Chapter 30
Selena
The next day I went to my classes, then met Aisha after lunch to go to the drama department. They had asked everyone who’d had a second audition to go in for a meeting.
“I’m so nervous.” Aisha pushed her thick, black-framed glasses up her nose and chewed her lip.
“There’s no point, and besides, you’re already going to be an amazing doctor, this is just for fun.”
“Right, totally, and we’ll just have put ourselves through this terror for nothing. Sounds good.” She grimaced and made me laugh.
We got to the meeting room and snagged two seats. After a while, the director came in, and everyone quieted down.
“First of all, I want to thank you all for bearing with us, following along with this process, and trying your best. We have roles assigned and can take questions from there.”
She started to call out roles in the play, and we listened closely.
Half an hour later, when we’d gone through all the lighting, crew, costumes, and makeup roles, Aisha’s name was called. She was housemaiden number three. She laughed and gripped my hand, smiling.
“Honestly, that’s about all I can manage.”
“It’s amazing! I’m proud of you,” I told her. I didn’t voice my crippling fear that I was going to be the only person in the room who hadn’t gotten any part at all.
The director continued and then started on the leads.
“For Benedick, we will have Walter Chen.”
A round of applause went up.
“For Claudio, Lincon James.”
Clapping continued.
“Now, our leading ladies. For Hero, Selena Carmichael, and Beatrice…”
I didn’t hear anything past my name. Aisha shook my arm so hard I nearly fell off the chair. The people around me turned to congratulate me as I stared at the director in shock.
“I told you! You’re great at this. This is your role, I can feel it.” Aisha was so happy, dancing around me to speak to others as the director dismissed everyone.
Hero. The one from the play who Aisha had described as sweet and innocent. The one who is wronged. I found myself getting to my feet and chasing after the director before I could stop myself.
“Miss Cho!”
She turned around and smiled at me. “Yes, Selena? I hope you’re as excited as we are to start working on this together. I think you’re going to make a fabulous Hero.”
“That’s just the problem, though. I don’t think I can be Hero. I think it’s a miscast,” I managed to get out. How could I explain to her that she could ruin her entire play by putting me in that sweet and innocent role? The girl whose false ruination fuels the entire play.
“And why is that?”
“Hero is…” I cast about for a delicate way to say what I wanted and couldn’t find one.
“Pure, and virginal. She is praised for being gentle and kind. A feminine ideal. That’s not me.
” A vivid flashback of getting myself off in the gym last night, with Brody on the phone, hit me. Yup. Definitely not pure and virginal.
“It’s called acting, Selena, dear. We can’t just cast people to play themselves.”
“I know! I know that, but I worry it won’t come off as authentic. I-I don’t have the best reputation around here.” I cut myself off, panic and guilt and a horrible, creeping shame moving through me.
“Selena. We chose you to be Hero because we saw some beautiful vulnerability in you. You weren’t scared to let it show.
You embodied the spirit of Hero. Yes, she’s innocent and naive in the beginning, but she’s also strong.
Strong vulnerability. Sacred femininity, delicate but standing tall.
I think you can show all of that better than anyone else who auditioned.
I know it’s a big role, so it’s easy to be intimidated by it, but I really think you could make this special. ”
“I-I might let you down,” I confessed. “I might ruin it for everyone.”
Director Cho took my hand and squeezed it gently. “It’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
She patted my hand and walked away.
I could run after her. I could insist. But I didn’t want to. Deep down, under the fear, I hoped she was right. I wanted to try.
“We have to celebrate!” Aisha ran up the hall toward me. “What should we do?”
“Hmm, go to the coffee shop?”
“How’s that celebrating? Oh! I know… the old movie theater in town is showing Rocky Horror. Let’s get dressed up and go!”
I thought of Brody and his “rules” about going out. What the hell could he even say about the movies?
“Okay, sure, that’ll be fun. Let’s go. Should we invite some other girls?”
“I’ll ask Lily and Eve. You ask Winter, okay? My friend works there; she can always get us tickets.”
“Okay, sounds like a plan.”
The movie theater was all decorated in a Rocky Horror theme. Now that I had my clothes back, I could easily throw together an appropriate outfit.
Aisha and Lily looked stunning dressed up in corsets and shorts, with dark-red lips. Winter and Eve were formidably gorgeous in their costumes as well.
We laughed and sang along to the songs, and when we left, I felt light and carefree.
It was a nice feeling. I didn’t deserve friendship from most of these girls, and yet, they gave it freely.
The only positive I could take out of what had happened to me was that the mean-girl blinders had been ripped away from me forever.
I’d understood in the moment when these kind, smart women had worried about me, even though I’d had no right to their concern, how amazing they were, and how pathetic I’d been.
My world had reforged in that crucible of melted skin and cruel laughter.
Now, I was messy and chaotic, just clawing my way through the world, biting and scratching and just trying to survive. But I understood right and wrong now. I got it. What others had learned as children, I’d taken nearly twenty years to understand.
“That was amazing,” Aisha sighed and glanced at her watch. “It’s too early to go home when we’re celebrating!”
“The movie’s over, though,” I told her. I longed to go home and check if I had any messages in private.
The last I’d heard from Brody was his announcement that he was coming home.
That had been over twenty-four hours ago.
It had been crickets since. Considering what had happened between us, video or no video, I was all tangled up in knots when I thought about him.
I hadn’t felt like this about a guy in… maybe forever.
“Let’s go to a bar!” Eve said as she checked her phone. “I happen to know that the some of the Hellions are up the street.”
“You have a fake ID?” I wondered.
“I’m twenty-one already,” she laughed.
“Oh, okay. Me, too.” I couldn’t quite get my head around the fact that since I’d been gone, time had kept passing here. Now, my friends were juniors and twenty-one. I was twenty-one, too, but not a junior, thanks to doing nothing academic at all in California.
“Sooooo, let’s go then!”
“Let’s go,” Lily chimed in. “It’ll be fun.”
“You want to see Cayden lose his mind when he sees you in that outfit, right?” I teased her.
She laughed, her freckled cheeks warming up. “I’m sure he won’t even notice.”
I smiled. “Yeah, right. I highly expect you all to be carried off by your boyfriends almost as soon as we get there.” I linked my arm with Aisha’s.
“We’ll be the last women standing.”
“Okay, we can go, I won’t leave you… because I don’t have a boyfriend.” She sighed.
She was so happy and positive, I didn’t want to send her home already when she wanted to celebrate.
We made our way along the darkened streets, singing songs from the movie together, and got to the bar after a few minutes. It was a small hole-in-the-wall place. As “dive bar” as central Hade Harbor could get.
We went inside. Clearly, we weren’t the only ones who had come here after the movie. There were fishnets and latex bodysuits all over the place.
The hockey players were near the back of the bar, playing pool.
“What the hell is this outfit?” Beckett demanded as soon as he saw Eve, abandoning his shot and setting the pool cue down.
She walked toward him, and he picked her up, right off the floor.
She giggled as he held her up in front of him, as if inspecting her.
“Where have you been?”
“The movies, I told you.” She giggled again.
Cayden had made his way immediately to Lily, as I’d already known he would.
He looked her up and down in a slow, deliberate way. Aisha made a face and fanned herself. I knew what she meant. The heat coming off the two of them was hard to ignore.
He held his hand out to Lily, and she took it, threading her fingers through his.
A small smile played on her lips as he tugged her into his side.
Cayden West might be a reformed bad boy from the wrong side of town, but Lily Williams clearly held the reins to the beast. He was just as in love with her now as he’d been when they’d first met.
A lump of jealousy filled my throat. Not for Cayden, but for the love between them. He’d been a broken person but somehow had overcome it, for her.
I was jealous of his strength and her grace.
“We’re going to go, guys. Have a good night,” Cayden turned around and called to his friends.
He and Lily seemed to have had an entire conversation without saying anything at all.
“Sounds good,” Beckett said, until Eve slapped his arm.
“I want to stay for a drink,” she protested.
I turned to Winter. Asher had already cornered her and backed her against another pool table. He had her sitting on the edge and stood between her legs. They were talking intently.
“Wow, you weren’t joking,” Aisha said. “I wonder where Marcus is?”
“Marcus and Ari have opera tickets in New York,” I told her, heading to the bar with Aisha by my side. “I ran into her the other day.”
“Nice, though I can’t imagine Marcus at the opera. Ari is all cultured and talented and…”
“And Marcus is Marcus.” I laughed. “Believe it or not, he can clean up nice, and he’ll make sure to, for her. He knows he’s batting way above his level.”
“Must be nice,” Aisha said with a long sigh. She hoisted herself onto a barstool with difficulty, given how tight her pleather shorts were.