mala fide (lams)

mala fide

This work may be triggering for those sensitive to suicide mentions, religious trauma, homophobia, and conversion therapy.

bad faith

ALEXANDER CLOSED HIS EYES, because if he had to listen to Washington going on and on, he figured he should at least catch some Z's. It was a Friday afternoon, for god's sake.  Even the teenagers excited to be in the cast of this year's drama production were getting bored. Alexander, of course, was only mildly excited. 

Last year, he only tried out so a diverse extracurricular could be added to his transcript, and this year he got conned into doing it again because Washington had been so excited to do a heavier show with the hope of acquiring some talented male actors for the leads that she personally asked Alexander to audition again.  He let his eyes stay closed and felt his arms become heavy, her voice sounding so far away now.

Then, he heard a door open. Light flooded into the theater and it was silent. Murmurs from the cast and crew went dead along with Washington's lecture. The whispers picked up again.

"And there is our Joe Pitt!  Mr. Laurens, welcome to the cast.  Take a seat."

Alexander's eyes opened, curious to see the familiar name.  He blinked several times to figure out where in the theater "Mr. Laurens" was now.  He was standing awkwardly in his letterman jacket, scanning for a seat.  He didn't know most of these people.  He hardly knew Alexander, but he did recognize him from class.  Plus, Alexander was sitting alone. 

Alexander saw his brief struggle and waved him over.

Thankful, John came over and sat with an empty seat between them. 

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Alexander," he introduced himself.

"Oh, yeah. We have stats together, right?"

"Right," Alexander said, visibly relaxing.  "John, is it?"

"Yeah, uh, John Laurens." John half-way held out his hand, not knowing whether or not that was an appropriate gesture.

Alexander shook it, chuckling appreciatively at the formality.  "Hamilton. You know what?  I didn't even want to audition this show."

"Really?  Me, too," John returned.  "I'm only here because I have to be."

"At least I get to skip out on debate for this."

If John knew Alexander well, he would have definitely asked why the future lawyer wanted to skip debate. But he didn't know Alexander well, so he thought nothing of it. "I'm actually being forced to."

"'Forced,' really?  By who?"

"My coach and Hancock."

"You didn't even have to audition?"

"I did, but it was more a formality."

"Well, true.  Mostly is for guys anyway.  Mrs. Washington's desperate for male actors.  You any good?"

"Don't think so."

"You got a lead, though.  You must've been decent enough."

"Who knows."

"There're even fewer kids this year," Alexander explained.

"Why's that?"

"A lot of the cast was compiled of seniors last year, and then they graduated, of course. A lot of last year's underclassmen and then some didn't audition for this fall's show because parents pressured them to drop out. They don't like the content. Usually there's around thirty or forty high schoolers, crew included, but this year we have a whopping thirteen," he said, "and fourteen with you—and a third of that is crew, because the crew members don't give a shit about what their parents say."