THIRD PERSON'S POV.
It felt so weird for Bless to not go home after school or play a sport like soccer, but to rather head to the bomb shelter with her peers (which she found out was the rehearsal room and not an actual bomb shelter), but she had to get used to it and her new life. She was a troublemaking girl who was playing Ryan Evans because she didn't want to get suspended... again.
Bless stepped beside Chase as they followed everyone else into the bomb shelter. Everyone gawked around the room, their eyes filled with wonder and excitement, while Bless held a blank stare. Honestly, she didn't get what was so special about a room filled with props and stuff.
"Hey, cheer up a bit," Chase advised as he nudged her, noticing her evident frown.
As the two headed to a table to put their bags down, Bless replied, "I just don't see how this room is... What was the word you described it?"
"Magical."
"Yeah, that. It just looks like a room."
"You'll feel it soon," Chase insisted with a grin. Bless raised an eyebrow, still looking unconvinced as she took her script out of her bag. "Anyway, you excited?"
"Yeah, I'm excited..." Bless began with a shrug, "to go home."
"Come on, Blessica. Remind me why you're doing this again?"
"Because it was either this or suspension and apparently me getting in trouble stresses out my moms, so I'm doing this for them."
"Okay, so don't you think you should have a more positive attitude so you can get through this as smoothly and quickly as possible?"
"Oh, Chase." Bless chuckled in amusement as she patted Chase's shoulder. "It's cute you think I'll listen to you." Chase shook his head, while Bless chuckled. "And you can call me Bless."
"Bless? Alright. But, why? Do you hate your name or something?"
"Not really. It's just super annoying when idiots call me 'Jessica', like it's the same name."
"Alright, no sweat. I get it," Chase said as he placed a hand on his chest. "I, sometimes, hate my name too. Apparently, I share it with some cartoon police dog whose catchphrase is 'Chase is on the case!'."
Cutting their conversation short was Miss Jenn. "Could everyone take their assigned seats please?"
Bless and Chase went their separate ways, with Chase heading to where the rest of the dancers sat and Bless going to the circle of desks. She found the placard named 'Ryan Evans' and sat at the desk between Ashlyn and Seb.
Seb gave her a warm smile. "Hi, I'm Seb."
"Blessica," Bless responded with a smile. "So, I guess we're like twins now."
"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure one of us is prettier."
"I agree and it's obviously you," Bless declared, sending the boy a wink, and Seb smiled bashfully.
Miss Jenn and Carlos sat in their seats, with the former saying, "Don't forget to silence your phones." Once everyone was seated, Miss Jenn continued, "I realized that you all walked in here as strangers."
"Actually, EJ's my cousin," Ashlyn voiced. Bless furrowed her brows, glancing between Ashlyn and EJ. They were cousins?
"But after today," Miss Jenn continued despite Ashlyn's announcement, "you're a family, one tribe, committed to lifting this classic film to new heights." Interrupting Miss Jenn again was the sound of a shutter coming from Carlos, who took a selfie with his choreographer placard. Noticing the stares, Carlos put his phone and placard down. "Please take your neighbor's hands." Bless held Seb and Ashlyn's hands, while Miss Jenn ushered everyone to do so. She looked to Big Red, who sat by the stage manager's placard. "Hand." The last pair who hadn't held hands yet were EJ and Ricky, who didn't look like they wanted to. Miss Jenn, however, gave them pointed looks. "Hands." Once they eventually held hands, Miss Jenn carried on. "Feel each other's energy. Let the silence speak volumes. In a world filled of 'no', this is a space filled of 'yes'."
"Nice," Carlos whispered to Miss Jenn. "Did you just come up with that?"
"I did."
There was a moment of comfortable silence and Bless was starting to relax a bit. Well, until someone started singing We're All In This Together. Furrowing her brows, Bless looked at the source of the voice and found that it was Miss Jenn. When the woman finally finished her high note, Ashlyn began clapping and was the only one clapping. Bless reached over to her and put her hands down while Ashlyn smiled awkwardly.
Next was the warmups. When Miss Jenn said warmups, Bless assumed vocal warmups. She didn't, however, think that Miss Jenn would make everyone stand up and jump in their spots while shaking their hands. To say Bless was weirded out was an understatement, but she was used to warmups like these. In sports, not in theatre.
The actual reading portion of the read-through began shortly. And it definitely began to quite a rocky start. Bless assumed that if Big Red was filling in as stage manager, he would've been able to read like a decent seventeen-year-old kid who had received a proper education. That wasn't the case.
As Big Red read the script aloud, Bless only grew more and more infuriated and she started to see that everyone else was too, while most people grew shocked. Big Red wasn't even pausing at the correct punctuation or putting any emotion into his words. He was just reading slowly in one go in a deadpanned tone.
"Stop," Miss Jenn finally said and Bless let out a relieved sigh. "Don't run it all together. Read the punctuation."
Hopefully, Big Red would take Miss Jenn's suggestion and read properly... or at least at the level of a fifth-grader. However, that wasn't the case when the boy opened his mouth again.
"Sharpay comma heads for class period..." Big Red read.
Bless didn't know if she wanted to strangle herself or strangle Big Red to make this living nightmare end. It seemed like Big Red was oblivious to the stares that he got as he carried on reading. Finally, after an hour (which felt like an eternity), he got near the end of Act I.
Miss Jenn slammed her hand on her desk as Big Red reached the end. "And that's Act I! Let's take a break."
As everyone dispersed into little groups, Bless turned to Ashlyn, who was highlighting some of her lines, saying, "I can't believe you're related to EJ."
"You seriously didn't know?" Ashlyn asked in pure shock and Bless shook her head. "We have the same last name."
"I just assumed Caswell was a common name. You guys don't even look alike. And you're like a bubblegum princess and he's... He'a EJ."
"He's not that bad once you get to know him. Haven't you had at least one conversation with him since he's dating your sister?"
"No, I tend to stay far away from the idiot guys - no offense to your cousin - that she dates."
As Ashlyn chuckled, someone else joined their conversation. Seb, who pulled his desk forward and smiled at the two girls.
"Cool glasses," Seb said to Ashlyn.
"Thanks," Ashlyn replied. "They're my grandma's."
"You stole your grandma's glasses?" Bless jokingly inquired as she tutted. "Now I see the resemblance between you Caswells."
"Oh, haha." Ashlyn mocked a laugh and rolled her eyes. "My grandma has another pair of glasses like these."
"I have the same ones at home," Seb informed them.
Bless and Ashlyn gazed perplexed at Seb, with the latter asking, "Really? Why?"
"So I can see when I'm milking."
Bless slowly nodded her head at that. Seb was one of the most unique people she had met thus far at East High and, surprisingly, she liked him.
"Seb, when we're finished, I'm gonna need you to show me photos of the animals you have on your farm," Bless told him.
"What makes you think I have photos of my animals?" Seb asked and Bless raised an eyebrow. "Okay, I do."
"Okay, people," Miss Jenn's voice put a stop to their conversation, "we're back."
. . .
Rehearsals the next day were dance rehearsals. Bless didn't know why, considering they hadn't even rehearsed a scene, but Nini told her it was some Broadway rule or something along those lines. Despite that, she showed up to rehearsal in her navy sweatshirt and black tights with her hair tied back in a low pony.
Miss Jenn wasn't there yet, so Carlos started the rehearsals by talking through the curtain call to Nini and Ricky. Mainly Ricky who didn't understand the whole process. While that was happening, Bless decided to kill her boredom and challenged Chase to a small competition.
"Why are we doing this again?" A dancer named Steph asked.
"Is that conversation riveting to any of you?" Bless inquired as she gestured to Carlos, Nini, and Ricky.
"Good point."
"I can't believe I agreed to this," Chase grumbled as he stood a few feet beside Blessica.
"Remember, whoever does pirouettes for the longest gets five bucks," Bless reminded him before looking to another dancer named Lauryn, who was timing them. "Three, two, one!"
Lauryn started the timer and Bless and Chase began their pirouettes. After thirty seconds, Chase stopped with a defeated sigh. "No!"
"Yay!" Bless cheered as she also stopped, while the dancers around her and Chase applauded for her. "Feels good being victorious, huh? Oh, right, you can't relate."
Chase rolled his eyes. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a terrible sportswoman?"
"Uh-huh. And I've beaten those people, so maybe they're just sore losers."
"Yeah, they're the problem."
Cutting their argument short was Carlos, who stepped away from Nini and Ricky. "Okay, people, let's take it from, uhm, three counts of eight, right before Troy and Gabriella's entrance for the bows." As everyone got into their positions, Bless moved to the sidelines and stood beside Ashlyn. "A five, six, seven, eight!"
Seb began playing the instrumental for Stick To The Status Quo and another student played the bongos, while the dancers began their choreography. Soon, Nini and Ricky stepped forward and began their choreo. However, it didn't go smoothly because Ricky muddled up during it and the two clearly weren't in sync. The music slowly died down as the dancers stopped what they were doing and so did Nini and Ricky.
"I'm sorry," Ricky apologized.
"What's he doing?" Nini asked Carlos.
"Why are you talking to him? I'm right here."
"'Cause, you're not here. At least not for the right reasons."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Exactly what I said, Ricky. You hate musicals. You're only doing this so we'd be at each other's grills."
"Back to the dance, please," Carlos advised as he tried to lead the pair of exes to their starting positions.
"And now you're rubbing some weird cologne on your neck," Nini continued, clearly not done with Ricky.
"Hey, you love Throb!" Ricky argued.
"And wasting everybody's time by making fun of something that the rest of us take seriously!"
"Okay, that's a five!" Carlos quickly interjected. "On a break, people! Everybody out! Get out!"
Bless sighed in annoyance and she followed the file out. While everyone headed either outside or to the cafeteria, Bless waited by the lockers outside of the bomb shelter and pretended to be busy on her phone. Carlos didn't question her actions as he hurried back into the bomb shelter. A few seonds past and Miss Jenn walked into the bomb shelter, not even noticing Bless standing there. Suddenly, another person stormed out of the room - Ricky. Bless furrowed her eyebrows as she watched him head for the doors and not long after, Carlos ran out and hurried after Ricky.
Seeing as Nini hadn't come out yet, Bless made her way back into the bomb shelter. She saw Miss Jenn in the corner of the room on the phone and Nini leaning against a table with her back facing her sister.
"What the hell was that?" Bless incredulously questioned her sister as she approached her, making sure to be quiet enough so she wouldn't disturb Miss Jenn.
"I know," Nini agreed, letting out a sigh. "I mean, what gives Ricky the idea that he can just mess up everything-"
"I didn't mean Ricky, I meant you," Bless quickly corrected her, earning a confused look from Nini. "You were acting completely immature."
"I was the one acting immature? What about Ricky? He was the one who only auditioned to get closer to me and he doesn't even care about any of this."
"So I'm confused, does that make me selfish too? Because the only reason I audition was to not get suspended."
"You had no other option," Nini argued. "Ricky did and he knew what he was doing when he-"
"Enough about Ricky! I'm sick and tired of hearing 'Ricky this' and 'Ricky that' from you," Bless hissed at her, her exasperation evident. Usually, she wouldn't act so harshly toward her sister, but someone had to knock some sense into Nini. "Two days ago you said that you changed into this 'new and independent woman who isn't gonna take bull from Ricky or any other boys anymore' and now you're just proving how much of a hypocrite you are."
"Bless, you have no idea how hard it is to work with someone you dated. You just don't get it."
Bless scoffed, a look of disbelief on her face. If only Nini knew that Bless was working with her ex named Gina Porter.
"Trust me, Nini, I know how that feels, but at least I'm smart enough to know not to bring personal issues into a professional environment," Bless bluntly remarked. "You wanna be a professional actress? Then grow up and stop acting like the world revolves around you."
With her anger dripping from her, Bless turned on her heel and stormed out of the bomb shelter. As she stepped into the hallway, her body collided with someone else's. However, the minute she looked at the person, she rolled her eyes before moving past them.
"You can't ignore me forever, you know," Gina's voice perked her ears.
Bless turned around with an eyebrow raised as she slowly walked backwards. "Oh, but I can. You should know a lot about ignoring people, Gina. It's your specialty, isn't it?"
Seeing Gina send her a forced smile, Bless sent her a salute and turned around, heading for the doors.
. . .
please don't be a ghost reader :(
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