Chapter 29: Curtain Fall Or Encore?
It was a bad idea – a really bad idea – all of it. First there was me storming into the gym and interrupting the basketball team’s practice session, then there was the horrible confession I was sure a handful of people recorded on their cellphones, and then there was the kiss scene which I hadn’t exactly prepared for. Why was it that hindsight was always 20/20?
Buckerfield sat in front of us with a grim expression on his face. “Camila Jones,” he muttered. “Why is it always you?!”
“That’s what I want to ask too,” I retorted. “Why is it that you always show up out of nowhere and drag me into the office?”
“Because it was my basketball team’s practice that you just interrupted young lady, and it was my basketball ace that you were making out with on the court for ten minutes.”
Marshall broke into laughter on the chair beside mine. I shot him a dark glare, which was not well received since he was laughing so hard tears were forming in his eyes.
“Ten minutes is an exaggeration!” I shouted. “That did not happen!”
“C’mon coach, you must have been young at least once,” Marshall chided, slowly recovering from his laughter. “We have to spice things up while we still can.”
Buckerfield released a series of unsatisfied grunts. “Are you implying that I’m old?” He grumbled. “Because I’m still young. Still a flower in bloom.”
“That’s gross that those words came out of your mouth,” I said, looking at his receding hairline.
“A little harsh Cam-Cam. What? Do you have someone you like coach? A little unrequited love? Shall your sweet man right here help you out?”
From the expression that paraded all over Buckerfield’s face, it looked like Marshall hit bullseye, and Buckerfield quickly averted his gaze like a scared animal being cornered by a predator. “Mind– Mind your own business!” He cleared his throat and after composing himself, told us to take a hike.
At first, we weren’t sure if he was being serious. “Are you sure we can just go? After you made such a big ordeal about public displays of affection?”
“Just get out before I change my mind,” he shouted. His brows furrowed together before he relaxed them abruptly and reached for something inside his drawer. “Oh and before I forget, this came in for you.” He handed Marshall a suspicious, long, brown envelope, which didn’t get much attention from him as he slipped it under his arm and casually thanked his coach.
When Marshall and I were finally freed from the office, it was already passed lunch and class had already started. I kept eyeing the envelope he had now transferred to his hand, and was swinging it leisurely around, but he just wasn’t that interested in the envelope’s contents like I was. “Want to just skip?” He asked, showing me a smile. “I have math.”
“Isn’t that important?”
Marshall shrugged as we walked down the hallway. “Who knows. I always fall asleep before the class ends. What do you have?”
“Psychology.” And I might have gone if I hadn’t read ahead and covered all the material Mrs. Baker was planning to teach us, and then all the material she said she wouldn’t have enough time for, but since I was done the textbook, and finished the year-end project I was supposed to do with Tyler by myself, it really wasn’t necessary for me to attend. “Okay,” I told him. “Let’s skip. I’ve been slacking on my homework the last two days.” I wasn’t behind in class, but I wanted to plan out my year-end Hamlet essay for English. “Let’s go to the library.”
Marshall turned to look at me with a surprised expression on his face. “Wow,” he said. “We have a library in our school?”
We didn’t end up going to the library mostly because I felt that it would offend the library if I brought Marshall inside it. Because I disturbed his basketball practice however, I thought we should go to the gym so he could at least hone his skills even if he couldn’t train the others. Unfortunately, the gym had classes inside it so Marshall stole a basketball and we decided to go to the basketball court outside by the tennis courts.
The court outside wasn’t that great. It was small and the basketball hoops were in a horrible condition, but there were a couple of benches on the side so I could sit comfortably and do my schoolwork while Marshall practiced.
The funny thing was that nothing really changed, not even after the kiss. If I looked at him closely, maybe Marshall was actually a little bit more good-looking than I thought he was before, and maybe the way he played basketball made him look a little bit cooler than when I first saw him play, but besides that, everything was still the same. I was really confused. I knew that the two of us were skipping classes together because we were both late and didn’t want to attend, and it wasn’t really like Marshall was teaching me anything, but he was still spending his time with me, wasn’t he? Do I… Am I supposed to give him money when the bell rings? Would he be expecting money?
I didn’t fully understand it, and it made me feel nervous. It made me feel confused. I didn’t want him to leave me when he felt disappointed that I didn’t give him money when he was expecting it. So should I do it? Am I just better off giving him money every time I see him one on one?
“Cam-Cam?”
“Hmm?” When I looked up, I realized my thoughts were so completely elsewhere that I hadn’t written a single word down in my notebook. Marshall stood in the middle of the court, casually dribbling the basketball before he stopped and held it in his hands. “What?” I mumbled. “Did you need something?”
He shrugged. “Well, I don’t know, but it’s been on my mind a lot actually. The other day… when I took the money, did I, by any chance… hurt you?”
I stared at him blankly and he stared back at me. He was too far away for me to make out his expression clearly, but sometimes I wonder how he always reads my mind. Or maybe it was all just a coincidence. Maybe we always just thought about the same things at the same time together.
Clearing my throat, I gave him a shrug of my own. “Do I have the right? To be hurt by something like that. It’s our condition isn’t it? You have the right to be paid.”
“Ah…” He laughed, but it didn’t sound genuine. It sounded like he choked it out of himself. “Is that how it is?”
I nodded.
“Fine.” He paused. “But let’s make two things very clear. The first is, if you didn’t pay me, I would never have done it – teach you about feelings and all that.”
“I know.”
“The second thing is, even though I want money for my time, that doesn’t take away the fact that I do care about you. I do want you to be able to overcome your past and be able to open up your heart to the people around you. I do want you to succeed. Even though I chose to get close to you in the beginning because of money, you can’t spend time and have fun with someone without it having some sort of effect on you. And we’ve gotten a bit close haven’t we? We’re friends, aren’t we?”
I had never looked at it that way. “Friends?” I murmured. Is that… did we become something like that? Was Marshall and I friends? I couldn’t help the tiny smile that wanted to form on my face. Friends? Could we really be something like that? Like Todd and I. Friends. People who care about one another. Are we really something like that?
“Yeah,” Marshall said. “Friends. So the next time when I take you out on a date or if I set up other exercises to help you, please pay me. But if something happens like the other day, when someone hurts you, when you need someone to talk to, or when I worry about you so much that I have to go over to your house late at night to see how you’re holding up, don’t pay me. Don’t do stuff like that ever again.”
I smiled and looked down at my hands. “Mm.”
It was probably only then that I realized how much I missed having best friends, and how lonely I had actually been during the last few years. Even though Todd and I were friends, we only started being friends because we were both the same type of ‘loser outcasts’ at school, and even then, we weren’t particularly close. He needed someone to protect him, and I didn’t mind keeping him around because sometimes he helped me out with homework that I didn’t perfectly understand. Now Marshall was telling me he was a friend of mine – not because he had no other person to be friends with, but because he wanted to be friends with me.
Somehow it made me feel a bit bashful, something I don’t think I’ve felt for a really, really long time.
“By the way,” he started, changing the topic. “You know the play they’re doing on Friday? Isn’t that your class?”
“Oh yeah. Snow White. How do you know it’s my class?”
“Because you and Brooklynn had that battle off remember – for the lead role? You know, when we both got creamed by tomatoes and eggs?”
“Oh yeah… Now I remember.” Though I wasn’t sure why Marshall suddenly brought the whole play thing up.
“I’m assuming good, old Brookie ended up with the lead role,” he muttered. “So then what are you playing as? Should I buy a ticket to the show? To cheer you on? They’re selling those tickets frigging expensive though.”
“I’m a tree,” I said. “So don’t bother.”
Of course, when I said that, I had no idea that something would happen. So on Friday, the day of the school performance, I had no idea what was going on when I got called up to the office at break. I thought it was just Diana wanting to speak to me, but it turned out to be an ill-fated will of God’s.
A couple of students from my homeroom were already standing there and waiting for me when I showed up. They had asked for me to be called down since they didn’t have my phone number or any other ways of contacting me. I didn’t know any of them, though I recognize their faces, but one person in particular I remembered. It was James. He was also the one I was selling cookies with during the bake sale.
“She’s sick,” he groaned. “It’s just like her to be unreliable. Getting sick at the last moment.”
“Who Brooklynn?” I asked.
“Yeah, she’s got a fever. So the rest of us were wondering if you could fill in for her.”
“I have my own role,” I said, which made James scowl at me when he heard me say so. He was also the one that spoke up and told Brooklynn to let me be Snow White instead when she was pinning for the role in the beginning.
“You realize the only reason you’re a tree is because that’s Brooklynn’s way of humiliating you, right?”
“I do.” But I also understood that if I replaced Brooklynn, I would have no choice but to participate in a kiss scene with Tyler, which felt like something close to suicide. “This isn’t like her to give up even if she has a cold,” I said. “The Brooklynn I know wouldn’t leave the stage even if a tornado was about to hit the school.”
“And that’s exactly why, I’m right here!” I turned around at the sound of Brooklynn’s voice and found her walking towards us with Sienna right beside her. “James you shithead! I knew it when I heard them calling Camila down to the office! I knew you were behind it!”
“Yeah,” Sienna chirped behind her. “We all knew it!”
While our classmates suddenly stepped back and looked down in submission, James just casually rolled his eyes at Brooklynn and Sienna. “You shouldn’t even be at school,” he grumbled. “You’ve got a high fever and I know your throat hurts because your voice sounds like cat claws on a chalkboard. You can’t perform right now. What if you faint in the middle of the performance? I honestly don’t care about you, but everybody’s been working really hard on this play!”
“I’m fine! You’re making it into a bigger– ” While I thought Brooklynn’s voice was still workable when she spoke in a normal tone, the instant she spoke louder, her voice would break and she’d start coughing.
James took advantage of the conversation when she broke into a coughing spree. “See? You’ll just better off selling tickets at the front or something. It’s not like we really need you.”
“Backstabber,” she hissed, still clearing her throat to get her voice back. I could tell how badly she wanted to jump James and beat him to the ground, but her fever really must be making her weak. Brooklynn never looked so defenseless to me.
“Not really,” James retorted. “I never liked you anyways. So even now, I’m stabbing, stabbing, stabbing, right in front of you.”
I stayed out of their internal conflict since I really wasn’t sure how their hierarchy went, but suddenly, Brooklynn re-evaluates the situation and makes a compromise. “Fine,” she said to James. “I lose. You’re right, I’m too sick to be on stage and this is something really important.” She stopped to cough before she continued. “This play isn’t about me, it’s about raising enough money so that we could all go on the year-end trip. We should get someone else to play the role of the prince… but not Camila.”
“Why not?” James scoffed. “Who else would be better than Camila?! What the hell do you have against this girl anyways? Some sort of inferiority complex?”
“Why can’t we just find someone else?” Sienna snapped. “Oh my God, why is this such a big deal? We just don't want someone so pathetic on stage. It makes the rest of us look bad.”
Brooklynn just shrugged at what Sienna said and angled her gaze down at James to challenge him. It ticked him off for Brooklynn to give him that kind of scrutiny, and it didn’t take long before he lost his cool and started shouting. “You obviously know that there’s no other person who can take your place right now! The play is at lunch! There’s only one class left before it starts! How do you expect regular students to pick up a role that fast?! Only someone with a lot of experience would be able to do that!”
“It’s not like the prince has a lot of lines to remember,” Sienna snapped.
“Says the person who couldn’t even remember a few lines,” James retorted. “Besides, it’s not just that. That person would have to be able to play the character at least, know when to get on stage, when to say their lines without having any time to practice or rehearse with the others. So that’s why Jones is going to do it!” He threw a glare at me. “You have no say in it! You’re doing it so don't screw up! How long will it take for you to memorize the prince’s lines?”
I felt Brooklynn’s angry stare and matched her gaze. Honestly, I’d rather be the tree. I didn’t even want the prince’s role and being on the play was a waste of energy, but somehow, seeing how badly Brooklynn wanted me not to do it, made me really want to do it. “Reading through it once should be enough,” I said.
“Good!” James swore under his breath as if to say ‘thank God’ before shoving the script into my hands. “Alright then. It’s settled. Jones will be the prince and I will see everybody at the auditorium fifteen minutes before lunch. Don’t be late!”
After watching James and the timid classmates leave, I turned to leave myself since break was already over at that point. Brooklynn angrily called out to me as I left. “Camila! You do realize there’s a kiss scene with Tyler right? Are you going to kiss him?” She laughed as if she was insanely amused by the thought of it happening. “After everything I forced him to do to you, are you still going to kiss him? As if nothing ever happened?”
I continued leaving without turning back or saying anything, but Brooklynn’s words never left my mind. The role of Prince Charming is rookie stuff to me so I had no trouble remembering his lines or acting him out. Just in case, I read and memorized most of the other characters’ lines that he interacted with so I could improvise if somebody else messes up.
When I got to the auditorium fifteen minutes before lunch, Tyler was already there with a bunch of our classmates fawning and giggling over him. He was wearing such a beautiful princess dress that nobody would ever believe this was a low-budget high school play. While one girl kept trying to clip a wig on him, another girl was telling him that red lipstick would look so cute on him.
I actually snickered when I was sure nobody was looking. The whole thing was so pathetic, it was almost sad. I could picture Tyler so embarrassed about all of it that they wouldn’t even need to put blush on him and his cheeks would already be bright red. “Stop!” He shouted. “I’ll let you put the wig on, but I’m not putting lipstick on!”
“How about the– ”
“Or the fake eyelashes!!”
“How about these then? You have to put these in Ty.” James walked up to the three of them holding a big ball of paper in each hand.
“What is that?”
“Obviously your boobs man,” James shouted, but very, very seriously. “Come over here. Let me just shove these down your chest.”
“NO!!” Tyler screamed, and then stormed off after meeting my gaze briefly.
“What the heck is his problem?!” James grumbled, dawdling after him. “Tyler! Come back here right now! Snow White is my favourite princess and I will not let you ruin my image of her by making her flat!”
“It’s really a shame.” I turned my head towards the sound when I heard Marriah’s voice. “He would have been a very beautiful Snow White if he’d just listen to everyone else’s suggestion. Oh, and here’s your costume.”
I laughed. “Yeah. Thanks.”
While I changed into the costume Marriah gave me, I strengthened my resolve. I was not kissing Tyler. It was just Prince Charming kissing Snow White. That was all it was. Just because you were supposed to be in love with each other on stage, it didn’t mean you were in love with each other in real life. The kiss scene was exactly the same. I didn’t need to pay too much attention to what Brooklynn said. Everything was going to be fine.
When I came out of the change room, a couple of my classmates told me I looked dashing and I admit I didn’t make a bad prince myself. The prince’s costume was modelled after Prince Williams’ royal suit and the material it was made from was extremely high quality stuff – though that didn’t say much considering it was probably made exclusively for Brooklynn. Luckily, my body measurements weren’t far from hers and the costume fit me snuggly.
To be honest, everyone did especially well with their parts. Sienna’s part of the queen was especially vain and convincing, but even more dramatic was when she turned into the old hag, and Marriah changed places with her as the queen in disguise. When Snow White took a bite out of the apple and fell dead on the floor, Marriah’s laugh was so loud and haunting that the entire auditorium fell silent with horror. Her twisted performance made my blood pump and when it was my turn, I stepped out with the kind of anticipation I had when I was at an important performance.
As soon as I stepped on stage, Camila disappeared. My voice automatically changed into something deeper and more seductive. I was not acting as the prince. I was the prince.
When Camila resurfaced, when I felt like I had finally come out of that weird trance I always went into whenever I acted on stage, I was surprised that the play wasn’t over yet. Only then did I realize why Kelvin Steins said I was a half-assed actor and that I couldn’t express ‘love’ on stage. I thought I did fine. Even after he criticized me, I thought I did fine, but was willing to work harder to gain his approval even though I didn't get what he meant. I couldn’t tell when I was singing love songs on stage, but acting out an intimate scene… the fact that I fell out of my normal trance, the fact that I’m not completely in character, it was exactly what he said it was: “half-ass acting”.
So when I kneeled and stared down at Tyler who was lying in front of me, I wasn’t looking at Snow White as Prince Charming. I was Camila pretending to be Prince Charming looking down at Tyler wearing a dress. Could I… Could I still kiss him as I was?
I could hear the audience whispering because I was taking longer than what was expected for the kiss scene. There were really only two reasons people came to this play. The first one was to witness Tyler wearing a dress, and the second one was to watch the kiss scene. Who was going to get to kiss Tyler Lavenchy, the school’s most popular prince who didn’t seem to have any romantic interests toward any girl at school?
I couldn’t screw something up like this.
Swallowing hard, I leaned in. The audience was waiting, and I clenched my teeth as I focused on Tyler’s lips. Just a quick one. I just had to press my lips against his extremely quickly and then it would be all over with.
My heart pounded.
Suddenly I couldn’t keep my focus. My eyes wandered over to where everyone sat down below the stage and wondered who each of the figures were. I couldn’t make out anyone sitting in the audience. Their faces were all cloaked in darkness and I had to wonder if Marshall was one of them sitting out in the sea of blackness. Did he come to watch the play in end? Was he watching me right now? Was Todd also there? Was… Brooklynn?
My heart pounded.
I looked down at Tyler lying so peacefully on the floor waiting for me to kiss him. Oblivious. He was always so oblivious to everything that I was going through.
I looked to the side of the stage and the girl who had the part of the narrator looked back at me with this horrified expression as if she knew what I was going to do.
“I… I can’t do this,” I murmured. “I… can't.” I quickly stood up. My body was stiff and stony, but I couldn’t stop myself; this was going to go down as my worst performance ever.
I backed away. I turned to go. I could hear the audience whispering loudly and talking in confusion, but I didn’t turn around. Suddenly their voices not only got louder, but shocked gasps were now sweeping across the auditorium. From the corner of my eye, I could see people standing up in disbelief, and when I couldn’t understand why, I turned around.
Snow White had come back from the grave. Even I gasped. Tyler looked at me angrily, and I couldn’t understand what made less sense, the fact that he was still supposed to be dead, or what was happening as he tore off his wig and threw it on the floor before storming up to me like the tornado that should have swallowed Brooklynn instead.
“What are you doing?!” I hissed.
Tyler grabbed my arm and pulled me into him. I could feel his other hand pressed against my back to close the distance between us. Then he leaned in, and I felt the softness of his lips for the first time in three years.
They stung against mine. Hot, and needy, and frantic.
I pushed him away as hard as I could, but I could only part from him for a split second before he pulled me back into him again. “St– stop!” Each time he would crush his lips against mine harder and more desperate until I ran out of strength to fight him.
It was the most painful kiss he had ever given me.
When he pulled away, tears dripped from his face to the edge of his jawline. Except they weren’t his tears, they were mine.
I didn’t know how to convey my feelings to him, but the sensation of dampness from my cheeks on his must have done it. His eyes wavered and his brows furrowed knowingly that he had messed up again. “Mila…” He looked down. “I’m sor– ”
I slapped him across the face.
The sound of my hand against his cheek is so loud, it echoed. My hand throbbed in pain, but that was just the eternal irony of slapping someone you care about across the face. The harder he hurts me, the harder I hit him, but the harder I hit him, the harder it hurts me. So who wins in the end?
A/N.: Blahhhh~ Im so sleepy. And for some reasons I wrote this chapter with a lot of mistakes, but Im too sleepy to do a thorough job of editing it. Im sorry if you're a grammar/spelling nazi, but my bed is calling~
Also the whole Brooklynn/Tyler and Camila thing will unraval starting next chapter?? I love you allll!!! Goodnight <33