Being Sebastian

A Sebastian(Viola) & Olivia Story

Prologue :

I sat on what was supposed to be my brother's bed at Illyria contemplating what to do next. I had a huge history paper due the next day and the farthest I had gotten was typing Sebastian Hastings in the left hand corner. "I'll just get Eunice to help me out on it, she would be happy to do it", I thought to myself. Therefore, doing the history paper quickly became my opportunity cost and the real action came next. I shot up from my bed and grabbed the soccer ball and cleats I knew I could never turn down.

As I walked out the door I was greeted by numerous guys who were acting out foolishly in the hallways as usual.

"Hey Sebastian."

"Wassup man."

Naturally I courteously nodded or spit out the signature Sebastian response of "wassup my brotha". Before continuing my journey down to the soccer stadium.

It had been two weeks since I...Viola Hastings had started at Illyria pretending to be my brother. The "new" Sebastian had really become Mr. Popular all thanks to Paul, Kia, and Yvonne. But I wasn't at Illyria for the popularity…I was only there for one thing…soccer.

In two days Coach Dinklage was finally giving me or really Sebastian the chance to prove that he was capable of playing first string. But first string I knew came with numerous complications. For one Coach had pretty much worked the team so hard that each practice I thought my limbs were going to fall off. Not to mention all first string players were in tip top shape the perfect examples being "Sebastian's boys" as they now were called which consisted of Drew, Toby, and Duke. Luckily, my crush on Duke, my unsuspecting roommate, had been short-lived and he was able to accurately train me to get ready for Tuesday's scrimmage without any distractions. But the biggest complication of all was keeping up with being Sebastian Hastings.

I…Viola Hastings…was of course a female, and acting like a guy on and off for two weeks was completely draining. For one thing my vocal cords had taken a serious beating from the constant deepening and octave change, but it had ended up being a plus I guess because now I just sounded sick, which really just naturally caused my voice to sound raspy, so I didn't have to try that hard to change it. But the bad thing about this was now all the girls thought Sebastian's voice was "so sexy and mysterious", which was just not a positive thing for me...since I wasn't interested in girls at all. Another setback about being Sebastian was that I never really felt like myself. Obviously this would be the case because I wasn't at Illyria to be myself…I was there to be Sebastian. But I still felt it was difficult to grip this concept because when I was hanging with the guys I had to keep the persona of the player that could land any girl and with the girls I had to be the sensitive one who actually cared about their feelings. Which I honestly did, but not for the reasons they wanted me too.

These past two weeks I had realized how difficult it must be for someone to live as someone they know in they're heart they are not. Even if I was here just to show everyone one at Cornwall that girls were just as good as boys this whole experience had become much more than that. Being Sebastian made me realize how hard it must have been for Paul to live 19 years of his life as someone he wasn't. It made me realize how difficult some have it when they can't express who they really are because others hold them back.

But even though I as Sebastian had made numerous friends the only person who I could be myself around and actually talk to without misspeaking was Olivia.

My anatomy lab partner was great and could actually hold a conversation without it involving hooking up or dating, which in retrospect made me entirely uncomfortable. If I wasn't on a mission then I could actually see myself being friends with Olivia outside of everything.

As I finally reached the long stretch of green the last thing I thought about was my blonde lab partner before soccer pushed her away.

Being Sebastian was definitely going to be harder than I initially thought in more ways then one.