[onhold] Through All Seasons

6│Winter: 'You know I can't show you me.'

The weekend flew by within a blink and before I realized it, Monday morning appeared right in front of me. 

I peeled myself out of bed. I washed my face and got dressed. I decided on my favorite outfit to make me feel comfortable in school: black pants, a white T-Shirt, and a yellow cardigan. 

Then I remembered, today was the first day of drama class. We practice three times a week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The days in between are free for us to study the text or train in smaller groups. 

That thought of drama class would usually spark excitement in me, but today it gave my stomach a little, uncomfortable twist. Even though Collin was more than nice to me for whatever reason, I didn't want to play with him. He lives in an entirely different world than me. Our worlds did not fit. Period. 

After I got my bike out of the garage, I rode off to school. Trying to push any thoughts on later far away from me. 

The school day went by without any disasters, besides Collin didn't deign to look at me once, and before I knew it, drama class was next. 

Slowly, I placed my school stuff in my locker and moved to the auditorium. 

Thomas was already there when I entered. 

"Hey River, welcome!" He hugged me. "Sorry for leaving you alone today, but I had to prepare." He gestured around him to show me all the copies of the script. 

"No hay problema." I learned this phrase today in Spanish. "Can I help?"

"No, no, I got it covered. Take a seat." I went for the first row and sat down. I didn't have to wait long until my drama colleagues joined me. 

"Hey, River." A tall, lanky boy sat next to me. 

"Hey Kyle, how are you doing?" Kyle was a senior who joined drama class last year. 

"I'm doing fine. Spanish is still killing me. What about you?" 

"Same old, same old. I'm really excited about this year's drama." I didn't want to talk about me and my slowly shifting reality.  

"Me too." A girl with red hair sat next to me on the other side. Claire. Another lovely senior. 

"Oh hey, Claire. I haven't seen you in school at all," I said and smiled at her. 

"Yes, I have been sick for the past two weeks. It sucked. Caught a cold while skiing" She yawned. "So what's up?" 

"Not much. Just our school hottie is playing with us as his punishment for a prank he did in River's history class," said Kyle. "I hope he acts his main role better than his imitation of Ms. Howard." I sensed he was not fine with Collin acting the male protagonist. There were two of us already. I figured since Kyle definitely had more experience than Collin who didn't even want to act. 

Where was he anyway? Not that I cared about him being here, but I cared about the play. And I wanted it to be a success. For me and for Thomas. 

Thomas walked up the stage and took the microphone. 

"Test, test. Ah, great. Hello, drama class. Thank you for joining this year. I hope it's going to be fantastic as always. As you may know, I wrote the script for this year's play and I was chosen to be the director. I am very happy with the changes made by Mrs. Young to leave more decision making in our hands." He nodded towards Mrs. Young who sat at the far end of the first row. "I hope I don't disappoint you. I'm always open for feedback." He stepped a bit uneasy from one foot to the other. 

"So let me start by telling you a little bit about the play," he started. "I wrote the script last summer during a summer class. Summer class for chemistry." He paused, a few of us chuckled. "It's called 'The Truth Untold'. It may not be the most creative title, but believe me, the content is full of drama. As I was saying-" He stopped abruptly. 

Everyone was turning around because Thomas stared intensively at the back of the auditorium. I'd bet my entire savings that Collin appeared there. I didn't bother turning around. I couldn't bear looking at him right now. 

"Ahm... where was I?" Thomas seemed to be flustered. 

I noticed the mood in the room changed immediately. It wasn't relaxed and easy anymore and suddently I wondered if Collin noticed those changes as well or if that's the normal state of the art.

"Continue Thomas, we don't have all day." Mrs. Young didn't seem to notice the change by the presence of Collin. "And you are coming on time next practice or Ms. Howard will hear about this." She faced Collin who, unfortunately for him, sat down two rows behind her.

"Whatever," he said, crossing his arms and putting his feet on the backrest of the seat in front of him. 

What a jerk.

"Feet down." Mrs. Young wasn't a woman to fool with. "Thomas, please continue." She turned her attention back to Thomas. 

"Alright... well. As I was saying, the two protagonists Lily and James, played by River and Collin, will face a lot of drama. But in the end, spoiler alert, they can finally be happy together. It's a modern romance, and I hope you like it. I will hand out the script and your first todo, of course, is to read it." 

He jumped off the stage, grabbed a pile of papers and handed each one of us one piece of stapled script. 

I flicked through the pages, afraid of what lies ahead of me. A few minutes of silence passed.

"I'm not doing this." I heard Collins's voice. I turned around and saw he pointed at me. "I'm not going to kiss this." 

*****

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