Your Fine

An Answer From a Ghost

My heart starts to pound in my chest. People call it butterflies, but right now, it feels more like pigeons flapping around in my stomach. She is going in alphabetical order, and I know whose names come before mine from attendance. I'm two auditions away.

The boy that is up on stage right now is auditioning for Aid Warren. His name is Tyler. He has dark, curly black hair, round black glasses, and asked me to the dance in sixth grade, to which I declined and later had a panic attack. Good times. 

"Alright, thank you Mr. Caldarea. Next we have..." Mrs. Tarnum pauses, and squints down at the sheet of paper with our names. "Ava hayd."

A girl with long blonde hair pops out of her seat. She giggles nervously as she looks at the two girls next to her who are doing that girly screech as they grab at her hands. I think they are trying to wish her luck.

Liam looks at them, and then at me, with the most confused yet amused smile. I look back at him with the same 'oh my god look at this' grin. Once we made eye contact, I completely lost it. I quickly cover my mouth and my eyes squeeze shut as tight as they can. Liam keels over, pushing his hand over his own mouth to muffle his laughter. Not a word was said, yet here we are, laughing at nothing as if it was the funniest thing we had ever seen.

Ava bounces onto the stage. She is wearing a dark green plaid skirt and a white long sleeve tight fit crop top. She is showing a ton of cleavage, and I'm ninety percent sure she is slightly bent forward to make them more visible. She is so thin, yet curvy in the right places. Her waist is small, and curves in slightly at the middle. Her hips are wide, but not too wide. Her legs are thin, and smooth. Her arms are hairless, and there is not a single bump, pimple or blemish anywhere on her face. Her hair is long, shiny and silky. Her smile is beautiful. Her confidence radiates for miles. I don't understand how any person can look so perfect.

"Whenever your ready." Mrs. Tarnum says.

Ava clears her throat, and delivers her lines. Everything she is saying seems very familiar. Who is she auditioning for again?

"Looks like your going to have competition." Liam whispers to me. 

That explains it. She is also auditioning for Nurse Ratched. And her acting is relatively convincing. She is doing a surprisingly good job. Fuck.

She finishes her brief monologue, bows, and hops off the stage back to her seat. Most of the girls in the class are clapping and telling her how good she did, how great of an actor she is, excetera excetera. 

And then it hits me. Oh fuck. Oh shit. The pigeons come back, except this time they are all very angry. I can feel the queasiness from my stomach, all the way to my throat. How am I supposed to top what she did? 

"Samantha Izaya. Your up."

I gulp. Everyone turns their head towards me. I can feel every pair of eyes piercing through my skin as I stand up. Liam grabs my hand. He looks at me and mouths 'You got this.' I got this. I try to ignore the looks as I trot towards the stage. As I reach the steps on the edge of the stage, my heart drops.

"shoot." I say as I rush back to my seat to get my script.

I snatch the script and speed walk back to the stage. I just wasted so much time leaving my script. Everyone is judging me. I can feel it.

I step onto the stage, gripping my script in my hands. Relax, I tell myself. I take a breath, and throw on a smile. 

"Alright Ms. Izaya. Whenever you are ready my dear."

I nod, and look down at my lines, which I had underlined in pencil. I get into character fairly quickly and begin speaking my lines. I instantly forget that I'm standing on a stage in front of about 35 of my peers. Right now, I'm an agitated nurse in a ward full of babbling loonies who are making a ruckus. I put one hundred percent effort into every word I say. Each line is filled to the brim with emotion and care, delicately placed into its proper spot. I am talking to no one, but it's as if the stage is full of life.

And right as it started, it was over. I've reached the end of my paragraph. Reality came crashing back with a bang, and I almost gasped as I looked back out at all of the heads staring in my direction. I look at Mrs. Tarnum for instructions on what to do, but she's writing something on a piece of paper. I awkwardly stare forward. I search for Liam, but the stage lights are blinding my view of anyone past the first two rows of seats.

Finally, after an unbearable thirty seconds, she tells me I can sit back down. I rush off stage and scurry to my seat next to Liam.

"You did great!" He bumps his elbow against my arm.

I groan, and bury my face into my hands. "Thanks."

More and more people go up to audition. Some are pretty good, and some are half-assed to the extreme. When it was Liam's turn, he absolutely killed it. If he doesn't get McMurphy, I will actually start a protest. His acting was spot on. After finishing his lines, he smiled such a happy smile. It made me want to smile, even after the mess that was my audition. 

 I do not know what it is about him, but he has never failed to make me weirdly happy. The stupid crap he manages to get away with, the sweet stuff that he goes out of his way to do for me, what he tells me. He is such a great friend. I really don't know what I would do without him.

Just as the last person finishes their performance, the bell rings. Every person stands and begins packing their things as fast as possible. Mrs. Tarnum starts yelling something about a cast sheet being posted by the end of today, but it's muffled by the scurried chatter of everyone trying to squeeze through aisles to the door. 

I sigh. Now that the only class I even remotely enjoy is over, I have to bear through the rest of the day. Through classes I don't like with kids who don't like me, and the loneliness that is Blue Lunch. Blue lunch is the name of the second lunch schedule my school has.  There are two. The other one is Green lunch, which already seems ten times more inviting by the name alone. On A days, like today, I have blue lunch, since my last period teacher is a blue lunch teacher. Liam has Green Lunch today.

I shuffle through the crowded science wing to get to chemistry. My shoulders are constantly brushing against other people, and each time it does I feebly mutter 'sorry.' But I doubt they  hear me. I head into the lab, and seat myself in the very back of the class. I'm in pretty early, so I pull out my phone and begin scrolling through my apps, when I notice I have a notification on CiC, which is a direct messaging app. My heart skips a beat as I thrust my thumb onto the app icon as fast as I could. I feel a smile creep across my face as the Cic logo shines onto my screen. A notification from Cole_darksXx is present at the top of my inbox, which is usually empty. 

It reads, "Good morning baby~~ How are you doing  :3"

 I smiles half-heartedly. It was sent only two minutes ago, so surely he is still on his phone. 

"Goood morninggg baby! I'm doing really good. hbu? did you sleep well?"

This is the first message I have gotten from him since noon yesterday. I stare at my phone, waiting for the message to say 'read'. But there's nothing. He is gone, yet again. I replied so fast. I always do. He hardly responds quickly. He does sometimes, so I shouldn't be complaining. But I just wish he could answer a bit faster, and a bit more often.

I sigh in defeat. He isn't going to reply. I stuff my phone back into my pocket, and pull out my chemistry books. This is going to be a long day.