𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧
━━ 𝒈𝒓𝒐𝒔𝒔
Before Juliette got the opportunity to walk out of the room, she heard a loud bang that made her turn around and run to Maddox.
"What happened?" she asked, seeing the sound system machine she had been using on the floor, completely broken.
"Maddox, are you okay?" Jett urged her, a tinge of concern in his voice.
"Does she need mouth-to-mouth?"
Mr Mazzara walked up to them and looked at the machine before looking back up at them. "Someone will have to operate the sound system manually for Act Two," he determined. "But if I do, who will play Coach Bolton?"
Carlos turned to look at Seb, who was by his side, but he was quick to refuse with a shake of his head. Instead, Juliette spoke.
"I may have an idea, give me two minutes."
Still in her prom dress and her dance heels, she ran out of the room and into the hallway, where she had to subway-surfer her way through the groups of attendees that had gathered there.
"Juliette, you're doing it–" Lisa called for her as soon as they saw her.
"Tell me later," she interrupted her, almost out of breath. "Have you seen EJ?"
"He went that way," Ava pointed to the other side of the hallway, towards the bathrooms and exactly on the opposite side of where she was supposed to meet Ricky. "Why? Everything okay?"
"Yes! Talk to you later!" she yelled, already running away. She didn't even stop to ask why they weren't with their parents. It took her a couple of minutes to reach EJ, who was walking out of the bathroom.
"Hey, what's wrong?" He stopped her, putting his hand on her shoulder, allowing her to breathe.
"Do you... do you remember when you said you wanted to be out there with us? Well, go get your clipboard, Coach Bolton."
"Wait, what?" he asked, but it was no use. Juliette was already running all the way back to the dressing room, where she hoped Ricky was still.
"Sorry, sorry!" she ran inside, yelling. "Something came up! Come with me!"
She took Ricky's hand and, still out of breath, ran with him to the bomb shelter, where a piano was waiting for them. Her bag was already there (thanks to Big Red, who had obliged to take it there after hearing her plans).
"Hey, Juliette, I think we–"
"Let me go first or else I won't have time to show you something," she pleaded, an apologetic look on her face. She sat down at the piano and took her journal out of her backpack, placing it in the music desk, before putting her hands to the right keys. Ricky sat down beside her.
"Juliette, I really think we..." he began speaking again, but this time interrupted himself. "Okay, go on."
"I may have to rush through this because we've only got like seven minutes left so... bear with me." She took a deep breath and started playing the song she had written. "Not long ago, when I saw you there, with your brown-eyed grin and your messy hair and every girl at the party was looking at you."
Her voice trembled slightly but she pushed through it. She could feel Ricky shifting in his seat, but he didn't say a word.
"I wonder what I'd say if I knew back then that the brown-eyed boy'd be my best friend and the one I'd give my heart to. Now everything reminds me of you, your pictures framed all over my room and if I hate someone you'll hate 'em too." Now came the part she was most nervous about. Until then, her lyrics had been accompanied by a hit of the keys, but now she had to really play the piano and she really wasn't the best at it. She had learned the notes specifically for that. "As long as I'm your darling angel, I don't need anything in the world, 'cause I feel like the luckiest every second that I'm your girl. Take the highs, I'll take the lows, I'll keep you close, give you the most. I like you so much it's kinda gross."
Ricky chuckled at the hearing of the last word, remembering how many times they had used it to reply to the other's cheesy comments even though both of them loved to be corny like that.
"And driving in your car, I feel all grown up. Is it me or does it feel more than high school love? Not gonna lie, your last name sounds so nice. I bring you up in every conversation. We're young, I know, we've got to be patient but I know I want my life to have you in it."
She finished the song, her hands so sweaty that she had to wipe them off on her own legs (of course, she was not about to get the Gabriella prom dress dirty) before she turned around to look at Ricky, whose eyes were still on the piano.
"I am so in love with you, Ricky Bowen, it's kinda gross," she said, but Ricky stayed silent. He didn't even look at her. "Hey, Ricky, is everything... I know I'm not the best at piano but..."
"Juliette, you..."
"What?" she whispered, her eyes burning at the tears threatening to fall. She expected for Ricky to like the song, to say something about it but he seemed completely out of it.
"I love you too, really but... this is it, right?"
"What do you mean 'this is it ', Ricky? Are you...?"
"I know everything. I guess I was sorta expecting you to tell me but..."
"Tell you about what? What are you talking about?" she urged him, her voice now shaking.
"UCLA. The early art program they invited you to. You missing prom. You leaving right after this is over."
"What? Ricky I haven't even..."
"And of course you're gonna go, you have to. You're destined for it. They want you there. You're going to do great things. But it's a long-distance relationship the best for us?"
"But, Ricky, listen. I haven't said..."
"You didn't need to," he replied, his tone now serious. "Come on, intermission's about to end and we need to get changed."
He stood up from the piano bench and walked out of the room, leaving Juliette there. Luckily, she knew she had a few minutes before she had to go on stage again, seeing that it was the turn for The Boys are Back. She looked everywhere, trying hard not to cry so as not to mess up her makeup. She hadn't told Ricky anything because she hadn't even decided whether she was going or not yet, but Ricky seemed so adamant in her going, in her missing prom...
She was expecting for him to maybe put up a fight, to try and convince her to stay for prom at least, but he hadn't. And maybe that was for the best. Maybe she should take the opportunity she had been handed. UCLA had not only granted her a place, it had granted her a chance to put one of her larger paintings in an art gallery that would surely attract many art critics.
She took her backpack and looked for something in the smallest pocket, gripping it tight when she finally found it. She took the little box and opened it to reveal a dog tag, exactly like the one she had given Ricky back during High School Musical 1, only with a different inscription on it. It was useless now.
She put it back in her backpack and ran to the dressing room just in time to get changed. Ricky and Jett were already on stage, singing.
I can't be the reason Juliette misses the opportunity of her art being exposed in a museum. She needs to be there. This is probably for the best.
By the way, who the fuck are you guys? And why am I talking to you about my love life?
Ricky Bowen, senior
The scene with Emmy in which Gabriella and Taylor discuss Stanford was already over and now it was the turn for Troy telling Gabriella he knew all about it already. It was almost satirical how much that scene mirrored Juliette's life at the moment and, if she were being honest, she would have ran to the bathroom and let someone else do the scene for her. But she couldn't do that. She had to face it.
She had had to act with Ricky minutes before, their last conversation still replaying in her head as they both pretended to be completely fine, rehearsing for a high school musical that was never going to take place, singing how much they loved each other and how they would be together forever, even if that was not the case anymore.
That time, the scene was completely different to when they had rehearsed it last. There wasn't that sweetness in Ricky's voice and there wasn't Juliette's security, there wasn't that flirting when Ricky fed her that strawberry telling her it may be the best strawberry in the world. This time, it was both of them talking to one another not as their characters but as themselves.
Sooner than she expected, the first notes to Walk Away were already being played and the lyrics escaped Juliette's body before she even knew what was happening. They had a life of their own and Juliette was letting them do their thing. She poured her entire heart and soul into that song, looking around her and knowing that nothing would ever be the same after that performance.
She walked outside of the make-believe balcony and danced around the stage as she pretended to get in a fake car, throwing Ricky one last look before walking out of the stage, the claps just a distant sound. She didn't even stay to see EJ have his big scene with Ricky just because she couldn't do it. She couldn't see Troy talking to his dad about how Gabriella was leaving. But she did hear Ricky sing Scream. She couldn't miss that, especially because it wasn't Troy singing. It was Ricky.
"My baby," Miss Jenn appeared beside her. "Everything okay?"
"He didn't even put up a fight, Miss Jenn," Juliette confessed, her eyes not leaving Ricky, ignoring that her voice had broken. "He told me to leave."
"Oh, Juliette." Miss Jenn hugged her. "Have you told him you didn't know whether you were leaving at all?"
"He didn't let me. He didn't listen to me. He just told me to go."
"You know how Ricky is, Juliette," the woman said. "He never says what he thinks. Right now he is... screaming."
"I don't want to stay if he doesn't want me to."
"Believe me, he wants to. Look at him. He's broken. And that is not acting."
Miss Jenn didn't say another word to Juliette and instead walked onstage, her Ms Darbus outfit on point as she told Ricky that he was free to scream. Juliette smiled softly at the delivery of the "the stage can be a wonderful partner in the process of self-discovery" line, remembering how she had chosen it as her quote back during HSM1. It was clear Miss Jenn had been born to be on a stage as well.
She walked out of the wings right to the dressing room for one of the last wardrobe changes of the night. She hugged the shawl around her as she walked back to the wings, waiting for her time to come out. She could see Big Red hugging Ricky in the other wing just before they walked past each other, each of them to their respective balconies. Juliette tried to meet Ricky's eyes but he wouldn't look at her a single time, not even during their rendition of Right here, right now. It was crazy to think that, an hour ago, they had quite literally waltzed to that song, their hands intertwined, and now they couldn't even look at each other.
"If this was forever, what could be better? We've already proved it works."
"But in two-thousand one-hundred twenty-three hours of bending the universe, it's gonna make everything in our whole world change. And you know that where we are will never be the same."
"Right here, right now," both of them sang, still looking at the audience, not meeting each other's eyes.
"Tomorrow can wait for some other day to be," Juliette sang.
"To be, but right now there's you and me."
As soon as the song ended, Juliette looked at Ricky and it surprised her to find that he was already looking at her. She sent him a small smile but it only lasted for a split second before he walked offstage, making Juliette do the same.