The Last Five Years One Shot
You had been stood in hallways like this on too many occasions. A paper number pinned to your chest as you did vocal warmups, not caring about how stupid you sounded as every other woman around you was doing exactly the same. You could feel your hands shaking as you tried to prepare your voice for the audition that you were here for. It wasn't your first audition, but you hoped that it would be your last for quite a while. Being in an artistic career wasn't financially stable, especially when all you got from your auditions was a pitiful smile and an empty hope for the next one.
Being lined up in a brightly lit hallway with so many well-dressed women all using their image to get themselves to even get a line of their song out before they'd get kicked off the stage without another opportunity to show themselves off.
Once you were done warming up, you decided to take a breath and try to calm down so that you weren't stumbling over your lines when you got onto the stage. Normally you tried to block out the others there for the audition, always finding them intimidating either through their beauty or talent or their passive aggression that seeped from every pore, but when you looked out at the women around you, you noticed one standing out from the crowd. Unlike the rest of the women who held an air of confidence as they either practiced lines or did their audition rituals, she seemed frustrated as she read from the snippet of the script you all needed for the audition. You could see her nerves and panic and seen as you had been just like her a few months ago, you weren't going to see her as easy competition, you were going to help her have a fighting chance.
"Do you want to run lines together?" You asked her, gesturing to her script.
She seemed taken aback by your offer, not that you were surprised, but you could see the gratitude in her eyes.
"Would you?"
You nodded your head. You took turns reading the lines of the role you were both auditioning for and the role opposite them. As you went through them and tried your best to keep smiling and stay relaxed, you could see her starting to mirror you.
"You're really good," you smiled. "You're going to do great."
"Do you actually mean that?" She chuckled, likely having heard it more than once, only for them to go back and sabotage her.
"Of course, I do," you assured her. "It's hard to find anyone that's pleasant when you're fighting for the same role, but I don't see the point in being mean or competitive."
The woman let out a sigh. "That's refreshing. I'm Cathy."
"Y/N."
~*~
Written by Charlotte.
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