Stage Hearts: The Derek Diaries 2

Chapter 1

Maybe I should have listened to Oliver.

No.  I can't think like that.

I am not dying.

All I had was a twenty-four hour stomach virus.  Wasn't able to hold anything down but ginger ale all day two days ago, and I didn't have much to eat yesterday, so I'm probably just hungry.  After all, I've been able to have some water, and I'm probably fine now.  The stomach pain I'm having right now is probably just from me not being able to eat.  

I make up my mind then and there.  I'm going to see if a snack helps me.  I slip out of bed, stumbling half asleep out to the kitchen.  I find some crackers in the cabinet, so I pull the package out and tip a few into my palm.  

After a few bites, I've determined that these crackers are probably going to stay down this time.  Good.  Oliver has no idea how much I want him to be wrong.

I look at the clock on the oven.  It's five in the morning.  I'm not afraid of the dark, so I'm not bothered by the fact that there's hardly any light in this kitchen.  I'm counting down the minutes until I see Oliver and Hannah in Central Park at ten.  But the thing I should be afraid of is already inside me.  Well, I'm not going to do anything about it until I absolutely have to.

It was about eleven ago that Oliver called me.  He and his girlfriend Hannah arrived at Grayson College yesterday.  They're finally in New York where they belong, ready to study theatre.  I video chatted with them yesterday.  I had some minor pain, but nothing I couldn't handle, despite it keeping me up the night before.  It keeps coming back worse than before, but it just seems to fade just as randomly.  They obviously noticed, and that's why Oliver called me.

Apparently Oliver's new roommate is a nursing major.  Oliver evidently brought up the fact I wasn't feeling well to this dude, and he told him to tell me to get to the hospital as soon as possible because my appendix might be about to explode.  I highly doubt that.

At least, I don't want to believe it.

I begin to feel a bit flushed, chalking it up to me just being tired.  I sit down at the kitchen table and open my phone.  A wave of nausea and nostalgia washes over me as I struggle to not be so anxious.

When I video chatted with my friends, I also had the privilege of meeting Hannah's new roommate, Morgan Lane.  I don't know why I can't get the pretty brown-haired maiden out of my mind.  Her brown eyes look like a deer's.  She has wavy brown hair that looks as smooth as silk.  And she was quite blatant about the fact she has a crush on me.  Her voice is so angelic and rich just speaking.  There was just something about her that guarantees her a permanent place in my mind.  

I invited her to hang out with us.  She's part of our group now, and I want to meet her outside of a computer screen.  She seems so nice.  Look, I see hundreds of girls a week who bend over backwards trying to get a piece of me.  And a lot of them are really creepy about it.  No, I do not appreciate waking up to a bunch of inappropriate pics in my DMs on WorldChat.  But she seems like she's different, which is why I was kind of disappointed when she turned down the invite on the grounds of shyness.  

I was completely understanding.  Believe me, I've seen it all at this point.  You name it, it has shown up at the stage door or in my DMs at some point.  I've seen everything from girls ruining their dignity on the internet trying to seduce me to people literally fainting when I come over to say hello.  I wish girls wouldn't put themselves at risk to get my attention.  Because, spoiler alert,  I'm not into young girls being inappropriate online, nor will I support that in any way.  When I get tagged in or sent stuff like that, I send them a message telling them that they're better than that, that I don't want pics like that, and encouraging them to take it down and respect themselves a bit more.  My costar Kaya absolutely hates getting messages like that.  She actually has secret accounts on a bunch of fanfic and blogging sites where she tracks down and bashes any romantic pairings between the characters in the musical; there is no romance plot in our show.  For this, I have nothing but respect for this absolute queen and my sister on the stage.

But now, here I am, mind racing, and willing the stabbing pain to stay away.  I want to meet Morgan, but moreover, I want Oliver to be wrong.  I'm real lucky that this virus chose to take me down while our theater is closed for a week to do some structural updates and tech fixes.  I really don't want to have to get surgery; that's going to knock me out much longer than a week.  Plus, I get to see my best friends in five hours.  I haven't seen them since May.

It was the first high school production of my show that brought us together.  Oliver and Hannah slayed as Enso and Sholta, and my dance instructor, Courtney, has been best friends with Hannah since Hannah was a toddler.  Hannah told Oliver about Courtney, Oliver tracked her down, and she brought me to Maryland. And of course, they fell in love with each other. Courtney was right when she said we'd get attached to each other.  We certainly did, so I decided to give them my number, and after they graduated, I brought them back to New York to spend a weekend with me, meet the cast and see the show.  I've never seen two people more excited to be alive.  

The sky begins to turn pink outside the back door.  My face feels hot, even though I know it isn't that hot in the house.  I check the thermostat to make sure.  It's a little warm, and lucky for me, my dad gives my mom and I permission to adjust it as we see fit.  I turn it down a couple degrees and check the outside temperature on my phone.  It's late August, so of course it's pretty warm out there.  I decide to go ahead and get dressed before playing some video games until it's time to leave to meet Hannah and Oliver.  Almost two hours have passed since I came out here.  

Half an hour later, I'm sitting on the couch in a red tank top and shorts, playing some classic game from the early 2000s, still feeling a bit warm when my mom comes into the living room.  "How are you feeling, honey?" she asks me.

"Pretty good," I reply, hoping I sound more confident than I feel.  The reality is, I have a dull ache on the right side of my stomach that fades and gets stronger at random, and I don't feel good.  That being said, I promised Oliver and Hannah I'd see them today, and if I tell Mom that I'm not okay, she's going to either make me stay home, or worse, take me to the hospital, where we find out that Oliver is right.

I'm going to wait this storm out as long as I can.

And I am willing to hope against hope that Oliver is wrong.