Understudy

I’m not a crying person. I never have been. Crying does not come naturally to me, even at heavy crying events like funerals. So I don’t know why the inside of my eyes get warm. I don’t know why I make the horrifying realization that if I blink right now, tears will leak out of my barely used tear ducts and embarrass me in front of everyone.

I turn around, drop to my knees and pretend to dig through my backpack, but all I’m doing is shuffling papers around. I know I can’t do this forever, but I have to buy some time. I can’t watch them rehearse together—not now. Not ever.

“What are you doing, boss?” It’s Derek.

“Nothing,” I call out without turning around. “I mean, just a second.”

“Let’s move on to the next scene,” Gwen tells Derek. Then she says something else that I can’t quite catch from my close proximity to the ground. With reluctance, I zip up my backpack. Chill. Chill. Chill. You’re fine. Relax.

It’s not as if Derek is my boyfriend anyway.

I stand up and twirl around so quickly that purple stars fill my vision and the room starts to spin. As Gwen and Derek watch me from on stage, as well as a few minor actors who are waiting in boredom for their scenes, I know what I need to do.

I need to get out of here.

And I need to lie.

“Sorry everyone.” I gesture to the paper in my hand that I had randomly grabbed from the bottom of my backpack. It’s last week’s math homework. I made an eighty-six. “I forgot I have an appointment. Rehearsal is over. You have an early day off.”

It must be opposite day or something because everyone groans. So not what I was expecting.

“It’s only been fifteen minutes,” Greg yells from somewhere backstage. “I’m not going home when I’ve already committed to staying late.”

“Yeah me too,” Gwen says. “I’m committed to this play. And we must continue rehearsal.”

For the first time since that abhorrent kiss, I look to Derek for support. He rocks back on his heels. “You can go, Wren. We’ve got this.”

And just as quickly as he can flash me a smile, my massive, Earth-sized crush on Derek Hayes shatters into a thousand pieces. Without a word, or a second look at anyone, I heave my backpack off the floor and sling it around my shoulder, push my decrepit auditorium chair into an upright position and storm through the isle. Over the stained burgundy carpet runner, up the slight incline toward the back of the room, and out the double swinging doors, letting them slam closed behind me in what I know will reverberate throughout the whole auditorium.

No one gets it. No one is supporting me in the play, not really. They’re doing it for their own reasons, not to help the school and definitely not to make sure my directing isn’t a total failure. And my biggest crush to date just made out with Gwen Summers in all of her beautiful, waif-like glory and didn’t even care that I was watching.

I need to get this pain out of my system. I need a long talk with a best friend who will let me vent my heart out and fill the hole in my heart with a pint or two of mint chocolate chip ice cream. Margot is my only friend who would do that for me and we’re not even talking right now.

And even if we were, I couldn’t tell her about Derek. As I walk out the east hallway doors and into the student parking lot, I realize another pathetic truth about my situation right now. Derek is normally my ride home on Mondays because Mom has girl’s night on Mondays. I completely forgot to arrange something else. The hot feeling wells up in my eyes again, only this time when I blink, real tears fall down my cheeks. I take out my phone and call Mom, tell her no I’m not crying and yes I’m fine, and please just come pick me up.

And then, just because I can, I throw my backpack on the concrete and kick it as hard as my leg muscles allow. It moves a few inches, so I kick it again and again until my toes hurt.

Real, wet, sad little tears fall out of my eyes now, intensifying every time I picture Derek kissing Gwen. And all I can think about is how completely unfair this is, and how I knew Derek was too good to be true, and how Margot isn’t really a good friend but she’s all I have, and how I need a damn car.

My stomach hurts and the pain grows with every minute that goes by without Derek running outside and saying, “Hey Wren, you forgot that I’m taking you home.” After ten minutes, I pretty much know he’s not going to do that.

I groan and sigh and yell and wipe my eyes with the back of my sleeve. Life totally sucks. This is exactly what they meant in seventh grade when they said high school was going to be hard. I should just run away and join a circus.

As I visualize myself as a crappy circus performer, I realize one more thing: that I’m acting exactly like Aunt Barlow.

Derek’s lips press into Gwen’s for what is the start of our third rehearsal with him filling in for Ricky. I’m convinced I deserve an award of the highest caliber for my own acting right now. Because I’m here, and I haven’t quit like my aunt, and I’m not making a big deal about anything. I’m being calm and collected, at least on the outside.

I’m sitting here holding back my vomit not even because I’d be too embarrassed to throw up right here in front of everyone, because I’m not, b

ut because I had pizza for lunch and everything with tomatoes in it tastes absolutely horrid coming back up.

And it happens.

I get an idea. I can’t call it a eureka moment because it’s so much more than that. It’s the solution to my problem.

And no, it doesn’t involve accidently murdering Gwen.

“STOP,” I yell, shooting up from my seat. Several actors are on stage now but none of them notice me. I cup my hands around my mouth and use the proper director term to get them to break the forth wall and listen to me. “Cut!”