Take My Advice

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

            I couldn’t look at the cast list. I just couldn’t. Part of me hoped that someone better had come along and stolen the role right out from under me, and part of me hoped with all my heart that I’d gotten it. And so, it was better not to know. I concentrated on everything else I had to do at school that day, including newspaper staff meeting, and pushed the cast list as far out of my mind as I could.

            And that would have worked great if people weren’t talking about it all day long, forevermore.

            I was on my way to my last class when Dylan and Amanda came running up to me. Amanda was bouncing up and down, the way she always does when she’s excited or it’s pizza day in the cafeteria or her hair turned out cute. She grabbed my arm. “You’re Anne! You’re Anne of Green Gables!”

            “And did you get Gilbert?” I asked Dylan.

            I shouldn’t have asked, really—it was written all over his face.

            “I’m so happy for both of you! This is going to be the best play ever.” Amanda grabbed both our hands and forced us into a weird little ring-around-the-rosy right there in the middle of the hall. Dylan went right along with it, and I shrugged. I guessed it was time to succumb to all sorts of public humiliation now.

            When Amanda finally let us go, I looked up and down the hall. I wanted to find Bruce, to tell him that I’d just won the lead in the school play. For once, I was really disappointed that he was nowhere in sight.

***

            “Guess what!” Amanda caught up to me in the courtyard after school. “So, I was kind of bummed that you and Dylan were both in the play and I wasn’t.”

            I hadn’t even thought about that. Would this mess up their budding romance?

            “So I went in and got on the stage crew. Now I can be part of the play and hang out with you guys without having to put on makeup and memorize lines and stuff.”

            Phew. Crisis averted. “That’s awesome!” I reached out and grabbed her hand. “This is going to be a lot of fun.”

            “I’m glad you finally think so. Now you can stop looking like you think you’re on the way to the gallows or something.”

            “Oh, I just don’t think I am—I pretty much know I am.” I glanced around again, but there was still no Bruce. Sheesh. I’d spent so much time avoiding him, but now that I wanted to see him, he wasn’t anywhere. “Have you seen Bruce?”

            “Yeah, he’s over on the football field. Want to rub it in, huh?”

            “Kind of.” A lot. “Walk over there with me?”

            “Sure.”

            Dylan caught up to us halfway there. “Hey, Jill. When do you want to start running lines?”

            I shrugged. “I don’t know. Tomorrow?”

            “Awesome.” He gave my shoulder a little shove. “Carrots.”

            “Oh, don’t even start.”

            We climbed up the bleachers and sat, watching the footballl team. Bruce was jogging around the perimeter of the field, apparently trying to stay in shape while he was benched. He swung his arms freely, which meant his ribs were probably doing all right, and I wondered how much longer he’d be out of the game. Every time he didn’t get to play, I knew he blamed me. It wasn’t my fault, but I couldn’t control how he felt about me.