A Shot in the Shadows

Conflicts

By Tuesday of the third week of rehearsals, almost everyone has all their lines memorized. Mr. Harding's set up a big box by the door of their rehearsal room, frowning at everyone who doesn't drop their script in when they show up to rehearse.

Lara already has a huge headache forming when she walks into the theater on Wednesday morning, dropping her script into the box and then dropping herself and her cup of hot chocolate into the nearest seat. All the kids had been pardoned from school for the first half of the week, but that hadn't stopped Lara from getting Riley to drive her to school on Tuesday afternoon during their break to get all her missed work. Lara liked keeping on top of school work: it was the one thing she could waste hours on and getting it done meant she wouldn't need to worry as much about adults breathing down the back of her neck because of her grades. It also meant that she's never be forced to get her parents to go to the school to talk with her teachers and counsellor. There were many things Lara wanted in life, but taking a family trip to school would never be one of them.

Lara had been coerced into collecting the homework for the other kids at the theatre, and the work was piling up fast. The last three rehearsals had lasted all day. Lara had stayed up half the night trying to work her way through the accumulating homework and study her new lines. Lara's dad's car had broken down and he would be using her mom's car to get to a series of meeting in the city for a few weeks.

None of that really added up to a good equation for anybody.

Lara tried not to watch as everyone filed into the room: she'd almost been caught staring again the day before, and was determined not to let it happen again.

Chewing her nails between sips of her hot chocolate, Lara stared at her toes and thought about Annie. They talked on occasion, or ate lunch together with the school's theatre kids sometimes, but that had really been it for the past few years. Annie had been dragged to talk to Lara probably more due to the fact that Riley wanted to talk to everyone all the time than Annie wanting to talk to Lara herself.

And now Annie kept asking her questions. They were really random questions too (yesterday's had been What did you have for dessert? and Wait, what did you say your favorite sport was?). Annie had manage to hit two serious questions so far, and Lara had been saved both times by Riley or Flynn crashing in and interrupting them.

Lara's determined not to give Annie any more opportunities to interrogate her.

Pulling her sleeves down around her palms, Lara adjusts her bag and moves to get up when a heavy binder lands on her lap.

Lara exhales heavily, trying not to drop her drink, and looks up. Mr. Harding grins down at her. "I'm putting Riley in for you," he says. "Read your lines. You can get Flynn to help you with some of them. There's no hurry, but I'd like you to get started."

Lara sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose as she flips open her script. The day before Mr. Harding had decided to have Lara cover for the role of Nikki, after both Paige and Annie had come in sneezing on Monday's rehearsal. It was more a safety thing than a You go on whenever we want you to thing, but it still irked Lara. She was perfectly fine with playing Ella then spending the rest of the show with the ensemble. She wasn't as comfortable with the idea of playing Nikki: Nikki was more haunted than Ella. Sure, Ella was the character that killed herself, but Nikki had a more inherent darkness around her. Lara didn't think she could dredge up that kind of darkness for a full two hours without being permanently scarred afterwards.

That didn't stop Mr. Harding from calling Lara to do the opening number at the end of the rehearsal.

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