars and I will give you a sense of whether or not theater is your calling. Better to hear it from me now than from your friends later," Ms Darbus explained before gesturing to the girl standing next to her, "Our composer, Kelsi Nielsen, will accompany you and be available for rehearsals prior to callbacks. Shall we?"

Sophie and Troy shifted in their seats to get comfortable as the first singer took the stage. Because Sophie is familiar with musicals and auditions from her middle school days, she decided to take the initiative to narrate each try out.

"Oh, Lord, off-key," winces Sophie. Troy turns to her with a 'no duh' look causing her to giggle.

The next kid didn't even know the words, using what looked to be handwritten notes on his hand to attempt the song. Ms. Darbus didn't even let him finish before she waved him off with a complement about his tie.

"I have no words for that audition," Sophie states as Troy lays his arm on her shoulder.

"Yeah, well, neither did he," Troy chuckles, earning a jab in the ribs from his oh-so-loving girlfriend.

A girl in pink takes the stage only to be off-key like the first girl, leaving Ms. Darbus upset and ready for the next audition. Sophie didn't even bother commenting on this girl, feeling that Ms. Darbus' commentary was more than enough.

The next girl that graced the auditions with her voice had everyone plugging their ears.

"Ah, Cindra. What courage to pursue a note that has not been accessed in the natural world. Bravo! Brava! Perhaps the next musical," Ms. Darbus advises.

"Little harsh," Sophie mumbles as the girl huffs and storms off of the stage.

The next guy didn't even sing. He just danced around before crashing into what Sophie assumed to be the large camel, causing everyone to wince. The pair after that disturbed both Troy and Sophie. They sat on the stage and crawled over each other as they spoke the lyrics to the song. Even Ms. Darbus seemed disturbed as she told the boy and girl to go see a counselor. So far the auditions didn't seem to be going all that well for Ms. Darbus. Sophie learned over to whisper this to Troy when she was interrupted.

"Hey!"

Sorry I haven't updated in what seems like years. I fell behind in school and I didn't really get caught up until now. Thank you everyone for reading this and I promise that I see every comment that asks me to update and finish this book!! I love hearing from everybody! I would love to be able to write back to everyone but right now I am currently doing this instead of my AP Calculus homework so I don't really have the time to do so. This school year is going to be a mess so these updates will be at random. I'm sorry I can't post a chapter every week but keep commenting for me to update and eventually I'll feel guilty enough to not do my homework and write instead.