A Shot in the Shadows

In the Aftermath

"What was that all about?" Zac laughs, letting Cameron push him down into his seat.

"That girl who came out of class behind you spent first period stalking me," Cameron says. "Its creeping me out."

Zac guffaws loudly, and Cameron thumps him with his binder. "Dude! It's not funny!"

"What's not funny?" Paige asks, sliding into the seat next to Zac.

"Cameron has a secret admirer!"

"Liar!" Cameron growls. He turns to Paige. "Its this one girl who's been totally stalking me since I played Oliver in elementary school."

"She likes you," Paige teases. "How cute."

"How weird," Cameron corrects.

"Be thankful that you're a senior and she's not," Zac points out. "After this year you're done with her."

Theater production that afternoon is interesting:he and Annie are the only two kids from the show in the class, and the teacher and all the others only seem to want to pile congratulations and praise on the two of them. Cameron's more than happy to bear with it: these are all people he's known and worked with for years.

Annie, on the other hand, is less than grateful for the attention. She's the only sophomore in the class, because she's the head of the school's make-up crew, and as Cameron talks he watches her in the corner of the room, consulting a sketch of an eye as she dabs at the face of some poor girl. Annie has more self-restraint than almost anyone else Cameron knows, but he sees how focused she is on her task and how her smile is quickly getting more strained with every person that approaches her.

Cameron quickly intervenes and asks the student director to start talking about plans for the upcoming school production. After that, he and Annie are more or less left to their own devices.

Despite his early release, Cameron hangs around to have lunch with Annie, Flynn, Lara and Zac. He regrets this decision almost immediately, as his stalker makes a quick appearance, clutching her program tightly before pushing Cameron's lunch aside and replacing it with the program.

"Hi, Cameron!" she loudly says into his ear.

Zac snorts into his food.

"Hey," Cameron replies, trying to discreetly rub his ear as he shoots the others pleading glances. "What's up?"

"Could you sign my program?" asks the girl. "Please? I waited ages at the stagedoor but you didn't come out, and you looked really busy during first period this morning."

"I was," Cameron grumbles, taking the Sharpie. "What's your name?"

"Oh, Cam, don't be silly," laughs the girl. "It's Cassie! You totally know that!"

"...yeah," Cameron responds after a moment, quickly scrawling his name across the front of the program.

On the other side of the table, Zac and Flynn are mouthing the word "Cam" in unison.

As Cameron hands back the program with a forced smile, he notices that none of the others have signed it. Before he has time to comment on this, Cassie's planted a loud kiss on his temple and has started bouncing away.

Cameron returns his attention to the table and glares at his amused friends.

"You have a little something there," Annie says, pointing a finger at her temple.

Scowling, Cameron waits for Lara to finish scraping Cassie's lipstick off his face with her fingernail, then picks up his bag and his cup noodles. "I'm out," he declares, and before anyone can protest, Cameron's out of the cafeteria and on his way to his car, where he rams the cup noodles into a cup holder before making his way to the theater.