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Dreams
by Starlight
By Staci Stallings
Chapter
5
"So, Cami are you
going to the play on Friday?" Lexie asked over her chalupa.
"I don't know,"
Camille said, her attention in the grasp of the formulas she was
memorizing for her test the next period. "I hadn't really thought
about it. Why?"
"Well, Nick and
I are going," Lexie said. It had been more than a month since
they had connected at the 'Oklahoma' play, and even though they
had spent practically every free moment together, Lexie still had
that wispy quality in her voice when she talked about him. "I
just thought you might want to go with us."
The formulas slipped
from her mind as she looked at Lexie, fighting not to let the hurt
find her voice. Being a third wheel was getting old. "I'm sure
you guys would have more fun without me."
Instantly Lexie's eyes
narrowed in confusion. "No we wouldn't. We want you to come."
She looked up passed Camille's shoulder and smiled like the dawn.
"Don't we, honey?"
"Don't we what?"
Nick asked, straddling the table bench next to Lexie and planting
a kiss on her forehead as she leaned into him.
"Want Camille to
come with us on Friday," Lexie said with the tiniest of giggles.
"Oh, sure."
Nick looked across the table as though he hadn't yet noticed that
Camille was sitting there. "There's always room for one more."
One more. Great.
Although Camille had grown accustomed to the written assignments
that Mrs. Allen came up with every other week, they had done nothing
to make her feel better about being on stage. She stood stage left
shifting from foot-to-foot as Mrs. Allen pushed the chalkboard away
in anticipation of the current day's torture session.
"Now, in the past
week, I've noticed that when I ask for pairs, most of you tend to
pair with the same person over and over again. I understand that,
but I think it's time to move out of your comfort zone a little
and start learning about the other people in the class."
Camille's fear shield
immediately flew up. No, comfort is good. Please. Comfort is
fine.
"Rather than try
to pair people myself, I've cut up numbers in this hat. You are
to take a number and then find the other person with that number,
and for today the two of you will be partners."
For one brief second
Camille thought she might be sick on her shoes, and at the moment
that looked like a really good idea. It would solve so many problems.
Mrs. Allen approached her with the hat, and with a short sigh, Camille
reached in and pulled out a number. It really didn't matter what
the number was. If it was anything other than Nick's number, it
meant trouble.
"What'd you get?"
Nick asked, holding his number out for her inspection. 7.
She unfolded her own.
3.
"Rats," Nick
said. "Well, see ya." And he walked off to find his match.
Camille looked around
as the trepidation rose in her chest. She didn't want to be number
3. She didn't want to be number anything. She wanted to leave. Now.
"Are you number
3?" a voice asked behind her.
"Yeah." Camille
turned and found herself gazing into a face framed by wispy brown
hair and sporting perfectly gorgeous cheekbones. Jaylon. Instantly
her gaze dropped to her clothes as her hand flew to her glasses
and then to her hair. "Umm, yeah. I am."
He smiled at her although
she saw only the beginning of that smile as her eyes wanted nothing
more than to force her feet to run.
"Okay," Mrs.
Allen said when the class had paired off. "Your exercise today
is eye-to-eye contact."
Camille squeezed her
eyes closed and fought to make herself disappear. She should've
paid more attention at that magic show she'd seen when she was five.
"I want you to face
each other and count to fifty very slowly-looking directly into
your partner's eyes the entire time."
Camille's gaze was fixed
on his shoes, and for the life of her she couldn't figure out how
she was ever going to get it to move again.
"It's okay,"
Jaylon said, tilting his head as if he were talking to a frightened
animal. "I don't bite."
For a brief second her
gaze traveled up to his as she laughed, but immediately it dropped
back down again. Trying not to think about what she was about to
do, she swallowed once and then forced her gaze back up to his as
she pushed her glasses up on her nose.
"Go," Mrs.
Allen said.
Camille bit her bottom
lip as she looked up and stared into his eyes-unable to look away
even though she wanted to. The blue eyes, the high cheekbones, the
wisps of hair-all met in perfect unison.
"Eight, nine, ten,"
Jaylon counted as his mouth moved in slow methodical motion.
She shifted her shoulders
struggling to break the spell his gaze cast over her, but there
was no breaking this spell.
"Fifteen, sixteen,"
he said as she forced the air into her lungs.
Never in her life had
she looked into anyone's eyes for a full minute. Most of the time
she did everything she could not to get caught in someone else's
sights. Just keep moving, keep your head down, and they won't notice
you're there. That was her motto. For most of the last ten years,
they were the words she had lived by. Until this moment.
"Twenty-seven, twenty-eight."
It was then that her
thoughts shifted from her own thoughts to those staring back at
her from his eyes. She wasn't sure what she had expected to find
in his eyes exactly-arrogance, cruelty, superiority-but not one
of that was hidden anywhere in the pools of blue. Staring back from
the depths of his eyes was the same fear and uneasiness that her
own spirit felt.
"Forty-two, forty-three,"
he said, and her ears caught on the softness of his voice.
It sounded like a breeze
brushing passed her, and she wondered how she had ever lived before
hearing his voice in this way.
"Forty-nine, fifty,"
he said, and their gazes held for one more moment.
"Good," Mrs.
Allen said, breaking the spell between them and jerking both gazes
across the stage.
Camille ran a damp palm
down the front of her jeans and readjusted her glasses.
"Now I want the
partners to find a place in the auditorium. Not necessarily on stage.
I'm going to give you five minutes. I want you to find a topic and
discuss it, but I want you to do it looking into each other's eyes
as much as possible."
Camille's toe made an
arc around her other foot. She still hadn't recovered from the first
exercise, and five minutes was far different than one.
"How about if we
go over here?" Jaylon asked, pointing to the stairs as he reached
out and touched her elbow.
His touch carried a jolt
of electricity with it, and she had to force herself to shrug and
walk to the stage steps nonchalantly. She sat on the third step
from the bottom, but when he followed her down, her knee tensed
so as not to touch his.
"You may begin,"
Mrs. Allen said.
"Any suggestions?"
he asked, tilting his head to the side to look at her.
"Umm, I don't know.
Classes?" she asked, feeling the pained look cross her face
as her hand tugged at the heel of her shoe.
"Okay," he
said and paused a beat. "Umm, you have to look at me, remember?"
"Oh, yeah."
She stumbled over the words as she forced her gaze back to his.
Looking back at her was
sincere interest. "So, what's your favorite class?"
She smiled as her entire
body instantly relaxed. "Math."
"Math?" he
asked in surprise.
"Yeah. Why? Is that
so hard to believe?"
"Well, no. I guess
not, but I hate math." He ran his fingers through his hair
to push it back out of his face. "I'm just surprised anybody
likes it."
"You hate it?"
she asked, forgetting this was supposed to be hard. "But it's
so fascinating."
"Fascinating? I
can think of another word for it," he said, wrinkling his nose.
"Oh, yeah? What's
that?"
"Torture."
She laughed and shook
her head. "No, now you're talking about drama."
"Huh?" he asked,
and her gaze dropped from his to her shoestrings.
With a shove she forced
her gaze back up although this time it didn't lock on his. Instead
it wandered around the stage and the auditorium at the other partners.
"How can you not
like drama?" he asked in genuine confusion. "Drama is
awesome."
Her eyebrows raised as
she looked back at him in open-eyed mortification. "Not when
you're me. It isn't."
His gaze immediately
reflected concern. "Why not when you're you?"
Mrs. Allen clapped her
hands, which almost sent Camille tumbling backward off the steps.
"I'd like everyone
to come back over to the seats again," Mrs. Allen said.
Camille scrambled up
from the steps and swiped at the dirt she was sure was on the back
of her jeans. She turned and walked down passed the front of the
stage feeling him right next to her back. Quickly she walked to
her normal seat in the third row, and it wasn't until she sat down
and realized Jaylon had taken his usual spot on the other side of
the auditorium that she began to breathe again.
"Good," Mrs.
Allen said as she sat down on the center of the stage. "Could
someone tell me what you learned from that exercise?"
"That looking at
anyone for five minutes is asking way too much," Mark said,
and several students laughed.
Mrs. Allen smiled. "Try
25 years."
"No, thanks,"
Mark said seriously.
"Okay," Mrs.
Allen said. "Anyone else?"
"That we hide who
we really are by not looking people in the eye," Jaylon said,
and Camille's gaze snapped to his profile.
"How so?" Mrs.
Allen asked.
Jaylon sat for one moment
during which Camille's heart felt like it might actually leap from
her chest. "Well, when you really look into someone else's
eyes, it's like there's nowhere to hide. It's like letting them
look into who you really are. It's pretty intimidating."
"Hmm. Intimidating?"
Mrs. Allen asked. "Interesting word choice. Anyone else?"
Several other students
spoke, but Camille didn't hear any of them. Jaylon Quinn thought
she was intimidating? He must be joking. There wasn't an intimidating
bone in her entire body.
When the bell rang, she
grabbed her things and walked next to Nick out the door.
"So, you're coming
with Lex and me to the play then?" Nick asked, pushing the
door open for her as the crush of students spun around them on the
other side.
"Yeah, I guess so."
Camille shrugged. "I might as well get it over with."
Nick leaned away surveying
her. "Well, don't get all excited on my part."
Camille laughed softly.
"It's not that. I just feel... unwanted when I'm around you
two. Not that you're doing it on purpose. I mean if I had my soulmate
with me, I probably wouldn't pay much attention to anyone else either."
"Are we that bad?"
he asked somewhat embarrassed.
She raised her eyebrows
at him, and he grinned.
"Okay. We are."
"It's okay,"
Camille said. "I understand."
They walked to the lockers
where Lexie was waiting, and Nick gave her a peck on the cheek.
"How was drama?"
Lexie asked.
"It was drama."
Nick leaned on the lockers next to Lexie. "So, what are you
doing now?"
"Going home, I guess,"
Lexie said, peeking passed the fringe of her eyelashes. "Why?"
"I don't know. I
was just wondering if you wanted to go over to Sal's with me."
"Sal's?" Lexie
asked as her eyes widened. "Now?"
"Yes, now,"
Nick said, laughing.
Camille busied herself
digging into the depths of her locker. Her mind traced over all
of her assignments for the evening.
"Well, yeah, it
sounds like fun," Lexie said, and Camille heard the lilt in
her voice.
"Great," Nick
said.
With a heave Camille
pulled her backpack to her shoulder. "I'll see you guys tomorrow."
"Aren't you coming
with us?" Nick asked obviously pulled up short by his lack
of foresight.
"No, somebody's
got to cook," Camille said with a brave smile. "You two
have fun." Without another word, she turned down the hallway
and trudged off.
As she climbed onto the
bus alone, she pictured them at Sal's-a place she had seen only
from the outside. Girls like her never got invited to Sal's; girls
like her never got invited anywhere. It wasn't that she was jealous.
She was happy for Lexie and for Nick. It just hurt that no one wanted
her like that.
She closed her eyes and
leaned back against the headrest, and immediately Jaylon's eyes
were there, staring back at her. Even in her imagination she couldn't
tear her gaze from his. Intense. That was a good word to describe
his eyes. Like piercing laser beams cutting right into her soul.
Annoyed with herself
she shook her head and opened her eyes, realizing with a start that
the next stop was hers. Daydreaming had never gotten her anywhere,
and it certainly wouldn't now-especially about something as impossible
as Jaylon Quinn being even vaguely interested in her. There was
a reason he was Jaylon Quinn and she was Camille Wright and it had
nothing to do with them ever getting together.
With determination she
pushed all the thoughts of his eyes out of her mind and descended
the bus steps. It was an exercise, and it was over. There was no
more to the story.
Jaylon was casually draped over Ariana in a booth at Sal's listening
to Seth expound on the torment of Chemistry when he saw Nick come
in. His arm slipped from Ariana's shoulders as his protective nature
jumped to the surface. He and Nick McGee had never gotten along-ever
since middle school when he had won the lead in a community play
he no longer even remembered the name of, but he'd never really
had a reason to hate the guy until now.
The instant he saw the
darkened skin and deep brown eyes of the girl Nick was obviously
with, Jaylon's claws came out.
What man in his right
mind would cheat on his girlfriend? Even if that girlfriend wore
funny glasses and had her head stuck in a book most of the time.
That didn't give him the right to flaunt someone else in her face.
That was just plain cruel.
"I thought so too,"
Ariana said and then punched Jaylon. "Didn't you?"
"Oh, yeah,"
Jaylon said with a shake of his head. "Of course I did."
The rest of the week Camille continued to remind herself that she
and Jaylon might as well be from different planets. Every time she
sat in drama and caught herself watching him without realizing she
was. Every time she closed her eyes and his were right there. Every
time her gaze traveled to his profile as they discussed plays. Every
time she reminded herself again, and every time, she would somehow
forget and find herself right back in that place she'd promised
herself she wouldn't go.
"So, you're coming
tonight, right?" Nick asked as he followed her out of the auditorium
on Friday.
She sighed. "Yeah,
I'm coming."
Nick walked a few steps
without saying anything. "Look, I wanted to tell you I'm really
sorry about the other day."
She looked at him in
confusion.
"When I didn't invite
you... I mean I meant to... it was a general invitation."
Her gaze fell to her
feet. "Don't worry about it. Sal's really isn't my kind of
place anyway."
"Oh, really?"
he asked. "So what is?"
She thought about that
for a moment. "Home." She transferred her attention from
her shoelaces to her locker. "Hey, Lex."
"Hey," Lexie
said, beaming at Nick. "So, you want us to come get you tonight,
Cami?"
"Oh, no," Camille
said instantly. "I'll just catch the bus."
"It's really no
trouble," Nick said, leaning a shoulder against the lockers.
"No, that's okay."
Camille forced a smile onto her face. "I'll just meet you there
at... seven?"
"You sure?"
Lexie asked, and the pity in her eyes stung the backs of Camille's.
"Yeah." She
slammed her locker door. "I'll see you there tonight."
Without a backward glance
she walked away as slowly as her pride would let her. They were
just being nice. That's part of it, she thought, be nice to the
best friend. But reality was they didn't want her around, and one
way or another she was determined to make herself as scarce as possible.
By the time she arrived at the theatre it was 7:30, and the place
was wall-to-wall people. Carefully she scanned the crowd searching
for them. She couldn't remember if they were each getting tickets
or if they were going to get hers. After several minutes of searching,
however, she gave up. If she didn't get into the theatre soon, she
would miss the opening. Quickly she went up to the window and purchased
one of the few remaining tickets.
Clutching her notebook
to her, she took one more look through the crowd in the lobby and
then gave up for good. Ticket in hand she went to the door and then
carefully descended the rose-colored carpet berating herself for
not pulling her hair back. It was always such a mess when she let
it down because she spent most of her time pushing it out of her
eyes anyway.
One day with it down
convinced her to pull it back the rest of the year. She pulled her
ticket closer and squinted in the growing darkness. G7. "G...
G." Carefully she descended the steps and then turned right
into row G and found seat seven, which was two seats from the side
curtain. "Excuse me. Excuse me." In annoyance she pushed
her hair over her ear again as she struggled to get passed the other
people already seated. "Sorry."
The lights faded to black
just as she slipped into her seat. Quietly she opened her notebook
and pulled the pen from behind her ear as a hazy blue light illuminated
the stage. She glanced down at the playbill resting on her notebook.
'My Fair Lady.'
Huh, must be something
about musicals, she thought with a shake of her head, and then she
focused her attention on the stage again.
Two rows back Jaylon watched her. He had seen her the second she
descended the aisle step next to his seat. He was sure it was her
although she looked totally different with her hair down around
her face like that. Unconsciously he sat forward in his seat to
get a better look at her as the memory of her eyes flitted through
his mind. They were eyes he wanted nothing more than to look into
again.
He surveyed the seats
on either side of her. One was full. One was not. He wondered where
her Romeo was. Had Nick stood her up? If she was his date, he would
never stand her up. It occurred to him that he should be watching
the play, but every time he tried, his attention would fall back
to the curve of her shoulders under the fall of light brown whisper
soft hair.
Math? Tonight she didn't
look like a math ace. Far from it. She looked like the quintessential
theatre patron-all creative new age. The flowing print skirt, the
non-fitted top, not one thing about her was harsh or even awkward
tonight. The audience around him laughed, and it pulled his attention
back to the stage just as the lights went up. Intermission already?
The people next to him stood, and he moved his knees. After they
were gone, he watched to see if she too would leave, but besides
allowing the people next to her out, she remained.
He wanted to go talk
to her-just to say hi, but something in his stomach said that would
be presumptuous. Nick was probably meeting her at intermission anyway.
But she didn't move,
didn't even look around. It looked like she was deeply engrossed
in something. It was then that he realized she was writing. Without
him telling them to, his legs stood, and he slid out of his row,
descended two steps, and slipped into hers. Fighting to appear casual
as he got to the seat next to her, he leaned on the seat in front
of him and almost fell over it when it leaned forward.
"Oh, excuse me,"
Camille said, looking up and swiping at her belongings on the ground
to get them out of his way. Then in mid-swipe she stopped and ever-so-slowly
her gaze traveled up his legs, passed his chest, to his eyes, a
move which sent his heart racing.
"Hi," he said
totally unsure of how she would take this intrusion.
"Oh." Her gaze
jumped from his eyes passed him into oblivion and then dropped.
"Hi. Umm. I didn't... umm, where..." She looked around
like an animal trapped in a cage. "Hi."
Careful not to throw
her into more confusion, he smiled again. "Umm, I saw you sitting
down here, and I thought I should at least come and say hello."
"Oh, okay. Hello."
She pushed her glasses up as her translucent locks fell over her
face. Quickly she pushed them behind her ear. "Umm, what are
you doing here?"
"Watching the play,"
he lied, flicking his head backward toward the stage.
"Oh, yeah, of course."
She pushed her glasses up again.
The people from her row
returned, and Jaylon suddenly found himself trapped as well.
"Mind if I sit down?"
he asked, pointing at the empty seat next to hers.
"Yeah," she
said instantly and then shook her head. "I mean no. I mean,
yes, you may."
"Cool." In
one motion he slipped passed her and into the seat. The other people
crossed in front of them and took their seats. "So, what's
that? Notes?"
"Umm, yeah."
She looked down at her notes, and then she looked around behind
them to the back of the theatre. "Where's Ariana?"
"Ari... oh,"
he said, realizing he hadn't even thought about his girlfriend for
more than an hour. "She had a family thing. So where's Nick?"
"Oh, I don't know.
We were supposed to meet, but we kind of had a mix up with the tickets
or the time or something. I couldn't find him when I got here."
"So you decided
to see the play by yourself?"
She shrugged, and his
mind went immediately to the light reflecting off the fall of hair
on her shoulders. "I figured since I was here, I might as well."
The lights began to dim
again, and with one more smile at her, Jaylon settled back into
the seat to watch the second act.
Camille hadn't breathed a single breath for more than an hour. Her
brain could handle nothing other than screaming, "Jaylon Quinn
is sitting right next to you!" She was more than sure that
her notes would make no sense at all when she got home, but she
kept writing anyway for fear that he would suspect she was having
as much trouble comprehending anything as she was.
In utter frustration
she nailed her gaze to the stage. If she didn't pay attention, she
was going to have to come back again tomorrow night to even have
a chance at writing a paper about this play. However, the only thing
her attention could focus on was the heat of his arm two inches
from hers. Balancing her notebook, keeping her attention on stage
and away from him was making her head swim. She put her head down
and pushed her glasses up, immediately swinging her annoying hair
out of her face when she straightened.
Nothing about the play
or life was making any sense. If she didn't get out of this auditorium
and away from him, she was quite sure the coroner could simply come
pick her up right there.
Applause erupted around
her, and her thoughts crashed back into the auditorium. She picked
up her hands to clap, a move, which sent her notebook sliding off
her knee. "Oh." She grabbed for it, which sent it flying
into the seat back in front of her and then crashing to the floor.
She bent down to retrieve it, but before it found the notebook,
her hand met up with Jaylon's. The applause around them froze as
their gazes met. She wanted to move, to say something, anything,
but nothing other than his eyes was getting through to her nervous
system.
"I'm sorry,"
he finally said as he reached down between them and pulled her notebook
off the floor. Carefully he wiped it off and handed it to her.
"It wasn't your
fault," she said utterly mesmerized. Then her attention caught
on the people standing behind him, waiting to get out. "Oh."
His gaze followed hers
up, and immediately he scrambled to his feet. "Sorry."
"No problem,"
the well-dressed lady said as she and the man with her slipped passed
them.
Once on his feet, Jaylon
leaned against the chair facing Camille's as his gaze flitted across
the auditorium. When Camille looked up at him, he was running his
fingers through the feathers of his hair, and her heart told her
that looking at him was a very bad idea.
"So," he said
in a voice that sounded like he was being strangled, "are you...
doing anything now?"
"Now?" she
asked, standing and pushing the pen behind her ear. "Umm, no,
I mean, yes. I mean I was going home."
"Home?" Jaylon
looked over her shoulder at the dwindling crowd. "Oh, well,
I was wondering if maybe you'd like to go get some ice cream or
something."
"Me?" she asked,
trying to shake herself awake knowing this must be a dream.
"Of course you,"
he said with the most amazingly soft smile she'd ever seen. "I
know a place just around the block. Come on."
As though it was the
most normal thing in the world, he took hold of her elbow and led
her out of the row. Once in the aisle he took her hand and helped
her up the stairs. It was an act of gallantry she was supremely
grateful for because without it, she would probably have tumbled
right back down the aisle and into the music pit.
On soft wings, he steered
her through the lobby and out into the neon lit night.
"My car's over here,"
he said as he routed her path through the departing theatre patrons.
When she reached the
car, her heart which was already well into cardiac arrest, stopped
completely. "Oh, you really don't have to do this. I mean I
really need to get home."
But he opened the passenger
door as though she hadn't spoken a word. Without saying anything,
he took her hand and helped her into the car. The soft gray leather
seat wrapped around her as a feeling of safety that she had never
known wound over her heart.
Like a rock star sliding
into his limo, he climbed in on his side and smiled at her for one
brief second before starting the car.
"So, what else do you do besides math and detective work?"
Jaylon asked, resting an arm over his side of the booth in a hopeless
attempt to look casual.
Camille shot him a confused
look and then laughed. "Oh, wink murder."
"Yeah," he
said as his heart lit up with a smile.
"That was fun."
She ducked her head. "I thought we were all done for."
"Yeah, but I wasn't
counting on who I was up against," he said, and then his face
fell as the memory of Nick standing in the line leaving the theatre
streaked through his mind. Hand-in-hand with the other girl, Nick
hadn't even looked like he was trying to hide it. With a shove Jaylon
pushed that image out of his mind and focused on Camille again.
"So are you planning on going to college next year?"
Her fingers drummed on
the table. "Yeah. If I can get in."
"In where?"
"Princeton."
"Princeton?"
he asked as his arm slid from the booth back. "Impressive,
and you're going to study..."
As if she had just floated
away from the table, she laid her chin in her hand. "Areospace
engineering."
Jaylon's eyes widened
in surprise. "Areospace engin...? Wow. That's... that's...
wow."
Camille shrugged, the
dream crashing out of her eyes. "If I can get in."
He regarded her for a
moment. "And you think that's going to be a problem?"
"I don't know. I've
got the grades and everything, but..."
"But?"
She glanced up and readjusted
her glasses before digging her spoon into her ice cream without
taking even a single bite of it. "I'm going to have to get
a lot of scholarships and stuff. That's why I really like Princeton.
They have this no-loan/grants only program for financially challenged
students, which is a lot better than the other schools."
"Like?"
"Cornell for one.
Or Yale. Or Columbia."
"Jeez, you don't
aim low. Do you?"
Slowly she seemed to
shrink over the bowl of ice cream. "As far as finances, Princeton's
my best bet. But then there's the problem of actually getting accepted
there. I mean I'm not really the most well-rounded person in the
world, and Mr. Marsh seems to think that's going to hurt my chances."
"But if your grades
are good..."
"Yeah, but they
look at a lot more stuff than just grades these days, and in those
categories, well..."
Jaylon's gaze dropped
to his own rapidly melting soft serve as the fights over Julliard
played through his mind.
"So, what about
you?" she asked, glancing at him. "I'm sure you've got
colleges falling all over you."
He laughed. "I wish.
UCLA seems interested, but I don't know. That's a long way to go
for school. Besides, I really want to go to Julliard."
"Talk about shooting
for the stars."
Ache screeched through
him as he shrugged. "Not that it'll ever happen."
Her confident face fell
in puzzlement. "Why not?"
"Oh, I don't know,
a lot of reasons. I guess."
"Name one."
His thoughts contorted
around the screaming matches in his brain. "My dad mostly.
He doesn't want me to go."
"Are you kidding?
Julliard is an incredible school. There are people who would kill
to go there."
"Yeah, well, it
may kill him if I go there."
"Why's that?"
"Oh, he basically
thinks it's a disgrace to have an actor for a son," Jaylon
said, immediately regretting the statement. He had never told anyone
about his father's harsh words.
Camille shook her head
as though that made no sense. "But he has to know how good
you are-up there on the stage."
His gaze slid across
the table and plummeted to the floor beyond. "He's never even
been to a performance."
"He's never...?
You're kidding me?" she asked in consternation. "Why not?"
"I don't know. He's
busy, I guess," Jaylon said. "It's no big deal really."
She swirled her ice cream
around in the bowl. "I can't imagine someone saying that I
couldn't do math anymore. They might as well cut out my heart."
"What with the sharp
tip of the compass?" he asked with a wry smile.
With a glance up, she
laughed. "Yeah. Something like that."
"How was your 'scream?"
he asked, pointing at her bowl with the tip of his spoon.
"Oh, good,"
she said, looking down at it. "Thanks. I really didn't expect
this."
"Well, it seemed
kind of pointless to waste a perfectly good Friday alone."
He shrugged. "It's nice to have a friend to share it with."
She shook her head, and
locks of hair cascaded down around her face. Off-handedly she pushed
them behind her ear. "Yeah, friends seem to be in short supply
these days."
His thoughts returned
to Nick and his "other" date, and his gaze fell to the
table. "Well, anytime you need a friend..." He looked
up and caught the disbelieving look in her eyes. "What?"
"I don't know."
She fidgeted with the zipper on her jacket. "You're just being
so nice to me."
"And that's a bad
thing?" he asked, not really sure where his misstep had come
but seeing it in her eyes just the same.
"No," she said
softly. "It's just that... well, we're not exactly from the
same crowd."
"But we're both
in drama."
"No, you're in drama,
I'm in a class I was forced into."
His forehead furrowed,
and then he understood. "Marsh."
She nodded. "He
said Princeton won't even look at me if I don't have something other
than academics on my record. Not to mention the scholarships I'm
going to miss out on." Her hair glinted over her shoulder as
she shrugged. "If I can just make it to the end of the semester,
I think I can drop out and take another computer class or something."
"Drop out? But the
production isn't until spring."
She smiled in self-deprecation.
"Trust me, no one wants me in the Spring Production-least of
all Mrs. Allen."
"She's cool."
"She hates me."
"No she doesn't,"
he said incredulously.
"Yes, she does.
Ever since that falling on my face incident the first week. Believe
me, I know when I'm out of my league with something."
"Just because something's
new, doesn't mean you won't get it," he said, wishing his gaze
could find something other than her hair or the soft curve of her
chin to concentrate on. "When I feel like I'm out of my league
with something, I always think about that saying about God putting
a light at your feet. He didn't say on your head so you can see
everything. Just at your feet so you can see the next step."
"Yeah? Well, I'm
liable to trip on every step there is."
He frowned. "You
don't mess up everything you try."
"Ha, then you don't
know me very well, do you?"
No, but I'd like to,
his brain said. "What does that mean?"
Abruptly she looked at
her watch. "I've got to go."
She stood, and he followed
her up, throwing a few bucks onto the table as he hurried to the
door to push it open for her.
"I asked you a question,"
he said as his steps quickened beside her.
"Thanks for the
ice cream," she said, walking right passed his car. "I'd
better get home."
"Where are you going?"
he asked, stopping by his car for a second too long.
"Don't worry. I'll
just take the bus," she said over her shoulder.
"The bus?"
he asked, forcing his confused feet to turn and follow her down
the sidewalk. "But I can take you home."
"No," she said
without ever slowing her steps. "I'm fine, but thanks."
The air brakes of the
bus exhaled at the curb as without even checking the bus number
on the city map, she climbed aboard, leaving Jaylon standing on
the curb, hands in the air, and confusion coursing through every
brain cell.
Even after the bus had
disappeared around the corner, he stood for another long moment
before turning as he replayed their conversation in his head. She
loved math. She hated drama, but she was willing to do something
she hated to be able to do something she loved. It made sense in
a way. He opened his car door, climbed behind the wheel, and sat,
staring after the long gone bus before he reached down to start
the car. It was then that he glanced into the passenger seat and
saw the notebook. Her notebook.
As though it might explode
if he even touched it, he picked it up and flipped on the interior
light. Something told him he shouldn't open it, but his hand wasn't
listening to his head. He turned the top page over.
"Fragile Glass"
It was the beginning
of the rough draft of her analysis of Laura from "The Glass
Menagerie."
"In a world of glass
houses, it may take only one, small stone to bring a life down,
to crumble it to the core, to shatter the hopes and the dreams of
someone with only hopes and dreams to live on. It may be a simple
laugh, hurled at someone at her most vulnerable moment. It may be
a comment, a thoughtless aside, meant to be funny but actually so
devastating that the object of it never really recovers. Or it could
be a parent's expectations set so high that no mere mortal could
ever reach them, and then hurled with every opportunity at the fragile
glass the child has constructed. Whatever it is, the stone seldom
matters to the person hurling it, but to the person on the receiving
end, it could be all it takes to destroy a house, painstakingly
constructed, and meant only to shelter a lost, hurting soul from
a cold, cruel world of stone throwers."
With tear-blurred vision,
Jaylon looked up into the neon-lit street, and his eyes fell closed
against her pain.
"It was so amazing," Lexie said, flopping on Camille's
bed the next evening. "Nick is just so great. We sat together
the whole play, and he held my hand, and then after it was over,
he took me to Sal's, and he sat on my side of the booth and put
his arm around me-like we were a real couple."
"You are a real
couple." Camille sat at her vanity table pulling a hairbrush
through her hair slowly as she examined her reflection in the mirror.
Dork. It was etched on every fiber of her. She was a dork, a geek.
Even sitting with Jaylon Quinn could never change that.
"No, I mean a real
couple," Lexie breathed on the bed. "And then when he
dropped me off at my house, he didn't get out of the car like he
usually does. He sat there for like a real long time, and for a
minute I thought maybe he was going to break up with me or something,
but then he asked me if I'd be his girlfriend. Just like that, 'Will
you be my girlfriend?' It was so romantic."
The hairbrush clattered
to the vanity table as Camille stood and walked over to the desk
absently. "You were already his girlfriend. Big deal."
"Yeah, but it wasn't
official until last night," Lexie said.
Camille shuffled through
her books looking for her notebook so she could get started on the
assignment. However, she shook her head as she reached the bottom
of the stack and still hadn't found it. Slowly she restacked her
books to the other side of the desk in confusion. Her notebook had
to be here somewhere. It wasn't like it could've gotten lost...
and then she remembered, and her heart jumped into her throat. Jaylon's
car. She hadn't gone back there after the whole ice cream fiasco.
Jaylon Quinn had her notebook.
The chair caught her
as her knees buckled. No, surely she couldn't have been that stupid.
With increasing urgency, she dug back through her books.
"He asked me out
to the Homecoming dance next weekend," Lexie said never losing
the wispiness of her voice. "I'm going to go downtown to get
me a dress... What's wrong?"
Camille slammed her bottom
drawer, opened the next one up, and then slammed it closed. "I
forgot a notebook."
"So, you'll get
it on Monday. Big deal," Lexie said with a shrug of her shoulders.
But it was a big deal.
It was a very big deal.
Chapter
6
From the moment she got
to school, Camille looked for him, rehearsing her speech until she
had it memorized. But she never saw him, not even once. However,
in reality, she knew that even if she did, she would never have
the nerve to go up and ask him for the notebook.
By the time she got to
Drama, her nerves were frazzled, and her head was pounding. Somehow
she had to get that notebook without humiliating herself in front
of Jaylon or Ariana or Nick.
"Hey, you're early,"
Nick said, sliding into the seat to her left, causing her heart
to skip a beat.
"Yeah." She
shifted in her own seat and tried to look like she was thoroughly
engrossed in her Physics homework. "I wanted to get some work
done on my drama paper."
Nick pointed to her notebook
scrawled with formulas. "That's not drama."
"Oh, no, it's not."
She shifted in her seat again just as her attention snagged on the
black jeans gliding down the center aisle. In frustration her eyes
fell closed, and then she forced them opened again in resignation.
"I couldn't think of where to start, so I gave up." She
smiled at Nick helplessly. "So, I figured I might as well make
some headway with this."
"So you won't have
to lug everything home tonight," he said with a knowing nod.
"Something like
that," she said, forcing herself not to glance into the front
row.
Nick dug into his jacket
pocket for his pen. "The play was good."
"Yeah, it was."
She wished she remembered more about it. Writing the paper without
her notes was not going to be easy. "Lexie liked it, too."
Immediately Nick's face
flushed.
"She told me you're
a couple now," Camille said, temporarily forgetting the notebook
problem. "Congratulations."
He ducked in embarrassment.
"Yeah, well."
"Yeah, well."
Camille leaned into him with a laugh. "Seems like girlfriends
must just be dropping from the sky these days."
With a shake of his head,
he laughed. "What can I say?"
For one, single second
she glanced passed Nick and found herself gazing right into Jaylon's
steel hard gaze. Her heart dropped like a rock as the smile slid
from her face. Jaylon turned back around to answer Ariana, who had
obviously just asked him something. Camille watched them for a moment
and then yanked her gaze back to her Physics book.
Concentrate on something
you can do-not on the impossible.
For most of class the only thing Jaylon could concentrate on for
more than a second or two was the two lovebirds across the room.
If he had only slightly less self-control he might actually have
walked up and knocked Nick's head off his shoulders; however, explaining
that to Ariana much less to Mrs. Allen would not be pleasant.
So he was resigned to
watching them from across the room, wishing the entire time that
he had the guts to tell Camille what a scum her boyfriend was.
He was supposed to be
critiquing Ariana's monologue, but sitting on the stage only inches
from her what he really wanted to do was hear the monologue Camille
was reading for Nick on the steps. She smiled at something Nick
said and ducked her head. Her braid swung gently over her shoulder,
and he remembered the way her hair fell over the sides of her face
the night of their ice cream social. The thought sent his heart
racing.
"Hey," Ariana
suddenly said in front of him. "I said, 'What do you think?'"
"What do I think?"
he asked, struggling to come back from his journey to the steps.
"About the monologue?"
"Oh, yeah."
He yanked his attention back to her. "It was great."
"Great?" Ariana
asked in horror. "What kind of critique is that?"
Jaylon shook his head
to clear it. "I'm sorry. Umm, it could use some work."
Ariana's eyes went hard
as he squirmed under her scrutiny. "That attitude's never going
to get you into Julliard."
"I'm sorry."
He shifted again. "I zoned out for a minute." His gaze
caught Camille's hand as it pushed up the edge of her glasses and
then fell to the other one holding the page of script. "It
won't happen again."
Just then the bell rang,
and he watched Nick offer Camille a hand up off the stairs.
"Play critiques
are due Wednesday," Mrs. Allen called over the clattering of
departing students. "We'll continue this tomorrow."
Jaylon scrambled up to
his feet.
"I finished my essay
for the Julliard application in history today," Ariana said
over her shoulder as Jaylon followed her off the stage, his attention
focused squarely on the braid already swaying up the center aisle.
"I thought you might like to read it... you know, to get some
ideas for yours."
"Okay," Jaylon
said, trying to map out a plan to get the notebook to Camille without
Nick or Ariana as an audience. He couldn't very well call her name
out as that would attract the attention of more than just Nick and
Ariana. Quickly he reached down and grabbed his things just as Camille
walked out the auditorium door.
"I can help you
with yours if you want," Ariana said, following him up the
aisle. "I mean if you need some inspiration."
He never heard the implication
in her voice. His hopes for getting the notebook to Camille today
evaporated as Ariana stuck right to his side.
"...Seth's dad's
house Halloween weekend," Ariana said. "He's going to
Vegas, so Seth has the house all to himself."
"Cool," Jaylon
said, hoping that was an appropriate answer.
When they crossed out
into the hallway, the braid was long gone.
It was an act of utter desperation. Camille knew her notebook had
gone down a permanent black hole that she didn't want to focus on
too much or her head might explode. The only other logical explanation
was to go rent the video. It wasn't a totally bad idea, except that
she had no idea how many little details could've been done differently
in the real, live version.
More than that, she felt
like she was cheating on the assignment. They were supposed to go
watch a play-not rent a movie. But then again, she reasoned as she
paid for the movie, she had gone to the play. Watching it again
on television was doing more work than was required.
However, not even she
was buying that. She hadn't seen anything passed the second act,
and she knew it. At home she popped the video in and grabbed another
notebook. This one she wouldn't let out of her sight.
Although she basically
remembered the first part, for the sake of her note taking, she
watched the whole thing. The cockney accents on the video were much
harsher than the ones the actors had used in the theatre, and it
took awhile for her ears to adjust to the new language.
As she watched, her options
of what to focus on for her paper widened. The voices, the characters,
the storyline. They were all possibilities. However, by the time
Higgins and Pickering were congratulating themselves on their great
accomplishment, Camille's stomach had formed a hard ball of disgust
for the two. Eliza, who had made it through the ball without falling
on her face once, was cowering in a dark corner as her benefactors
reveled in how preposterous the whole ordeal had been.
Camille's face grew hot
with the implication of their presumptuousness. She watched Eliza,
listening to them, and Camille's heart went out to her. She knew
all too well about being someone's charity project, and it really
didn't matter how well-intentioned the benefactor was. It was still
the deepest form of insult.
She watched the lady
the common ignorant flower girl had become, and somewhere, deep
down, she wished that she too could be turned into a perfect lady.
However, her heart plummeted to the depths of her soul when behind
Higgins, Eliza offered no protest to his final demand for his slippers.
As the credits rolled, Camille wanted to take Eliza and shake her.
Didn't she see, even after coming into herself, how beautiful she
was, how it no longer mattered what everyone else thought, how she
didn't have to be a doormat for Higgins to step on?
Higgins and his stupid
bet. He was above Eliza. He believed it, and so did she, and no
amount of coaching and teaching could ever change that. She was
who she was, he was who he was, and no matter what she did, in his
eyes, she would never be anything more than a common, ignorant flower
girl.
As the tape hit the end
and whirred into rewind mode, Camille's thoughts turned to Jaylon.
He was no different than Higgins. His place in the hierarchy of
the school was set, and so was hers. Just because he talked to her,
took her out for ice cream, drove her around in his car. It changed
nothing. In his eyes, she would always be the klutz with the funny
glasses. That hurt, but that was reality, and allowing herself to
believe anything else was an invitation to getting her heart shattered.
"All I have to do
is get through this semester, and then I'll never have to worry
about being Jaylon Quinn's charity case again."
Jaylon looked for her all day on Tuesday as the notebook burned
holes through his backpack and his brain. "In a world of glass
houses, it takes only one, small stone..."
He had read and reread
that paragraph over and over until it was a part of him now. More
than once his thoughts had carried him back to the day when she
had fallen on the stage, and he knew that he was as guilty as anyone
else on that stage for hurling a stone at her. That stone stung
his own spirit now as he recalled that the one person who didn't
laugh was not him, but Nick.
In a haze of her words,
he made his way through the day, now seeing even the smallest encounter
with his fellow students in a different light. Without bothering
to go to his locker after sixth period, he raced down the hallway
to the auditorium. Maybe he could catch her there before Ariana
or Nick had a chance to change out their books. He yanked the heavy
door open and stepped into the cool, darkness of the auditorium.
That room had a way of wrapping around him like a favorite, old
blanket.
Carefully he searched
the seats as he strode down the aisle. Then just off to the right,
he caught her movement, and he smiled. So she was here. His steps
quickened as he walked down the slight incline to where she sat.
However, when he reached her chair, she didn't look up like he'd
expected her to. Noise pulled his attention to the door, and he
knew he had only a few seconds.
"Camille,"
he said, laying a soft hand on the chair arm beside her and sitting
on his heels in the aisle by her seat.
Her pencil streaked across
the page at the first sound of his voice, and he laughed as his
heart raced out ahead of him.
"Oh, my gosh."
She laid a hand over her chest before she flipped the pencil over
and erased the errant mark. "You scared me to death."
"Sorry," he
said, liking how close his hand was to the heat of her arm. The
clattering of students entering the auditorium brought his attention
back to his mission. Quickly he dug in his backpack and pulled out
the notebook. "I... umm, you left this... in my car... the
other night." Fighting to keep his hand from shaking as he
held the notebook out to her, he glanced at her only once as she
accepted it. "Sorry, I didn't get it back to you sooner."
"Oh, that's okay."
She pushed up her glasses as she laid the notebook on top of her
other work. "Umm, thanks for returning it."
"No problem,"
he said just as he looked up and saw Ariana breeze in through the
door. In the next breath he realized Nick was already halfway down
her row on the other side of her seat. "I'll see ya later."
On unsteady legs he stood as Ariana met him in the center of the
aisle. "Hey, Babe."
Guilt or something very
much like it caused him to reach out to Ariana and wind his arm
through hers. Without another glance at Camille, he guided Ariana
the rest of the way down the aisle to the front row although he
could feel her fury in the ice of the glance she shot back in Camille's
direction.
"What were you doing
talking to super freak?" she asked in what sounded to him like
a stage whisper-loud enough for the back row to hear.
"She just said,
'Hi,'" he said with a shrug. "I couldn't very well just
walk passed her." The stone was out of his hand before he realized
it was there, and immediately his spirit regretted it.
"Huh," Ariana
said, shaking her head in annoyance. "I would have."
Jaylon watched her take
her seat, and then he fell into the seat next to her before busying
himself with pulling out his things. "That doesn't surprise
me."
"What did he want?" Nick asked, the anger just underneath
his tone as they exited the auditorium in perfect lockstep with
each other.
"Oh, nothing, he
dropped a book by my chair," Camille said. "I was just
giving it back to him." The heat in her ears made them pound.
Just thinking about Jaylon's mesmerizing presence was enough to
send her sanity flitting away from her.
"How's your paper
coming?" Nick asked, shifting to a new topic while Camille's
mind was left stuck on the old one.
"Paper?"
"The critique,"
Nick said with a puzzled look furrowing across his forehead. "My
Fair Lady?"
"Oh, that paper,"
she said as though the wheels of her brain had just unlocked. "Pretty
good. How's yours?"
"Great. I'm doing
it on 'enry 'iggins," Nick said perfectly replicating the cockney
accent of Eliza Dolittle.
"What about him?"
Camille asked as her brain finally moved from the auditorium seat
and Jaylon's gaze to her present conversation with Nick.
"About how his character
evolved-you know, rising action, falling action."
"Evolved?"
Camille's eyebrows raised in disbelief. "He didn't evolve.
At the end he was still as condescending as he was at the beginning."
"No, he wasn't."
"Yes, he was. He
expected Eliza to go get his slippers like a little puppy dog. He
never even considered her feelings. Not once."
"But he helped her.
He was glad she was there."
"No, he wasn't,"
Camille said, her thoughts crashing into Jaylon's eyes again. "He
wasn't helping her for her. He was helping her for himself."
Nick shook his head.
"What difference does that make? He still helped her."
Camille swung her head
to the side in annoyance. "Maybe she didn't want his help."
"Of course she did.
She agreed."
"Oh, yeah, like
she had a choice."
They walked several more
paces in stony silence.
"Well, what are
you doing your paper on?" Nick finally asked again.
"Eliza, and how
she put way too much emphasis on what everyone else thought."
"What does that
mean?"
"It means, she was
just fine before Higgins came along and she would've been just fine
without him. Better probably."
"But she would've
stayed a flower girl forever if he hadn't offered to help her,"
Nick protested. "She needed someone to get her out of the gutter,
to show her what she could do."
"You don't pick
someone out of the gutter as an experiment."
"Higgins was just
trying to prove his point."
"And he used Eliza
to do it."
They walked up to the
lockers, and Camille yanked hers open. "People have feelings,
Nick. It doesn't matter if they're rich people and can speak correctly
or if they think they come from the gutter. They still have feelings."
"What's up?"
Lexie asked, looking from one to the other as Nick planted a kiss
on her cheek.
"Nick's doing his
paper on how wonderful Higgins was," Camille said not trying
to hide the contempt in her voice.
"I didn't say he
was wonderful," Nick protested. "I said he evolved."
"Well, apparently
you need to look up the word 'evolved.'" Camille yanked her
books out and then swung her backpack to her shoulder.
Lexie looked from Nick
to Camille as Camille started down the hall and then turned. "Are
you coming or not?"
With one helpless look
at Nick, Lexie took off after her friend.
"What was that about?"
Lexie asked as they walked outside and rounded the corner to the
bus stop.
"He doesn't get
how condescending and elitist Higgins was," Camille said, anger
searing through her voice.
"Nick?" Lexie
asked in disbelief. "Nick is the most kind-hearted person I
know."
"Yeah, kind-hearted
enough to make sure no one is left out," Camille said as the
humiliation she felt at being Jaylon's charity case transferred
itself to Nick. "Got to be sure everyone is included."
"What's wrong with
that?" Lexie asked.
"Nothing,"
Camille said with a vehement shake of her head. "Nothing's
wrong with that, unless that person would rather not be helped."
As she lay in bed with the light on later, the humiliation ran over
her again like rainwater. Her paper was far from complete. It hurt
too much to write. Eliza was a spineless, helpless guttersnipe just
like Higgins said. If Camille could just write about that without
all of her own feelings coming out, she would be fine. However,
every time she thought about Eliza, she saw herself-hanging back,
hoping no one would notice that she wasn't participating, wishing
that it all didn't feel like it was ripping her soul to shreds.
Of course, there had
always been those teachers who thought they were helping by pulling
her into the middle of whatever was going on. They weren't helping.
How could they be helping if every time she tried, she fell on her
face? It was she who had to deal with the cruel comments in the
dressing rooms. It was she who had to endure the annoyance of her
classmates when she was reluctantly chosen last for every team.
It was she who had to live with knowing she would never aspire to
be even average in any field that didn't somehow incorporate numbers.
No, it was she, not they
who had to live her life, and all she wanted to do was stay as far
away from anything bearing humiliation as possible. They didn't
understand. They thought anyone could do it. But they were wrong,
and she knew it. No amount of coaching could raise a flower girl
up if that flower girl was meant to stay a flower girl.
By the time she got to drama Wednesday, she was in knots. Her paper
still wasn't completed, and writing even a sentence was hopeless.
Everything she wrote made far too much sense and yet writing it
felt like admitting her own failure in life.
"Where were you
at lunch?" Nick asked, sliding into the seat next to her.
"Trying to get my
homework done," Camille said. It wasn't a total lie. She had
been working on her paper, but it didn't come close to the real
reason she had chosen not to go to the cafeteria with him and Lexie.
"We missed you."
He sat, staring at her for a long moment. "Listen, I wanted
to say I was sorry about yesterday. I went back last night and looked
over my notes, and I guess I kind of see what you mean."
"No," she said,
thankful for the darkened theatre. "I shouldn't have jumped
all over you about it. I was just stressing out about my paper,
and I kind of took it out on you. I shouldn't have. I'm sorry."
"I understand."
He smiled and extended his hand. "Truce?"
"Truce."
When the papers were passed down the aisle, Camille made sure Nick
wasn't watching as she passed them on. For some reason explaining
why she hadn't written the paper seemed even worse than not writing
it.
"Today we're going
to work on voice expression," Mrs. Allen said as she accepted
the papers from the student in the front row. "This it?"
She held up the papers, and Camille nodded as though the question
was meant explicitly for her. "Remember you need two by semester's
end. Some of you need to get on the ball."
Mrs. Allen laid the papers
on the stage. "Now, what I want you to do is open in your books
to page 72. There are three different mini-scripts to choose from.
I want you to choose one, and then with a partner, you are to sit
back-to-back and act out the script using only your voice for expression.
Okay, that's the assignment, spread out."
Without questioning their
partnership, Camille and Nick stood.
"Want to go on stage?"
he asked.
Camille shrugged her
acceptance. Together they climbed the steps and sat down side-by-side
to decide what reading they were going to tackle.
"I like this third
one," Nick said, pointing to the last reading after a few minutes.
Without bothering to
read through it, she agreed. Slowly they slid around each other
until she felt the light touch of his back on hers. It was a strange
sensation. She slipped her book into her lap and closed her eyes
to get herself together. However, when she opened them again, she
found herself staring right at Jaylon who sat just across the stage
from her. Instantly she ducked her head and shifted uncomfortably.
Don't think about him, just read.
"You're first,"
Nick said when the silence behind him had stretched on too long.
"Oh, sorry."
She swallowed and focused her attention on the book. "Umm,
I didn't ask you to do it for me, I asked you to help."
"I was helping,"
Nick said from behind her.
Her jaw set unconsciously.
"No, you weren't. You weren't helping. You were doing. There's
a difference."
"There's not a difference.
Here, hold this. Now, we just need to glue this down." He paused
two beats. "Hold it still."
"I am holding it
still."
"No, you're not."
"Yes, I am,'"
Camille said vehemently. "I'm doing the best I can."
"Well, that's not
good enough," Nick said totally into the scripted fight.
Camille opened her mouth
to deliver the next line, but the tears in her throat drowned out
the words. She fought to read the words, but the blur in her eyes
made that impossible. Desperately she blinked them back, struggling
to remember that this was only a script.
"Camille?"
Nick finally asked, turning slightly. "It's your line."
"You're right,"
she finally said, sniffling softly. "It's not good enough,
and it never will be."
Jaylon watched her face crumple behind her glasses. He knew about
readings that hit too close to the truth. It was always a threat
on a cold read. As he continued to read his own script, he wondered
which one they were doing and what made the tears come to her eyes.
"I just want to
make sure we understand each other," Ariana said from behind
him.
His gaze reached across
the stage to Camille. "Yeah, we understand each other perfectly."
"Sorry about before," Nick said, laying a gentle hand
on Camille's back as they started back up the center aisle after
the bell had rung. "I was just play-acting. You know?"
"I know," she
said from behind the mask she had clamped down over the tears. "It's
okay. I should've read the dumb thing before we started."
"Well, next time
I'm opting for the love scene instead."
They made their way out
into the brightly lit hallway as Camille laughed. "I think
we'd better warn Lexie before we start doing any love scenes together."
"You've got a point
there," Nick said with a laugh. "By the way, you know
Lexie's birthday's next month. I was wondering if you're planning
on doing anything for it."
"Anything? Like
what? Make a cake?"
"No, I was thinking
more along the lines of a party... or maybe a double date."
"Oh, I don't know,"
Camille said, trying to make it sound light and cheerful although
the suggestion sounded more like a death sentence. "Lexie's
not much on parties, and I don't know of anyone who'd want to take
me out."
Nick took a half-step
back and looked at her. "You know, I think we're going to have
to find somebody for you."
"Oh, no," Camille
said in horror. "Don't you go getting any ideas."
"What, you think
you're the only one who can play matchmaker?"
"Matchmaker?"
Lexie asked as they walked up. "For Camille? Good luck."
Camille knew the comment
was a joke, but somehow it didn't feel like one.
"Why not?"
Nick asked. "She can't be any harder to fix up than Eliza was."
"Oh, Lord,"
Camille said in exasperation. "Let's not go there."
"What do you think,
Lex? How about Zac?"
"No," Lexie
said, appraising Camille. "Better go a little slower than that."
"Slower. Okay. How
about Oren?"
"I said slow, not
dead."
"Point taken,"
Nick said. "What about Barry?"
"I don't know,"
Lexie said, surveying Camille carefully.
"How about nobody,"
Camille said as she slammed her locker for punctuation. "Look,
I'm not interested. Okay? I'm not looking, and I do not want to
be set up. Now, I'm going home because I have a very important date
with a Calculus book." She slapped her hand on the side of
the book. "So if you'll excuse me."
They watched her walk
down the hallway.
Nick shook his head.
"She needs a date."
Find out what
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