After all, my girl, you're just a bit too shy!

Act III

The day of the school's recital came earlier than she'd thought, but strangely Sabrina woke up well rested and just a tad nervous, that morning. She felt turmoil in her stomach, but she managed not to throw up. She took it as a good sign, because only a few months prior it would have been unthinkable. Observing her reflection in the mirror she smiled and looked at her teeth, thinking they would have stayed white and strong for many more years. After school, when she came home, she kept practicing in front of little Enrico, who remained silent and smiling, without interrupting her, only applauding at the end.

Mara, one of her best friends, volunteered to style her hair and do her make-up, so that maybe she would have felt more confident. The other one, Giorgia, who took part in the recital with her, reviewed everything with her for almost two hours. Her mother cooked one of her favourite dishes and her father made sure to encourage her, reminding her that she hadn't had an episode in weeks, that she'd stopped vomiting and avoiding gazes and crowded places, but more importantly that she was so much more confident, even though she was still afraid of judgments.

The recital was one hour long, counting the pause between the first and second act too, and she had to introduce both of the acts as a narrator. Introducing the first one was unnerving, difficult, and so exciting that her hands started to tremble, but luckily her voice remained even. The hot, blinding stage lights were very helpful, partially hiding the public from her sight. A couple of minutes before the pause between the two acts, though, she suddenly felt the words abandoning her and, in a few seconds, the obnoxious old panic began slithering back inside her mind. She had to get rid of it, quickly, before it numbed her brain!

She opted for a little improvisation, and it didn't even come out that bad, but as soon as she could leave the stage she had to run into the bathroom, to freshen up her blushing face. The water, though, had the opposite effect, because it melted part of her make-up and, blaming her own stupidity, she had to ask Mara to fix it as best as possible. The result wasn't perfect, but neither was it disastrous, and Sabrina repeated to herself: after all, my girl, you're just a bit too shy, and an imperfect make-up is not the end of the world. Come on, you even managed an impromptu!

Even though her spirit wasn't so high anymore, she somehow managed to present the second act, but she kept her gaze downcast, for fear of reading on someone else's eyes the disaster she maybe had on her face. Luckily, her ears heard no giggles other than those aroused by her lines, which reassured her very much.

The finale came so shockingly quickly: so many months of preparation, so many hours of study, so many errors, so much anxiety and impatience, all just for this? Ten minutes on the stage, at most? During rehearsals they'd felt like ages, but that evening they slithered by in an instant. Even the moment of panic between the acts had felt longer! When the curtain was finally lowered on the final scene, Sabrina almost cried with joy: she'd nailed it! She'd actually nailed it! She'd gone through an entire recital almost without a problem!

When the red curtain was hoisted up again, all the students came out from the scenery flat and Sabrina quickly looked for her family amongst the enthusiastic public, and when she saw the smiles on her parents' faces, especially her dad's, her joy was so ecstatic that it was the only thing she could pay attention to. She didn't even notice when the Literature teacher got on stage and took the microphone for a brief speech on the dedication of all the students who'd participated in the recital. Then she said something else and Sabrina kept on ignoring her, until the saw the microphone right under her chin and, after a moment of bemusement, she realised that the teacher expected her to say something.

Her? Why her? Why couldn't she ask somebody else to speak? Suddenly, an unpleasant and embarrassing intuition came to her mind and stole her breath: had the teacher just talked about her? Had she told everybody about her problem and the progress she'd made thanks to acting?

«Come on, Sabrina» the teacher urged her sotto voce, arching her eyebrows.

«I ... I ...» Sabrina stuttered, utterly floored.

«Yes, come on.»

«Teacher, I ... I haven't been listening ... to your question» Sabrina murmured, regretting it after a second.

At her words, the public immediately started laughing. And those weren't cruel laughs, or laughs of scorn, they were just genuinely and innocently amused, there wasn't a drop of malice in their voices. Sabrina knew that, she could see it clearly, but in that moment it felt as if the whole world had entered in the school's great hall, and the whole world was nothing but a crowd of intruding eyes, ready to ogle her, judge her, and laugh about her, about her mediocrity and her stupidity.

Sabrina began to tremble, her heartbeat madly accelerated, her head started to spin, her breath got stuck in her throat, and a retching rose up through her oesophagus, ending up on her teacher's blue shoes. Suddenly, absolute silence fell in the room. Or maybe she'd just estranged herself from reality, and people were actually laughing more. Sabrina didn't know and didn't even want to.

In that moment, she wanted nothing but to disappear from the surface of the earth, as if she'd never even existed. But since that was impossible, she ran off from the stage, out of the great hall, out on the street, and then she kept running, until she got scared by a hooter. She found out she hadn't gotten that far, and yet she felt so incredibly distant from herself; or rather, distant from that fun, confident girl who could even improvise and make her dad proud. That girl she had been, until a few minutes ago. Now, the old Sabrina was back: awkward, insecure, terrorised, paranoid, and hopelessly socially anxious.

While she dried off her still quite soiled mouth, walking towards the parking lot where they'd left their car, she kept thinking of her father telling her: after all, my girl, you're just a bit too shy!

As I wrote in the first chapter's notes, this is an old short story I originally wrote in Italian for a contest. I don't know how good my English actually is, at the moment, so I chose this simple, short story to launch my second Wattpad account. I will happily and gratefully accept any kind of feedback, suggestion, or correction :).