Lesbionage

How To Lose Your Chill Immediately

"What the hell?" Tamilla hisses in my ear.

"Oh, now she finds her voice," I return with equal venom. "Look, you were floundering, I though on my feet. That's improv baby, you better learn it fast. We're up."

I walk to center stage and watch as Tamilla, with great pains, try to stand as far away from me as possible without seeming peculiar.

"So how do I do this again?" She asks in a baby doll voice that my eyes involuntarily roll to.

"You just go with the flow, see where it takes you. But I want to see passion and remember; love." Mr Ross guides from the directors seat in the middle of the audience.

I look to Tamilla, to see genuine feeling stir in her eyes. Not sure what I am seeing, I walk to her, closing the distance between us. "Listen-" I start gently.

"Just get away. Leave me alone!" She yells, flinging my arms and storming past me. I stare at the empty space she used to occupy until it finally clicked; she had already begun her audition.

Keeping my back to her, I ask "Why?". Upon hearing no answer, I turn to her rigid form. "Why? What are you afraid of?"

She turns on her heel. "Nothing. I'm afraid of nothing."

"Everyone's afraid of something."

"Well, I'm not afraid of you."

"Oh, I think you are. Of what I can say, of what I know."

"You don't know anything. You don't know me."

"Is that what you're scared of? That all this," I raise my hand, flourishing it at the hellhole some people have the audacity to call a place of learning, "will end with exactly no one knowing who the hell you are?"

"Shut up."

"Or is it that I have spent a single minute with you and know you better then all your supposed friends and that scares the crap out of you?"

"What is it that you think you know?" She turns on me. I can feel the heat from the fire in her eyes on my face. "You know nothing about anything. You don't know how to act, how to dress, how to speak. You don't even know that this is all just one game of survival, let alone how to play."

"Well, I'm sorry playing games aren't my forte. But I do know about survival. This isn't a game for me! This is life and I don't want to play to win, not in high school. At least I know how to survive, fly under the radar and then begin to live my life after this nightmare with people I choose to surround myself with."

"Please," She laughs without humor, stepping close, looking deep into my eyes, "high school never ends."

"So what?" I ask pushing up against her, placing her hand timidly on her shoulder. "You'll always be the cheerleader?"

She sighs so genuinely there is no doubt in my mind that she has lost sleep over it. She moves her body to cup my face. The rest of the world slips away. "And you'll always be the one hiding in bathrooms to avoid pep rallies. Always be the one on the opposite side of the picket line." That was when West felt very passionate about the arts program's budget being cut to go to the sports program. No doubt the cheer squad got their cut.  I can't believe she remembers me, I was hiding behind West the whole time.

"All we need is a shared cause." I whisper.

"Like what?" Her eyes glint mischievously.

"Making sure 'The Fiddler On The Roof' is never preformed in this school ever again?" I offer. 

She laughs weakly, kisses my forehead and walks away with a "I wish it could be different." I watch the darkness of backstage envelop her before I whisper "It can be" to an empty stage.  

I completely forgot everyone else existed until Mr Ross calls out Tamilla's name. No one answered, no one exited the darkness I stare at. Mr Ross joins me onstage to peer into the dark. 

"Tamilla?" No answer. "Well, that was quite something." He looks at me to agree, satisfied with my weak nod, he carries on. "And I think we have our Riley." Riley is the main character in my play. This snaps me out of whatever trance I had been in. 

"Riley? Mr Ross, I don't think she really wanted it. I mean...if she did, where is she?" I desperately try to scrounge up reasons why she can't but Mr Ross won't hear of it.

"Did you see that? That passion? Of course she wants to. now would you like to tell her? You are co-directer." I try to refuse immediately but he cuts me off. "Of course you would, she came to you after all. tell her before next period and to meet us all her after school for the announcement." Mr Ross totters off before I could get a word in.

I check my phone. 15 minutes left in lunch. I know where she is. Great, now I have to tell her in the cafeteria in front of her friends, in front of her school, in front of her boyfriend. That's just great.