Find Her, Fix Him

29 | The lights go up (final chapter)

29 | The lights go up

(It's here... the final proper chapter! Don't worry, there will be an epilogue posted very soon, because I'm sure that you'll be full of questions at the end of this one. ENJOY!!)

"And you'll be alright in here on your own?"

Matt is looking at me as he stands in the doorway of the tech box, holding my gaze. I sigh inwardly- this is Matt. He could obviously see through the layers of fake-confidence and cheerfulness and smiles that I plastered across my face, trying to seem under control. The truth is, I'm kind of low-key freaking out. I can't remember there ever having been this many controls in any of the technical rehearsals. Why are there so many controls? Not to mention all of the wires, the switches...

I slap a wide smile across my face. "I'm just dandy, Matty. You can leave now. Seriously- go and get a good seat."

"If Del is right and we won't be able to understand anything that is said, it won't matter whether we can see the stage or not," he smiles.

I smile back, because I'm supposed to. In the past fifteen minutes in which we've been together in this little room, setting up and getting me ready for my 'big debut', Matt has been trying his hardest to put me at ease and make me smile, relax. And I feel so bad that it isn't working, because he's being so sweet. Besides, isn't this all that I've been wanting for the past two years? Matt being sweet to me?

It isn't his fault that my mind is bursting with thoughts and worries and stress. It isn't his fault that I keep thinking of how the parents of the rest of the Cymbeline cast and crew are all currently finding their seats in the audience, and my father is in hospital and my mother is who-knows-where. It isn't fair. I can't control it, but it isn't fair. Life keeps reminding me of how weird and un-normal and sad I am. Even in this stupid fucking school play.

And it isn't Matt's fault that I'm worrying that I'm going to somehow mess everything up. It isn't just that I don't want to let the cast and the crew down because we've been working so long and hard- but deep down, it's almost like I'm trying to prove something to myself. It's like I'm trying to prove to myself that I can do something, I can be someone, even if my life is falling to pieces and everything is just beyond my control.

I want to prove to myself that I can be okay.

Most of all, it isn't Matt's fault that, as much as I love him to pieces, I really wish that it wasn't him standing across from me.

"Curtains-up is in a few minutes," I say, "You should really go."

"Okay..." he's twisting his hands now, looking almost shy. "Um- when the play is over, I have something I'd like to- I mean- I'd like to talk to you about something. If that's okay?"

I struggle to keep the smile on my face. "Is it quick? You could tell me now."

"No, I'd... I'd like to do it after. It's sort of big."

"Oh."

Keep smiling. I am not looking forward to the conversation that is going to have to happen with Matt when the play is finished. There are things that I'm going to have to say, and I hate to upset someone who means so much to me. But they're going to have to be clarified sooner or later, because- as much as I've been missing and pining after Matt for the past two years, I've realised recently that it wasn't him I wanted. It was the feeling of being loved, of being needed. I guess they say that you don't know what you have until you lose it. In my case, the phrasing is a little twisted, but still, in a way, valid.

I'd been craving love. And I found it. But the gloss eventually fades from even the flashiest of things, and I know I don't love Matt anymore.

"Okay. We'll talk then," I say, cheeks aching from all of the smiling I've been doing, and Matt smiles back at me. The tech room is positioned behind the auditorium, with a large window that overlooks the rows of seats, the stage directly in my field of view. The glass isn't soundproof, so we both hear it clearly when Mr Scott's microphone-magnified voice booms across the darkened hall, telling everyone that these are the final minutes before curtains up, and seats need to be found. The dark means that I can't make out the people in the audience, but there seem to be more than I ever expected.