But all that had to be behind me. Whatever issues Liam was working through weren’t mine to deal with. How could I trust him ever again?
I hadn’t expected to find anyone in the theater at 7 AM. I had checked online, and it wasn’t booked by anybody. The rooms at school were open from 6.30 AM until midnight to all students to practise what they needed. Bigger rooms, like this theater, had to be booked in advance or used with the understanding that someone could book it at anytime. I hadn’t bothered, but I had figured no one else would be up this early. And I was right.
And so became my routine. Up early every morning, before the rest and into the theater just as the janitor unlocked the doors. The script to Beauty and the Beast became as natural to me as breathing. I had always wondered how it was possible to memorize a two and a half hour play, but I began to see it was easy. Deon was a lovely partner, who worked at my pace rather than surging ahead and expecting me to follow.
Sarah became my confidant again and we spoke every night. I dismissed Liam as a ‘bad idea that should have never happened’, and she pretended to believe me, even on nights when I didn’t believe myself. #p#分页标题#e#
And in class, Liam behaved like I was any other student. He spoke to me only when I needed direction and he was emotionless. His eyes were dark, cold and distant. We no longer caught each other’s gazes in class, no longer took separate directions just to sneak to my dorm.
With Liam not taking up all of my time, I began to make friends with my classmates, learning to trust them on and off stage. It was a slow process, of course, to learn to talk civilly to the girls that had shunned me for the first half of the semester. But now that Liam ignored me, their jealousy ebbed away, and we soon spent hours giggling in the hallways and reciting the same lines over and over until we were sick of them.
The girls showed me websites to submit for auditions on my own, and we often spent lunch hours tailoring each other’s resumes and emailing casting calls to each other. Although no one emailed me back, it felt like a good start; like I could do this on my own.
I was happy. I was afraid to admit it at first. I was afraid that things were too good and would disappear as quickly as they had appeared. But even Dad began to comment on the change in my manner, my speech and my mood. I was finally living the dream that I had longed for since I first set foot in the academy as a child, and being involved with the Headmaster had never been part of it anyway.
One morning, however, everything began to change.
The strands of the popular pop song reached my ears before I even fully opened the door to the theater. The lights in the audience were off, and the only light on was the main light on the stage. Porsche was flying through a dance routine, and attempting to cover the song as well, although her voice wasn’t quite the same as the pop singer.
She looked different than her ballet persona; her limbs moving with speed instead of slow grace and her red hair was flying all over the place. Porsche was gorgeous, in every way that counted, and I briefly wondered if Liam had told me the truth about their relationship. Or perhaps I had just been a pawn in the game.
“Sorry, I didn’t know the stage was in use,” I said, turning to go when she spotted me at the end of the song. She smiled, panting slightly and came to the front of the stage.
“No, no. I have an audition later so I thought I’d practise. But I would get slaughtered if anyone knew I was taking the stage from students. Hop on up.” She went to get a water bottle, gesturing to me to come up the steps. “How are you, Amy? I heard you were sick a while back.”
I blushed, looking away. The look that she gave me told me that she knew the full story behind it.