Chapter Four: Heart, Don't Fail Me Now



Satine glared at Richard in surprise. This was opening night, how could he do this to her? She was already so stressed out anyways.

"Look, Sara, I'm sorry. I just don't think your heart is in it anymore. Every time I'm near you I can sense it."

"Richard, I can't take this! Not now, for sure! We have to go through with it, please…"

"Sara, you're not ready to be married. I'm sorry you don't realize it, but I'm doing this for your own sake. The wedding is off."

Richard walked out of Satine's house, and out of her life. That was two men to have done that so far. How many more will there be, Satine asked herself. She put her face in her hands. "Sacre bleu, what am I doing wrong?" she whispered.

But Richard had been right. Her heart wasn't in it. She didn't love him. And she was already living a big enough lie anyways. Hiding her French accent was hard enough. Not being to tell anyone about her past was terrible. Most of all, she hated going by "Sara". True, she disliked the name "Satine" as well since it represented so much of her earlier life, but at least it was real.

All these thoughts rushed through Satine's head at once. She was suddenly afraid she would forget all her lines and the play would be off to a horrible start.

When Satine received her mail for the week, one letter stood out to her in particular. It was an invite to a theatre mask party/convention, the day after opening night, to celebrate the hard work no matter how bad or good the production went. Satine decided she may as well go; she had been having absolutely no fun recently and seriously needed some time to relax. Besides, she needed to stop being so depressed.

With the way her life was at the moment though, being happy was hard. She still tried to live by the Boho dogmas of Freedom, Beauty, Truth, and Love, but no one ever mentioned Fear.

~
Opening night had gone surprisingly well. Satine had remembered all her lines, and Marie and Harold were even there to support her. Evan had actually given out a few compliments to the cast.

Cal, however, was still a nuisance to everyone, and ended up getting in a fight backstage. "This ending's silly," he had said. "Why would the courtesan go for the penniless sitar player, over the maharajah, who is offering a lifetime of security? That's real love." This had provoked a punch from the strange and somewhat crazy man playing the Magical Sitar.

Except for that one incident, all in all the show had gone splendidly. The audience had hassled Satine for her autograph afterwards, but she got away from the mobs, fortunately. This was the first time in years she had actually been happy, and she really just wanted to go home and sleep.

That was not to be the case, however. Marie and Harold greeted her at the door to her house, while Harold pulled her into a huge embrace, screaming, "My little strawberry, everything went so well! You've become a real actress!"

Marie just smiled knowingly at her and treated her to some delicious deserts in the kitchen. Satine fell asleep that night, feeling, in a word, renewed. Harold was right, she really was a step closer to becoming the next Sara Bernhart. But secretly, she knew there was still something missing…


A/N: OK, sorry that this was super short, but it was the best break I could find in the story, since I've already written all of it.