Short Stories | Sean x Kaycee

Never for Nothing

Angst.

**********

"Dude, are you okay? You can still back out, you know? You can tell Ms. Gomez that you wanted to switch partners. Or dance in another piece. It's not as if you already started rehearsing," his friend, Josh, said, with concern written all over his face.

But Sean continued stuffing his things inside his bag, not bothering to look at his friends. "I'm fine," he muttered.

"Seriously, dude, you're not fine. It's been what? Two weeks? You're not ready for this shit," Will said, leaning on the wall beside him.

"Leave him alone. If he wants to partner with his ex, then so be it," Julian piped in behind them. "It's been a couple of weeks and he doesn't even try to move on. Let him be."

"Fuck you," Sean turned to glare at his best friend. Julian shrugged, raising his hands in surrender. "Don't put meaning into this. We're over. I'm just trying to be a professional, and backing out would just cause more shit."

He turned around, pressing his eyes shut as he took a deep breath, convincing himself that he was fine before continuing his forgotten task.

His hands were terribly shaking. His friends noticed this, sneaked a glance at each other, but chose not to say anything. They stayed silent to avoid causing much further stress and just watched their friend struggling with the things in his bursting bag.

"Fuck!" Sean bellowed, slamming his hoodie on the floor that wouldn't fit inside his bag. He ran his hands through his hair in frustration and leaned his hands on the wall. Their classmates were eyeing him incredulously and Will apologized in his behalf.

Taking a deep, wary breath, he picked up his things and murmured that he had to go ahead and practice, without even sparing his friends a glance.

"That stupid piece of shit. He's not fucking okay. He's going to blow the practice," Julian muttered as soon as Sean was out of earshot, annoyed with his friend's stubbornness but truthfully concerned with his state.

It's not every night you see your best friend passed out outside your door, totally drunk. He almost called 911 the first night he appeared for the fear that he was dead.

"We have three freaking months to rehearse. I bet they're not gonna last for a week," Josh said.

"I'm betting three days," Will muttered.

"Huh. I doubt it. After tonight, he's going to lose it," Julian said.

*****

"Hi, man!"

"Hey, Sean! How's it going?"

He barely registered other people's greetings, and even if it did penetrate into his consciousness, he was half-hearted through it all, for his mind preoccupied with so many thoughts that it had started to hurt.

Maybe his friends were right. Maybe he's an idiot who wanted to torment himself more by spending most of his time with his ex for the next three months. Maybe he could actually ask their director for him to switch to another piece; besides, he's a favourite, their star.

Maybe Julian was right that he wasn't trying to move on, because he doesn't want to move on. Maybe he wanted to push this through because he thought they can work it out. Maybe he wanted to do this because, fuck, he's still in-love with her and wanted to have a second chance.

But it might not be the case for her. After all, she ended things between them.

He felt his chest constrict at the onslaught of memories of what happened that night, the pain spreading all over his body, paralyzing him at the middle of the hallway in their department. He knew he had to back out of the piece, for her sake, for his sake.