My Climb to the Lights... and Love

The Meeting

     I was dreading my next class before I even walked in so I could already tell I had set myself up for not a good year. Why had I signed up for this class? Why had I set myself up for failure, for embarrassment? It was an elective after all so there was literally nothing forcing me to take it... except for myself and my stupid goals and my stupid love of theatre. I really wanted to be a good actress, be rid of my stage fright, impress my friends and family, but I was just too damn shy. In fact, I probably took the spot from someone else, someone more talented, someone less shy, someone who really wanted to take Acting as a class.
     I already knew that the two people I had signed up for the class with hadn't gotten in so that meant I was going to have to sit alone like the awkward shy kid unless by some miracle someone else was in the class that I knew and wouldn't be embarrassed to be seen sitting with me. When I walked in, a momentous weighty was lifted off my chest as I saw two of my kinda-sorta friends sitting in the corner uncomfortably like I expected myself to do. Practically skipping over to them, in my head, of course, I pulled up a chair and waited for the rest of the class to arrive.
This room didn't seem to fit the class. It was what looked like an old computer lab with a set of shelves on the sides filled to the brim with instrument cases surrounded by stacks of chairs. A stream of kids came in and out, grabbing at the cases and going back out to practice somewhere else. It was a relatively small space, but big enough for a circle of chairs in the middle of the room. Finally, the last few straggling music kids left with their instruments and the doors slowed to a close.
With this luck maybe someone else would walk in and turn the whole year around.  There were only four of us in the room after all; me, my two friends, and one pretty blonde girl that seemed much older than our own freshman selves. She wasn't old enough to be the teacher though and there wasn't one of those yet either. The doors swung open. All of us turned our heads. A taller guy with short, curly black hair walked in. The older girl seemed to recognize him and him, her. The three of us just sat there as they began a conversation, all three of us just waiting to be told what to do. Suddenly, the girl who's name was Ally, based on their conversation started to tell the boy, Levi, about a recent encounter she had... with the cops.
"They pulled me over and told me I was speeding," she began, "then when I went to grab my license the officer told me my car smelled like I'd been smoking marijuana. I started to panic but I hadn't actually smoked in a few days and I didn't have any in the car." He looked at her surprised. My friends and I tried not to show our shock, our middle school had no drugs in it. This was a new experience.
"Well, what'd they do? Search your car?"
"No," she laughed, "the cop asked me if there was a need to bring in the drug dogs. Like what did he expect me to say 'yes there are drugs in my car, let's bring out the dogs?' Like anyone would actually answer seriously."
They continued to talk as more students trickled into the classroom. Finally, a middle-aged woman came in with a stack of papers and a computer and introduced herself as Ms. Colby. She was in charge of all things theatre at the high school, in fact, auditions for the fall play she was directing would be the upcoming Wednesday. She explained that the orchestra stores their instruments here and practiced in the auditorium so we would have to deal with them coming in and out in the beginning and end of each class. We had a shortened period since it was the first day and everyone was still getting adjusted so we began a name game to kick off the year.
As we went around the circle, each person had to say their name and something they would bring camping that started with the same letter as their first name, then that person would have to go around and name all the people before them and what they were bringing. Fortunately, I was one of the first few. Then, the last person who ended up being Ms. Colby went and had to go around and name everyone. There was still a little time left of the block so it was time for volunteers. The boy from earlier decided to try. When Ms. Colby called on him she made a special note; he was the teaching assistant of the class. I was confused. Was he a student here getting credits or an actual assistant? I was pretty sure he was a student though because he seemed to be friends with some of the other kids in the class.
I found out for certain when we went around the circle and said what grade we were in. There were a few kids from every grade, that was insane to me because I was used to just one age group at a time, give or take a few. It turned out that the boy, Levi, was a senior as well as six other students. There was also one junior, six sophomores, and nine freshmen including me. I was actually very surprised at the variety of grades in one class. This class was listed as Acting 1 so I assumed there were others to follow it. The bell rang and we had to fight a stream of orchestra kids as they tried to put away their instruments but we were all headed to lunch. Anyone who took acting as a class in this block would be going to lunch next and for the first time ever I was headed off to high school lunch.