Make My Way

Chapter Forty-Eight

Stella's POV

I curled my hair and put it up into a half up half down style. I put on my stage makeup and Cinderella grunge costume. It used to take a while to find the three holes for my head and arms in the burlap thingy I had to wear, but I had finally gotten to hang of it. Today was the final performance of the show and everyone was getting a little emotional. This was the last performance we'd have with the seniors and just thinking about it made me tear up. This was the last show Xavier and I would be in together. Also, I would miss Lila, Everly, Laine, Easton, and Adrian. I just had to get through this performance, then I could cry.

The director called all of the leads into the auditorium. We were going to announce our drama pals. Drama pals were this thing we did every year where was had to make the person our director assigned us a poster for their locker and bring them some kind of gift during the week of the show. I wasn't sure who had me but I loved the gift they had given me. I had gotten a Naked makeup palette and some chocolate. The person I had gotten stuff for was Cora and I thought I had done pretty well. The poster I made was super cute.

We went around the group and everyone announced who they had. I knew who had Aria because they had specifically come to me and asked for help. Together, we nailed it. When it was Aria's turn to say who she had, everyone looked across the room at her to find her tight black gown unzipped in the back with Everly's hand down it, attaching her mic to her spandex. Nothing unusual at drama. She told Lila she had her and Lila thanked her for the fuzzy socks and stuff.

The look on Aria's face when Xavier told her he had her was priceless. He had bought her a pair of pajama shorts that I knew she had wanted because her sister brought her old pair that she loved to a sleepover and never gave back. Needless to say, I helped. Xavier wanted to be know for going all out on drama pal stuff, so he had also bought her a huge bag of candy for each day of the play. Aria went over to Xavier when everyone was done and hugged him, thanking him.

Then, we went back into the band room to warm up. We did all of the usual vocal and physical warm ups before doing the usual pre-performance traditions. We all ran to the center of the room screaming, "Good show, good show, good show!" After that, we had to go backstage and prepare ourselves for the performance. We all told each other good luck, and the show began.

••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I could already feel the tears streaming down my face as we bowed all together. The house lights came up and I found Xavier right away. I wrapped my arms around his neck and I never wanted to let go. I finally released him and he wiped the tears from my face. "It's okay, I'll come back and visit."

I hugged the rest of the seniors and we took so many pictures that I thought they'd never end. We started making plans for supper. We decided that all of the juniors and seniors were invited to come out with us but we probably wouldn't all sit together. I got in my car with Aurora, Willow, and Vivian and drove to the restaurant. I got halfway there before I realized I was supposed to give Aria a ride. I had picked her up and we were going to carpool so she didn't have her car. I figured she'd find a ride though.

When we got there, Everly, Laine, and Merrick were already there and had asked for a table for fourteen. They had pushed three tables together so that there were six chairs on each side and one on the end. As we were led to the table, Easton, Blake, and Lila came in along with another of their friends, Dillan, who had a small part in the play and who had a thing with Lila. Along one side, Vivian, Merrick, Easton, Everly, Aurora, and Blake sat down. On the other side, I sat next to Willow and Lila. Dillan sat by her. Laine sat on one end and we left the end next to me open.

The waitress came and gave us our menus and we were beginning to wonder if Adrian, Aria, and Xavier would ever show up. After we told the waitress what we wanted to drink, a loud voice came from the doorway, sounding out of breath. "Holy shit," Adrian said.

Xavier, Aria, and Adrian found our table and Adrian sat down in the end closest to me. "What took you guys so long?" I asked.

"Adrian hit a cat in the parking lot," Xavier announced. "We had to call someone because it was laying there twitching like crazy and one of its eyes popped out of it's socket." I cringed. "I had been giving Aria a ride when we saw Adrian hop out of his car and start freaking out."

"What did you do?" Aurora asked.

"We ended up just calling the non-emergency number," Aria said. After a while of talking about the probably dead cat, we moved on. The restaurant had a 2 for $20 deal so some of us split into pairs to buy stuff. Vivian and I shared one since we were sitting across from each other and so did Everly and Aurora, Willow and Lila, and Aria and Xavier. By the end of the night, they had yet another waitress thinking they were dating.

Although I'd miss the seniors, I had enough drama coming in my life without them.