Starburst

Chapter 7: Self Control, Where Are You?

Despite her anger towards Bowen on EJ's behalf, Cress relaxes herself a little at Ten's words.

"I suppose you're right." EJ thought for a moment and nodded.

"He usually always is," Cress smiled faintly, bumping Ten by the hip. There's a reason why Ten holds the moral compass in this relationship.

"Do you think she'll make sense of it?" EJ asked quietly.

"You shouldn't worry about it too much," Ten tried to sound upbeat for his friend, "Come on, rehearsal's gonna start soon."

"In the least possible scenario where she doesn't, you'll always have us by your side." Cress added. EJ's dated girls who've used him in the past. Like Tatiana, or Sasha, or Phoebe, or Ella or Vivian.

Lovers (and exes) may come and go, but the friendship the three of them share? It's forever and true.

"You guys head to class first, I wanna talk to Ash for a bit." said EJ.

"See you around, Caswell." Ten nodded, walking off with Cress in tow.

"I don't exactly get it, why would Miss Jenn deliberately try to block a kiss scene between two exes who are no longer together?" Once EJ was out of earshot, Cress decided to vent to Ten.

"If Miss Jenn is projecting her failed relationships onto these exes, I'm gonna have a word with her." Cress decided.

"What brought you to that very specific conclusion?" Ten raised his eyebrows.

"I don't know, but I have a hunch. I just hope I'm wrong." Cress crossed her arms. She has a habit of following her instincts; sometimes she's right, sometimes she's not. It's all about trial and error.

— — — — — — — — — — — —

Rehearsals

"Good afternoon, guys!" Cress greeted the rest of the theater department with a cheery smile. She greeted each of the Dance Crew with a fist-bump, hip-bump (with Steph and Natalie) and low-five.

"Good afternoon." came an obnoxious voice behind her that made Cress's eye twitch.

"Oh, it was." Cress quietly snarled, nearly crumpling the cardboard she was holding.

"Wow, you really don't like Ricky." Ten remarked, noticing how Cress was quick to pull out her stress ball.

"Can you blame me? Dude's hair looks like rats moved out of it in the middle of the night before and migrated into our school's air vents for the winter!" Cress rambled.

Ten actually had to bite the inside of his cheek to hold back a laugh. He is very sure that EJ would have wheezed if he heard this. (Caswell was running late, he had to submit a report as the Senior Treasurer first)

"Cress! We need help fixing up that prop over there." Natalie called out from the side of the stage.

"No prob, Nattie." Cress saluted, hurrying over to help out.

— — — — — — — — — — — —

It was nice that everyone else seemed to be enjoying and taking rehearsals seriously...unless you're that one guy.

"I'm kinda lost. If the show's over, why would we still be dancing?" Ricky asked out loud.

'Don't destroy the props out of anger. Don't destroy the props out of anger.' Cress resisted the urge to throw something at the male lead's direction.

She noticed Ten resisting the urge to sigh at the male lead's immense cluelessness and unprofessionalism.

At this rate, this play's gonna be doomed if Ricky can't get a grasp on this.