Living Like Sleeping Beauty

Chapter Thirty Nine - Preparations For Showtime.

Hey guys. I know I should feel ashamed for how long I've made you wait for this (I do) and I'm not going to bombard you with excuses other than the fact that school started. And things are a bit hectic. So please forgive me. I will try my best to make sure you won't have to wait that long again so just stick with me.

I think this is a long one so hopefully that will make it up to you.

Hope you enjoy :)

Chapter 39 - Preparations For Showtime

I avoided Tori like the plague that week. When she walked down the corridor, I avoided my eyes. When she sat down at the same table as me at lunch, I inhaled my food and left as quickly as possible. Even though I had convinced myself that her warning hadn't meant anything about my condition, I still felt myself tense when she was near. I didn't want to give her any excuse to expose me, in case she did know something that she shouldn't. The same treatment was extended to Chloe. But that wasn't difficult to manage. She tended to keep her interactions with me limited, varying from the evil glares and the snorts of derision whenever I spoke in rehearsals. She had been given the part of a village person with her only job being to sway in the background and hum the music due to her leg still being in a cast.

She hated me and I couldn't blame the girl. Chloe had been the star of the show and all attention had been on her. Now she had been cruelly shoved to the back and was told to be happy about it. But whenever I had approached her, to tell her I never had the intention of taking her part, she stopped me with her venomous expression. And after Tori had given me the warning, I stayed as far away from them both as I could. 

So instead I distracted myself. With the play, with my friends. And especially with my all too perfect boyfriend.

It was lunchtime, Scott and I were lounging on the dry grass surrounding the cement court where a few boisterous guys played basketball. Tessa and Chase lay beside us in the grass while a some of Scott's friends from the football team were scattered around, talking eagerly about a game they had coming up. I was nestled happily between Scott's legs, ignoring their talk while playing a game on my phone. I was distracted when I felt him begin to nuzzle his face into the curve of my neck. With a roll of my eyes I turned my head slightly to look at him with a raised eyebrow.

"I'm playing a game." I told him, pretending that the angry birds waiting for me were far too important that his attentions to my neck. I felt him smirk against my skin as he let out a rumbling chuckle vibrating from his chest.

"I'm not stopping you." He murmured, raising his head to give me a glance at the upturned curve on his lips. I tried to keep my expression stone-like but it soon cracked under his gaze. I lightly tossed my phone to the side and turned my body around to face him. 

"I guess the pigs can be spared today." I sighed. He let out a puzzled laugh as if he had no idea that I was talking about my game. He shook his head with a grin as he stared up at me.

"You're so easily distracted. I'm guessing that's the reason we failed our baby assignment then." He laughed. I felt myself blush. When we were told that our baby had been neglected too many times for us to pass the assignment I had been mortified. Even though I regularly left it alone for long periods of time, I had thought that we would at least pass. But alas we did not. And we both now had to write essays on how to care for another human being to make up for our fail. 

While I was ashamed of our lack of parenting skills, Scott seemed to find the whole thing highly amusing. 

"That is not funny." I mumbled, narrowing my eyes at him. Tessa and Chase had been awarded an A+ for their excellent parenting skills, which they both liked to remind us of frequently. Even though I pretended that I didn't care, I still felt as if I had been betrayed by that damn demon baby. All those sleepless nights injecting keys into it's back and this is how it repays me? What frustrated me even more was every time I voiced this frustration with Scott, he would laugh as if I had said something insanely funny. But with each of his barks of laughter I slowly felt the stress I had been feeling because of Chloe and Tori slowly fade away. This week alone I had had too many sleep attacks to admit. Many of them had been at school, in front of a large group of people. I knew things were coming to a head. I wish I could say that I didn't notice people starting to eye me differently and trying to hide their whispers behind their hands, but I did. And when I heard one girl venomously hiss to her friend that I was only doing it for attention from Scott. I was mortified. They were beginning to realise that something wasn't right with me. And whether it was by Chloe's hands or by my own, they were going to find out.