December Memories: HSMTMTS Holiday Imagines

December 19th: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (Seblos)

After graduating from East High, the iconic duo, Seb and Carlos split up after deciding that they could not be in a long-distance relationship for four years straight. Seb got a scholarship from the University of Michigan to study musical theatre and could not turn it down. Carlos stayed back in Utah and got a job as an assistant choreographer at the local theatre downtown to pay for his apartment rent. He also visited and assistant choreographed the musicals at East High with Miss Jenn.

Every day for the next four years, Carlos and Seb could not stop thinking about each other. Seb tried to flirt with other gay guys in college but could not find someone like Carlos. He even went on a few dates with guys from his musical theatre program and thought of Carlos while he was on the dates.

A few months after Seb had graduated from college, he decided to follow his dreams and moved to New York with his parents help. After he settled into a small apartment near Times Square, he got a job working as a waiter at Junior's café on Broadway Blvd. The small day job got him enough money  to pay his rent.

One weekend in November when Seb had time off from his job he walked around the city and discovered an open mic café not far from his apartment complex. He decided to put his singing skills to use and signed up for that nights 9pm open mic. That night he sang Carlos' favorite Broadway song, "You Matter to Me" from the show Waitress as a solo. He thought about how much he missed the old days with Carlos and started crying while he sang.

After his performance was over, an older man wearing a nice suit approached Seb and told him that his performance was outstanding. The older man had pulled Seb aside to a table and started asking him a few questions about his musical background. Seb wanted to know why the guy was so interested in him and asked him what he did for a living. The older man told him that he was a casting director for the Broadway show Dear Evan Hansen and offered Seb a job as a standby for the role of Evan that night. Seb was genuinely shocked that he had found this once in a lifetime opportunity and forgot about his breakup with Carlos, since he was too busy rehearsing for his Broadway debut.

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Back in Utah, Miss Jenn noticed that Carlos' mood had changed drastically when he was assigned to choreograph a number for another gay couple in East High's winter production of RENT. She decided that she had to do something about this problem because Carlos was one of her favorite former students and didn't want to see him turn out like her in the future.

One day after rehearsals for the production of RENT had ended, Miss Jenn sat down in her office and saw one new email message on her laptop. She immediately opened the message and saw that the subject read:

East High-Class of 2021 Alumni, Seb-Matthew Smith gets cast as Dear Evan Hansen Understudy

After reading through the whole article from Billboard.com that was written about her former student, Miss Jenn got her cell phone and decided to call all of the people she knew who currently lived in New York. She was determined to find cheap tickets to Seb's Broadway debut for Carlos Christmas early Christmas gift. Luckily, after calling 20 or so people who she knew from her former Broadway fail with no reply, her ex-Zach picked up the phone after three rings.

Miss Jenn knew that Zach owed her a favor from a long time ago and decided that this was the perfect time to ask him for it. She spent half an hour catching up with him on the phone and finally told him that she needed that favor. Miss Jenn knew that Zach had better connections to Broadway actors than she did and asked her for one ticket to the Dear Evan Hansen opening matinee show that Seb was staring in.

It took some convincing for Zach to give her the one ticket that he had bought for himself, however Miss Jenn finally mentioned some old bet that he had lost to her when they were dating and got that 'golden' ticket. After Miss Jenn received the email with the tickets, she texted Zach back a billion 'Thank You's' to tell him that she was thankful for the ticket.