Chapter 27
Selena
It was finally here. The day of the second auditions, and I couldn’t be more nervous. My fingers were shaking as I stuffed my bus pass into my bag and got off at the HHU campus.
Aisha had been texting me nonstop to remind me to come. Honestly, if she hadn’t, I might have chickened out a few times. But I was here, and I could see her waving from outside the drama building, so there was no escape.
I trudged up the path toward her, quiet and tense with nerves.
“Yay, you’re early. We can run lines again,” Aisha said.
“Run lines?” I repeated, distracted.
“Yeah, run lines, remember? That’s what the pros call it. You need to get with the lingo. I made you a flash card.” Aisha reached into her bag and removed a small purple index card with neat blue writing filling one side.
“You didn’t make this, seriously?”
“Oh, I made a lot more than that. Flash cards are my thing,” Aisha said with a smile as she opened the door to the building.
I laughed. She had managed to distract me from my nerves, that much was true.
“I love it.”
We walked down the hallway, following the signs leading us toward the second auditions. It was a whole lot quieter today than it had been the first day. The nerves came roaring back when we stepped into the waiting room. After signing in, we sat to wait, and Aisha took the play from her bag.
“Did you read it yet?”
“I started it, but I bet you’re already done.”
She smiled. “You know it. Which female role do you like?”
“Tell me which one you like…”
“Are you trying to copy my homework?” Aisha teased.
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Okay, so out of the female characters, there are some really good ones. Beatrice. She’s the feisty one.
She doesn’t want to get married, ever. She fights for her cousin…
Hero. Hero is the victim of the story, kind of.
She’s a good girl, she does everything society asks of her, but she’s still accused of infidelity and scorned.
Then there’s Margaret and Ursula, who are Hero’s ladies-in-waiting and have a hand in all the drama. ”
“Those all sound like way-too-big roles. Maybe I could be Margaret.”
“She’s a flirt, she likes the boys, and unintentionally is part of something bad happening to Hero. I think you should go for Hero,” Aisha continued.
I snorted. “I’m no good girl. Sweet and innocent and all of that isn’t me. I’m definitely not a good enough actress to pull that off.”
Aisha laughed. “That’s why it’s called acting, duh. Anyway, the director will decide who she wants for which parts, so I guess we don’t really have a say anyway.”
“Yeah, probably not. I still might be able to snag housemaiden number six or something,” I sighed.
An hour later, Aisha was gone from the waiting room, and I was the last person called in. The nerves had grown so much as I’d sat there waiting, that I’d nearly gotten up and left a million times. Just when I’d been considering going again, they called me.
The second audition room was smaller, and that was the first thing that tightened my stomach.
Before, there had at least been space between me and the panel, enough distance that I could pretend they weren’t really seeing me, not properly, not in a way that mattered.
Now, there was nowhere to hide. The table felt closer, the room more enclosed, and every pair of eyes that lifted toward me as I stepped inside seemed sharper somehow, more deliberate.
“Selena Carmichael?” Director Cho asked, glancing up from her notes.
Her voice sounded calm, neutral, giving nothing away.
“Yes,” I said, forcing myself to take a few steps forward, even though my instinct was to hover near the door and make a run for it if things went badly.
“Come in. We’ll try a few different reads today.”
There was no chair this time. Just open space in the middle of the room, like a stage stripped down to its barest form. I moved into it anyway, gripping the script they’d handed me a little too tightly, as if the paper itself might steady me.
“Let’s start with Hero,” Cho said. “Act four. The wedding scene.”
I glanced down at the page, my throat already tightening.
Hero was gentle, soft-spoken—and then suddenly, brutally exposed. Accused. Shattered in front of everyone. Perfect.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
I nodded, though I wasn’t ready at all.
I took a breath, opened my mouth— and nothing came out.
Heat crept up the back of my neck, my fingers tightening around the edges of the script as I stared down at the words, willing them to settle into something I could actually say.
“Sorry,” I muttered. “Just—one second.”
No one rushed me or tried to fill the silence.
They just waited, which somehow made it worse.
I swallowed, forcing another breath into my lungs.
It’s just reading. Just words. Just a room. No one here knows anything about you. They don’t know.
I lifted my head again, and this time, I started.
“I talked with no man at that hour, my lord—”
The line came out too subdued, too uncertain, and I felt it immediately, the wrongness of it, like wearing something that didn’t quite fit. My instinct was to stop, to apologize, to ask to start again before I made it worse.
But something in me resisted. No. If I was going to fail, I was at least going to finish.
I steadied myself, forced my shoulders back just a fraction, and tried again, letting the words settle before I spoke.
“I talked with no man at that hour, my lord.”
Better. Still quiet, but steadier, less fragile.
I made myself look up this time, meeting their eyes instead of hiding behind the page.
“They know that do accuse me. I know none.”
My voice caught slightly, not on purpose, but it worked, because suddenly I wasn’t thinking about how I sounded anymore. I wasn’t trying to perform it right.
I was reacting.
Being watched. Being doubted. Being told I was something I wasn’t.
The room blurred at the edges.
For a moment, I wasn’t Selena standing in an audition room, trying not to mess up.
I was her.
And when I finished, the silence that followed felt heavier than anything I’d said.
Director Cho watched me, her expression thoughtful.
“Again,” she said finally. “But this time—don’t defend yourself.”
I blinked. “What?”
“You’re not arguing innocence,” she clarified. “You’re realizing what’s happening to you.”
I nodded slowly, glancing back down at the page, but my hands had steadied now, the tremor gone, or at least quieter.
When I started again, the words felt different in my mouth.
“I talked with no man at that hour, my lord.”
Softer. Not pleading, more confused. A woman slowly realizing that everything had changed for her without her knowledge.
“They know that do accuse me. I know none.”
My voice dipped instead of rising, the strength draining out of it rather than building, as if something inside me was folding in on itself.
This time, I didn’t look at them. I let my gaze drift somewhere past the table, unfocused, like I couldn’t quite see what was in front of me anymore.
“Refuse me, hate me, torture me to death!”
That line had come out harder than I’d expected. Because for a second, it wasn’t acting at all.
I let the silence sit after the last word, didn’t rush to fill it, didn’t try to fix it.
“Good,” Cho said quietly.
The word broke whatever spell had settled over me, and suddenly I was back in the room again, aware of my hands, my breathing, the weight of their attention.
“Let’s move on. Beatrice.”
I nearly laughed.
Beatrice was everything Hero wasn’t—sharp, quick, untouchable, the kind of girl who never let anyone see her hesitate.
The assistant handed me another page.
I skimmed it, my confidence dipping again as I read the fast, biting lines.
“You can take a moment,” Cho said.
I nodded, reading it again, trying to find the rhythm.
Then I raised my head and started.
“A dear happiness to women.”
The line slipped out in a wry tone, before I could overthink it, and something in it felt… right. I could feel Beatrice, her humor, her view of men and the world. I was in it.
I kept reading, relishing each new line more than the last. I tilted my head, let the edge of a smile curl into my voice.
“I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.”
The words came faster now, sharper, easier to sit in. I found myself moving without thinking, a small shift forward, my hands lifting slightly as I spoke.
It wasn’t polished, and it definitely wasn’t perfect, but it felt alive in a way the first attempt hadn’t.
I wasn’t trying to get it right.
I was just saying it.
“You always end with a jade’s trick: I know you of old.”
The last line landed cleanly, my breath still steady. Silence followed.
Director Cho leaned back slightly, studying me. “Let’s try one more,” she continued. “Margaret. Something lighter.”
I took the next set of pages, glancing over them. Margaret was easier, less guarded, less… heavy.
And maybe that was just the point. When I started this time, I didn’t force it. The part didn’t make me feel as self-conscious or awkward.
I let the lines come naturally, let myself relax into them, let a smile tug at my mouth without questioning it.
My voice lifted, softened, and for the first time, I wasn’t thinking about how I looked or how I sounded or whether they liked me.
I just… existed in it.
And when I finished, I didn’t rush to fill the silence.
I just stood there, breathing, waiting.
Director Cho exchanged a glance with the others, then nodded slowly.
“Thank you, Selena.”
I nodded back, already half turning toward the door, bracing myself for the polite dismissal.
“Wait.”
I stopped.
Turned back.
Cho leaned forward, her gaze steady.
“You don’t appear to have any training,” she started.
I winced internally.
“But you adapt quickly, and when you trust your instincts…” She paused, a faint, almost satisfied smile touching her lips. “You’re a natural.”
For a second, I just stared at her.
Not quite believing I’d heard that right.
“Work on trusting that,” she finished. “We’ll be in touch.”
“Okay,” I said, my voice quieter than I’d intended, but steady.
When I stepped back into the hallway, the noise hit me all at once: voices, footsteps, people moving past like nothing had just happened.
Aisha jumped up the second she saw me. “Well?” she demanded.
I blinked at her, still a little dazed. “I think,” I said, “I didn’t completely embarrass myself.”
Aisha gasped. “Oh my God, that means you were amazing.”
“That’s an optimistic interpretation,” I protested.
I let out a small laugh, shaking my head as we walked.
But when we left the building, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling settling in my chest.
For once, it didn’t feel like pretending.
It felt like finding something.
And I wasn’t sure yet what it meant, but the feeling scared me…
Because I knew I wanted more of it.