Fight for Me

Chapter 66

"Well, I'd best be heading out," Lydia announced as she checked her hair in the mirror above the fireplace. It wouldn't do her much good, she supposed, considering she still had quite a while before she would be seen.

John offered her an encouraging smile, "you've got this, Lydia, don't worry and break a leg."

"Thanks, John." Lydia had to put on a facade of gratitude on her face, his words having done nothing to quell the nerves. And the one person who might actually relieve her of some of her stress was seated at the kitchen table, focused solely on the eyeball he held in a pair of tongs.

A bit hurt that he was not wishing her well like John, she playfully shoved his arm, causing him to drop the eyeball he was holding, sending it crashing into his morning tea. Sherlock turned on her angrily, "what was that for? I only have a limited number of eyes to work with and you've just ruined one."

"I'm teaching you manners, Sherlock. When someone's heading out to a job interview or an audition, it's customary to wish them luck," Lydia scolded him, skilfully hiding her anger behind her attempts to make Sherlock more apt socially.

However, Sherlock just rolled his eyes, "no, it's customary to give the person false hope that they will get the job, even if there's only a slim chance that they will succeed. Take this moment, for example. You are going to a cattle call for a West End show, hundreds of other women just like you, albeit with varying degrees of talent, will be auditioning as well. Given the time you are leaving this flat, you will most likely be seen towards the middle of the day, right about when the people running the audition will lose their attention and start counting down the hours they have left. While I could wish you well, it would give you a false hope that you really have much of a chance of landing a role today."

Lydia had been expecting some sort of witty response, perhaps a sarcastic comment. She even assumed that some playful banter would be good for her, help her take her mind off of everything. But this was a slap in the face.

Her composure slipped a bit before she caught herself and gave him a bitter smile, "that may be so, but we still need to work on your manners."

With that, Lydia quickly hurried out of the flat before either Sherlock or John could see the tears prickling in her eyes. It was stupid, of course, Sherlock was merely speaking the truth, one that she knew and accepted. But hearing it out of the man who was supposed to support her in her attempts to actually start her theatre career, it hurt more than she had anticipated.

She had no doubt that John was scolding Sherlock for his behaviour, but that didn't make her feel any better. If anything, now she felt more desperate to land the role, just to prove his smart arse wrong.

There was already a queue of people when she arrived, but she tried to push her worries aside as she got signed in and received her number. Now it was just a waiting game filled with nervous scrolling through phones in vain attempts for a distraction and efforts to focus on the material that was about to decide who was going to get cast and who wasn't.

Lawrence and Zoe had both texted encouraging messages to her that she ignored for a solid hour before finally feeling up to replying. The delay in response immediately informed them that something was up and soon they had switched from messaging individually to demanding gossip in their group chat.

I'm really fine, guys, I promise, Lydia sent, despite knowing they wouldn't believe it for a second. She quickly added, Sherlock was just being a bit difficult this morning, that's all

What the hell did he do? Lawrence was the first to respond.

He was just reminding me of the probabilities of me actually getting a job out of today, nothing I didn't already know