The Web I Spin for You ~ Richpez & Rosenwalker

Chapter 17

Lauren's stomach ached horribly as she navigated her way through the halls after school. It was the day after her "intervention", and she'd yet to come to a decision as to what she was going to do in regards to the whole Joey situation.

She'd originally driven home after her fifth hour to study, but had found herself so distracted that she'd wound up getting into her car and driving back to school. She was going to talk to Joey, and she wasn't leaving until this whole mess was resolved and behind her.

She rounded a corner as she searched the theatre building. She could usually find Joey hanging around the building at this time of day, almost always in the company of Brian and Corey. Once she finally made it to the choir room, she aggressively pushed the door open without hesitation. To her at first excitement followed immediately by disappointment, she walked in to find Brian and Corey sitting on the floor talking, but Joey was nowhere in sight.

"Madame president," Brian greeted, extending an arm and bowing his upper body.

Lauren feigned amusement, even though she was way too wound up in the current moment for jokes. "Thank you thank you," she greeted, giving a half-assed bow. "What are you two doing?"

Brian and Corey exchanged a nervous look, Corey sitting up and closing the notebook that they had lying open on the floor. "Just, tinkering around."

"Working on a passion project," Brian summarized, knowing that Joey would flip his shit if they told Lauren about their play before it was ready.

Luckily, Lauren didn't appear to be interested. "Ah, cool. So um, is Joey around? Or is it just the two of you?"

Corey and Brian both breathed out a sigh of relief. "He's around, um, maybe check the theatre? He was talking to some people for us."

Lauren nodded, smiling in relief. "Thanks." She waved them goodbye, setting off towards the theatre. Her feeling of relief was brief, replaced immediately by a knitted feeling in her stomach. She frantically fixed her hair as she approached the door to enter on to the stage, realizing in this moment that she still had absolutely no plan for what she wanted to say to him. Was she calling the whole thing off? Should they just take a step back from their friendship? Could they not be friends at all anymore?

She opened the door slowly, poking her head in to see Joey standing in the center of the stage. Her heartbeat picked up and her face grew hot at the sight of the younger boy. Lauren sighed, knowing that she needed to just rip off the band-aid and move on with her life. She stepped into the room, closing the door softly behind her incase there was anyone else in the room, which she quickly got confirmed.

"So when do you think auditions will be?"

"We're hoping to show it to Davidson by January... definitely early next semester. Hopefully if all goes well we can set up auditions for sometime in February." Joey answered, running a hand through his hair nervously.

"When will the audition material be available? I definitely want to get on board with this!"

Lauren slowly crept her way away from the door, staying offstage and out of site. Joey was talking to three girls; one with shoulder length blonde hair that was tied back into pigtails, one with brown shoulder length curly hair, and one with mid length flaming red hair. Lauren had never seen any one of these girls before, and could only guess that they must be underclassmen. She couldn't help but observe that they all were very pretty.

As Joey continued his discussion with the three girls, Lauren couldn't help but feel a string of jealousy surge through her chest. Who were these girls? Were they friends of his? Did he like them?

She shook her head to clear it. After all, it matter to her—it's not like she wanted them to be together. Joey getting a girlfriend would be a good thing; it could assuage her guilt.