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𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗙𝗘𝗖𝗧 𝗛𝗔𝗥𝗠𝗢𝗡𝗬
chapter six:
wondering !
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ATHENA WALKED OUT of the library, her hands on the straps of her backpack as she began making her way down the hallway. Ricky was still with Carlos inside. Both of them were going over the steps one more time so Ricky could go through the routine smoother. Athena, with promises of seeing them later at rehearsal, left the library to go try and practice some piano. However, a voice calling her name behind her made her stop in her tracks. She turned to see Nini approaching her cautiously.
"Um, hey, Nini," Athena greeted, confusion evident in her tone. She definitely didn't expect Nini to talk to her, especially not after she blew up on the girl yesterday.
"Can we talk?" Nini asked.
"Yeah, yeah, of course," Athena agreed. "What's up?"
Nini clasped her hands in front of her nervously. "I just . . . I wanted to apologize. For yesterday. It was completely wrong of me to put your name in my mouth even though the argument was between Ricky and I. What Ricky did was making me so angry that I was in a blind rage. It's kind of been like that since, well . . . you know."
Athena shook her head. "You can't force someone to say I love you, Nini. Those three words can be hard for some people to say, especially him. He's been going through a really tough time these past couple of months. And you know Ricky. When he doesn't know how to process his emotions, he pushes the people closest to him away. Trust me, I've been on that end more than once. You just have to give him time."
Nini sighed. "Yeah, you're completely right. I totally get that."
The two were encaptured in silence for a couple of moments.
"Thank you for apologizing, though," Athena finally said. "And I'm sorry for yelling at you yesterday. I got a little protective."
"No, you don't have to apologize," Nini replied. "I definitely deserved it."
"So . . . we're cool?" Athena asked slowly.
Nini nodded. "Yeah, we're cool. I — uh, I'm actually going to the auditorium right now, you know, if you wanna come."
Athena looked back at the library for a moment before turning to Nini and nodding. "Uh, sure. There's a piano in there, anyways. Maybe we can practice before musical rehearsal later?"
Nini smiled. "Yeah, that would be great." The two of them took off down the hallway in the direction of the auditorium. "So . . . I saw Ricky dancing in there. He's been practicing?"
Athena nodded and held the auditorium door open for Nini, earning a quiet thank you from the girl. "Yeah. Last night he made me come over and watch him dance along to We're All in This Together for, like, an hour. It got a little repetitive after a while, but he's really trying. I'm really proud of him."
Nini thought it over for a moment. "That's actually . . . really sweet. I've never seen him put that much effort into something besides skateboarding."
"Trust me, I haven't either."
Suddenly, soft piano music was heard playing from the stage behind the curtain. Athena shared a glance with Nini before the two of them took off down the aisle and up the stairs. Once they rounded the corner, they saw Ashlyn sitting at the piano. Two pieces of paper sat on the piano in front of her, and she was occasionally scribbling something on them with pencil.
Ashlyn looked up at them, her eyes widening. "Oh, hi."
"Hey Ashlyn," Athena replied.
"Hi," Nini added. "Uh . . . we didn't know anyone was here."
"I can be gone in like, seven seconds," Ashlyn rushed out, beginning to scramble with her things. "Six if I don't zip my bag."
"Oh, no, no, no, no, don't go," Nini insisted. "What was that?"
"What was what?" Ashlyn asked.
"The song you were just playing."
"Oh, that. It's, um . . . Miss Jenn asked me to compose a song for my character. It's probably way too much." She turned to Nini. "I'm playing Ms. Darbus, the—"
"Oh, I know who you're playing, Ashlyn," Nini interrupted. "I sat across from you at the read through. Besides, you're EJ's cousin."
Ashlyn shook her head in a nervous manner. "We don't have to talk about EJ. I don't wanna talk about EJ. Do you wanna talk about EJ?"
"No," Athena blurted out.
"No," Nini replied. "I mean, I — I do, uh, but just not right now." Nini's phone then chimed, and she pulled it out of her pocket, reading what was on her screen. "Jeez, this has to stop."
"Doesn't matter who texted you," Ashlyn said quickly as she wrote a couple of things on the piece of paper that rested on the piano. "It's no one's business."
Nini laughed slightly. "No, one of my moms has been sending me these fortune cookie messages every day to keep me balanced. Um . . . true test of a character is what you do when no one's looking."
"Why would someone send that?" Ashlyn questioned.
Athena's eyebrows knit in confusion. Why was Ashlyn acting so nervous? She seemed very panicked and on-edge.
Nini put her phone back in her pocket. "She seriously needs to stop. It's like the fifteenth one today."
Athena peered over Ashlyn's shoulder at the piece of paper on the piano, reading the lyrics of her song titled Wondering. "Hey, this is really good, Ashlyn. You wrote this yourself?"
She nodded. "Uh, it's just a rough cut. But, I was kind of hoping if it's put in the show, that you would play the piano for it."
Athena blinked in surprise. "Seriously? You want me to?"
"Of course. I saw how good you were of a piano player at the auditions and wouldn't want anybody else to play it."
"Why don't you play some of the song right now, Athena?" Nini suggested. "Only if Ashlyn's okay with it."
"I'm fine with it," Ashlyn voiced, scooting over on the bench.
"Oh, uh, okay," Athena stated, sitting down on the piano bench.
She looked at the notes Ashlyn had written down on the page before placing her fingers on the correct keys. As if it were already wired in her brain, Athena pressed on the keys and began to play the song.
"Seems like a part of me will always have to lose, every single time I have to choose, swore that it felt right, but was I wrong? Is this where I'm supposed to be at all?" Ashlyn sang in her beautiful voice. "I don't have the answers, not today, it's like nothing makes the questions go away, what I'd give to see if the grass was greener on the other side of all I've had and lost, would it be enough? Or would I still be wondering? If I could go back and change the past, be a little braver than I had, and bet against the odds, would I still be lost? Even if I woke up in my dreams, would there still be something I'm missing? If I had everything, would it mean anything?"
Ashlyn nodded her head at Nini to join her. Athena felt a nudge on her arm and looked over for a moment to see Ashlyn doing the same to her.
"Maybe I should turn around and take the other road, or maybe I'm just looking for what I already know," all three of them harmonized.
"I'm just wondering," Nini voiced alone as Athena continued to play the piano. "Feels like I might have broke the best thing that I had, I said too much to ever take it back. Scared I'll never find something as good, and would I even know it if I could?"
Nini nodded her head at Athena, saying it was her turn to sing. Athena inwardly took a deep breath to prepare herself.
"If I could go back and change the past, be a little braver than I had, and bet against the odds, would I still be lost?" Athena sang, pouring her heart and soul into the song.
Ashlyn and Nini joined back with her. "Even if I woke up in my dreams, would there still be something I'm missing? If I had everything, would it mean anything . . ."
Athena stopped playing the piano to sing the final line by herself. "To me?"
The whole auditorium was silent. Athena felt the power of that song running through her veins. She turned her head to go and say something to Nini and Ashlyn, only to see Ricky standing there with a shocked face. Athena felt her heart race just under his gaze. The world around them turned into TV static. All there was left was the two of them staring at each other, almost as if their eyes were tow opposite ends of a magnet gravitating towards each other.
Ricky was confused. He had joined this musical with one mission: to get Nini back. However, as time went on, the more he started to think more and more about the girl named after a Goddess. Sure, Athena Blake was always on his mind. She was his best friend, of course. But Ricky started to think of her all the time. That wasn't normal for a best friend to do.
And Athena, well, she knew she was in deep water. She always had feelings for Ricky. They had been there since they were thirteen, when all of the girls around her would ask who she had a crush on and her immediate answer that came to mind was Ricky. Athena was slowly sinking into her feelings without anyone to pull her out. Ricky would never like her that way, and she knew it.
Oh, how wrong she was.
"Um," Ricky began quietly. "We're back."
"Sorry, what?" Athena inquired softly.
"Downstairs. Miss Jenn wants to see everyone in the bomb shelter."
Nobody said anything. Ricky let his gaze linger on Athena a little longer before he turned and walked out of the auditorium. Athena let out a breath she didn't know she was holding in and willed her heart to stop beating so fast.
"We should probably get downstairs," Nini finally announced.
Athena stood up from the bench and slung her backpack over her shoulder. "That was a beautiful song, Ashlyn. I would be glad to play it in the show."
Ashlyn gave her a small smile. Together, the three of them exited the auditorium and made their way to the bomb shelter. Once they got there, Athena offered a small smile to both Ashlyn and Nini before gravitating towards Violetta.
"Where have you been?" Violetta asked. "And since when were you friends with Nini?"
"I've been in the auditorium, and we started being friends, like, ten minutes ago," Athena answered. "It's a long story. I'll tell you later. Anyways, what's going on?"
"Miss Jenn just got a package. Look."
Athena looked to see Miss Jenn opening a box. She handed a bunch of bubblewrap to Carlos before pulling out something. Miss Jenn unwrapped more bubblewrap to reveal a box-shaped silver piece of metal. Athena craned her neck to see what it was, and her eyes widened in realization when she saw it.
Miss Jenn placed it gingerly in her hands. "Here it is, people."
"Is that a garage door opener?" Seb questioned.
"No, Seb. This is Gabriella's phone. From the film." Everyone let out gasps of excitement. "I plan on creating a time capsule display in our lobby. If they can have forty sports ball trophies, we deserve a little movie museum. Okay, people, enough dazzle. Fetch your scripts, please."
Athena placed her backpack on the floor and took out her script. As she walked towards the piano, the only thought on her mind was how Ricky had stared at her in the auditorium just mere moments before.
And, with butterflies fluttering throughout her stomach just thinking about it, she knew that she was in trouble.
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https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJ7EXmUJ/ . . . this hurts my entire soul
um anyways stream drivers license by miss olivia rodrigo
also HAPPY ONE YEAR OF THE ICONIC I LOVE YOU SCENE FROM HSMTMTS AKA THE CONFESSION THAT SHOOK THE NATION