In The Spotlight - Solangelo

Chapter Two

Will Solace... I had never actually spoken to him, but I knew who he was. Who didn't? He would always help if he saw someone who was hurt, physically or emotionally. He was kind to everyone, and always knew what to do. As far as I knew, he was pretty good in class as well - I knew for a fact he was brilliant at biology, and I think he was in top set English. Still, I had never spoken to him before, and I wasn't planning to either. But... I guess I had no choice.

I stood up and moved to the side of the classroom, meeting up with Will. He moved his curly blonde hair out of his sapphire blue eyes, as he gave me a kind smile.

"Hi," he greeted, holding out his hand to shake. "Nico, right?"

I took his hand and shook it quickly, just to be polite, then withdrew. "Yeah, and you're Will." He nodded.

"Your hands are really cold," he blurted out, then immediately put his hands over his mouth. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine!" I interrupted. "I get told that a lot; it's no problem."

"Ok then... S-So... You just joined this class, right?" he asked. I nodded. I had joined towards the end of last term, after I... Actually, it doesn't really matter what I did. Basically, my teacher had forced me out of Food Tech (which, to be fair, I wasn't a big fan of anyway, but it was better than whatever the hell this what) for the 'safety of the class'. Performing Arts was the only available subject I could take. "Why did you move classes? Miss said something about you being kicked out..."

What do I tell him? If I avoid the question, he'll get suspicious, but I can't tell him I... "I, uh, I was kicked out of Food Tech, and had to pick another class." I could tell he wanted to know more, but didn't ask why. Thank God.

"So you like Performing Arts?" Why is he asking so many questions? I guess it's better than standing in awkward silence, but... Is it really necessary to know so much about me? I haven't found out anything about him, and he already knows about my weird body temperature, and why I switched classes... Why would it matter if I like Performing Arts? It's none of his business.

"No," I said, a little to harshly. "I mean, I, uh... This was the only available class. I'm sorry. I'm probably the worst person you could have been paired with. I'm terrible at every aspect of performing."

I was afraid that I had said way to much, because Will just stared at me for a few seconds. I felt sorry for him. Just because we were randomly picked to be partners, he was going to fail, and it would be all my fault. He seemed like a nice guy, as well. He didn't deserve to fail this class. He probably liked this class, and wanted to do well.

After a silence that seemed to last forever, he smiled. "Don't worry, we'll do fine," he reassured me. "If you don't like acting, we don't have to do anything you're uncomfortable with. We can make it work."

He was too kind. Far too kind. Why wasn't he mad at me? Why wasn't he angry that he had been put with the one kid who couldn't perform? Instead, he was encouraging me, telling me that everything will go fine, reassuring me that we will not fail. And, for a moment, I almost believed him. I opened my mouth to say something, anything, to thank him, but nothing came out.

Thankfully, the teacher came over, so I didn't have to reply.

"Here is your scenario," she announced, handing a small slip of paper to Will before moving onto the next pair.

Will read the slip out loud: "Two people meet at a summer camp - Person A is new to the camp, so Person B offers to show them around."

There was another awkward silence as we processed the scenario. It hadn't really given us much to go off, which I guess was the point - we were supposed to come up with the actual plot ourselves. The teacher just helped us by giving us a starting point. Still, she could have at least given as some idea as to where the story could go from there. Did she really expect us to have a good enough imagination to come up with a good plot by ourselves?

Shortly after we were given the slip, the bell rang, signalling our lesson was over. "What class do you have next?" Will asked, but I didn't reply. I had already left. By the time Will came out the classroom, I was half way down the hallway, hidden in the crowd of students rushing to next period. There was no real reason for me to stay and talk to him. It's not like we were friends. We were just forced to be partners in one class, that was all.

I didn't see him for the rest of the day.