Call Me Beautiful

Things can happen in an instant and they might not be what you expected.

For me it was senior year as I was helping my best friend Morgan prepare for her opening night in that year's school play.
She had been pining after this same boy since the sixth grade and now she was his leading lady.

"I'm serious Stacy! I feel like my heart is beating out of chest, I'm so nervous." She said. "What if I mess up and forget my lines."

"You've practiced a hundred times over, Morgan. You got this."

"Will you help me run through the lines again. Please, please, please Stace!" She pleaded. "I'll love you forever."

"You're already going to love me forever." I chuckled. "Hand me the script, dummy. What page are we on?"

I watched as Morgan frantically flipped through her copy of the script. She narrowed her eyes as she skimmed across her lines before finally landing on Act four, Scene three.

"Start here." She said, as she took my hand and guided it to the first line.

"Okay." I glanced over the dialog that I had helped Morgan practice a thousand times already and let the words sink in again. This was the big kiss scene, the one she worried most about. We had read the dialog together so many times now but I knew that that wasn't what she was caught up on.

"Will you come with me?" I whispered, as I drove into character. "Run, with me, to the ends of the Earth, Carolina?"

"Are you sure?" She responded. "I'm dead weight, remember? You said it yourself, I'm not the adventurous type."

She leaned closer to me, as the stage directions requested. Our eyes met and I felt the familiar tinge in my chest that I got each time we ran this scene. "I- I want you- no I need you by my side. It's the only way I'll actually feel something." I whispered. "I love you."

I leaned in and lightly pressed my lips to hers, pulling back when I felt her breath hitch and her fingers graze my shoulders. "Morgan" I said. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to- I."

"No. It's okay, Stace." She mumbled, as she stood up. "I think they're call for us. I'll talk to you after the show, okay?"

"Okay" I said.

...

I watched her performance that night with pride and fear churning my stomach. She was magnificent, she got every line and caught every que. But I knew that aftwards when her character fell away, things might change.

I waited for her outside the auditorium for what felt like an eternity. When she finally appeared in front of me she stopped me before I could get a word out.

"I don't know what happened" she said. "I just know that I wasn't worried about my lines, I was worried about you." She reached out for my hand. "Let's try, okay."

"Okay."

...

That night changed me, because she called me beautiful.