A Shot in the Shadows

In the Aftermath

It's only Wednesday, just the middle of the week, but for some reason he can't quite fathom, Cameron feels very tired. He ends up getting out of bed at a time that feels way too early, swinging by Zachary's house to pick him up before going to buy breakfast from McDonald's.

Wishing desperately that he'd gone for late arrival instead of early release, Cameron makes his way to the tech theater class he's an office aide in. He walks into the auditorium, one hundred percent ready to flop into a chair in the audience and stay there for the next hour and a half. Cameron quickly realizes this isn't going to be the case, as the tech theater teacher almost immediately spots him and lets out a loud whoop.

"Brilliant show, Cameron!" he shouts. "Absolutely brilliant."

"It was," one of the girls in the class agrees.

"You were amazing," another girl adds breathlessly. She's clutching a program from Shadows to her chest, along with a black Sharpie.

Cameron would be amused by this if it weren't so early in the morning. Instead he has to hold back an exasperated sigh. "Thanks, guys," he says as genuinely as he can manage. "But I was only onstage for a few scenes, and even then it was mostly in the background."

"You were still amazing," someone says.

Cameron sighs for real this time, tuning out the fangirl noises coming from the class as he heads over to the teacher. "Do you need me to do anything right now?" Cameron asks, setting his drink down on the edge of the stage.

"I need photocopies of the ground plans, and this prop list," the teacher says. Cameron takes the papers and turns to leave, but the teacher stops him by clapping a hand on his shoulder. "Say, Cameron, I have a question, well, questions, about the lighting and the sets and the way they filtered Lara's mic for that one line. But first, what type of spotlight does that theater have?"

"I'm sorry, I really don't know," Cameron says. "Give me a few minutes and I may remember that." And then before anyone else says something, Cameron's picked his drink back up and is dashing out of the auditorium. He takes his sweet time in the copy room, chatting comfortably with the copy lady as he works. He's always been a favorite of the theater teachers, and so he's been a regular visitor of the copy room over his four years in high school, making copies of everything from scripts to press releases.

Cameron returns to the auditorium with the warm papers in tow, pretending not to notice as the head of almost every girl in the class (and a few of the boys) swivel in his direction.

"Sets don't paint themselves!" the teacher shouts at his class, approaching Cameron and taking the pages. "Hey, do you know how they-"

"Sorry, I haven't spent that much time backstage," Cameron lies: he has as much of an infatuation with the technical stuff as with acting itself, and could probably answer every question thrown at him if he wanted to. "What else is there for me to do?"

The teacher pulls a pass from his clipboard. "I have a pass for Annabell," he says. "She's in room 208 now. Tell her she needs to come by the drama room during advisory."

Annie's in a math class, and those are on the opposite side of the school from the theater. When Cameron gets there, he's glad to see that someone else from the show looks as tired as he feels. He leaves the pass with Annie's teacher and hangs around the door for a few moments, watching Annie's eyelids flutter close as she rests her head on her hand.

The rest of the day passes by in a similar fashion: Cameron gets to his English class where his teacher congratulates him and a blissfully small amount of girls fangirl in the corner of the room. Cameron shares advisory with Zac, so waits outside the younger boy's classroom on the way there. Zac comes out, closely followed by the girl with the Shadows program. Cameron grabs hold of Zac's bag and steers him down the hall towards advisory.