Mr. Schue should have sent out the cast list by now, it feels like it's been months since the auditions! Claire thought to herself as she continued to refresh her email. She could feel the heat of the computer fan getting hotter and hotter on her leg, and hoped that it wouldn't overheat. She didn't want to miss the exact moment that the cast list was sent out, and she wanted to be one of the first to know who would be playing each role.
"Claire, he's going to send out the cast list eventually, you don't need to sit at your computer all day." Kurt said, laying on Claire's bed and staring at the ceiling. "Are you usually this impatient?"
"I'm just so excited." Claire replied, not letting herself take her eyes off of the computer screen. "I'm actually more excited to see what roles you all get. I mean, I know I'm just a freshman so I won't be getting a big role, I'll probably just get ensemble or something. But I already think I know who will be playing who…"
"All I know is that Mercedes is playing Mabel. She already told me that she knows she'll play her."
"Kurt! Just because Mabel is supposed to be the overweight dancer-"
"Actually, Mercedes volunteered." Kurt interrupted. "She really wanted to do something with 'Mabel's Prayer'. Did I ever show you her singing 'Sweet Transvestite' when we did Rocky Horror last year? Kind of like that. Mr. Schue already heard it and-"
"CAST LIST!" Claire shouted, practically falling out of the desk chair that she was spinning in. "Oh my gosh, Kurt! THE CAST LIST. THE. CAST. LIST. IS. UP."
"Well," Kurt began, getting up from the computer. "I'm glad that Mr. Schue decided to email the list instead of posting it in school. People would hear you screaming and probably want to quit the play based solely on your craziness."
Claire shushed him, as if silence would make the revealing of the cast more exciting. She took a deep breath to calm herself, clicked the email and, to her excitement, she began to read the list.
CAST:
Schlomo Metzenbaum - Kurt Hummel
Carmen Diaz - Santana Lopez
Tyrone Jackson - Mike Chang
Nick Piazza - Blaine Anderson
Serena Katz - Rachel Berry
Mabel Washington - Mercedes Jones
Iris Kelly - Brittany Pierce
Grace "Lambchops" Lamb - Claire Devine
Jose "Joe" Vegas - Noah Puckerman
Goodman "Goody" King - Finn Hudson
Ms. Esther Sherman- Tina Cohen-Chang
Ms. Greta Bell - Quinn Fabray
Mr. Meyers - Artie Abrams
Mr. Sheinkopf - Sam Evans
ENSEMBLE:
Dominic Blackburn, Cara Curtis, Lexie Daniels, Mackenzie Duarte, Kayli Ellis, Damian Fowler, Hayden Morganelli, Kendall O'Connor, Paige Quinlan, Madeleine Ross, Shayla Westfield, Melodie Willingham, Taryn Landford
"Kurt, you're one of the leads! That's amazing!" Claire exclaimed, reading and rereading the list of names. "I need to go call Taryn! And Blaine! And Quinn! I need to call everyone!"
"Claire, really-" Kurt started, but it was no use. He loved seeing Claire so excited, especially because she seemed to have changed over the past few weeks. Suddenly more private and introverted. Of course, all of that insecurity left during Glee Club, but it all came back the minute she left the choir room doors. And the rest of the family could see it too. Her grades were slipping, she was losing sleep, and it was an unspoken worry between everyone that adding Fame rehearsals could either help or hurt Claire's mental health. But no one said anything, they all just hoped for the best.
Kurt looked at the opened email that Claire forgot to close when she left to call her friends. His name was the first on the list… And as much as he worried about his cousin, he couldn't help but feel satisfaction in his role. He put his fears out of his mind, and thought to himself. You, Kurt Hummel, are an amazing person.
Walking into the auditorium, Claire's mind was brought back to the auditions. The difference now is, I have a role. A real role. Not just ensemble. Which I would have totally been okay with but… I have a real role.
"Claire!" Mr. Schue called from the front of the room. "Come here, I need to introduce you to someone."
She tried to remain calm as she walked to the piano where Mr. Schuester was standing, but anyone could see that she had a spring of excitement in her step. "You wanted to see me?" He was standing next to Ms. Pillsbury (not an uncommon sight), and a younger girl who looked like she was probably in college. Besides looking younger, she looked very similar to Ms. Pillsbury, with the red hair and big eyes.
"Claire," Ms. Pillsbury said. "This is my niece, Kirsten. She's going to be the choreographer for the musical, and I wanted to introduce her so that she'll at least know a couple of people when rehearsals start."
"Hi," the two girls said at the same time, smiling. Kirsten didn't look much older than a high school student, with her big brown eyes and huge smile, but Claire had overheard Mr. Schue ask her about what she was doing now that she had graduated at NYU the previous school year.
"Claire, we also wanted to talk to you about something else." Mr. Schue said. "We were wondering of you would want to sing backup for Mercedes' song, Mabel's Prayer. Kurt told me that you already know it."
"Of course, I'd love to!"
"We're going to have some of the other freshman sing it too, but we want you to really prove your leadership skills here. Although we have student directors and assistants already, soon the kids in the Glee club are going to be graduating and going off to college. So if you can, try to get the other underclassmen involved, so that maybe we can extend New Directions and make it into as big of a club as it was when I was a student here. That's my goal."
"Sure! I'll be like a Glee Club ambassador or something!" Claire replied with a huge smile. "Who else is a freshman? I can introduce myself now."
Ms. Pillsbury rejoined the conversation and showed Claire the cast list. "All of the seniors who are in the musical are in Glee club, so you know them. We have four juniors who aren't in Glee Club, four sophomores, and four other freshmen. They'll be singing 'Mabel's Prayer' with you. But we were actually just about to start, but I know you'll learn everyone's names quickly."
"We're going to start with a little activity." Ms. Pillsbury said, motioning everyone in the cast to come onto the stage. "Kirsten told me that she did this in her high school's drama club. So, Kirsten, the floor is yours."
The younger redhead stood up and paced inside of the circle of students. "Hi, everyone. I'm Kirsten, for those of you who didn't catch my name before. I'm going to be choreographing the show, and don't worry, I promise not to make it too difficult." She smiled and continued. "When I was a sophomore in high school, we did a serious show for our fall play, and it was amazing. We would look out into the audience and see people crying. And although we definitely don't want people to start sobbing during Fame, I think that one of the reasons that we were so powerful is because we worked as a team. And our director, she did this thing at our very first rehearsal, and it really brought everyone together. So, can everyone stand up in a straight line for me?"
As the students got into a line, Kirsten pulled out a yellow notebook. "On this piece of paper, I wrote down a bunch of things, like if you have very been out of the country, favorite subject in school, stuff like that. But I also wrote deeper things, more emotional, that we'll get to later. So, let's start off with the easy stuff. If I say something that applies to you, take a step forward, and I'll tell you when to get back in line. First one is the easiest: take a step forward if you are a student at McKinley High."
Every student stepped forward. The number of people stepping forward got less and less as Kirsten continued, with statements like "Step forward if you have traveled to another continent" and "Step forward if you can recite the alphabet backwards". Then, it started to get more emotional. People hesitated as they stepped forward, not as if they were ashamed, but more nervous about whether others could relate."
"Step forward if you have ever heard a rumor being spread about you."
"Step forward if you have ever been called an insulting name."
"Step forward if you have ever been bullied because of your gender, sexuality, religion, or race."
Statement after statement, Claire could already feel herself mentally and emotionally bonding with the rest of the cast. There was a moment of silence, and then Kirsten continued.
"Step forward if, after this activity, you feel as if you are already closer to the cast who, fifteen minutes ago, was full of strangers."
Every person stepped forward.
"I'm glad, because I ran out of things to say. I can already tell that this is an amazing cast, and that is going to lead to an amazing show. But…" Kirsten dragged out, motioning back to Mr. Schue. "We can't do that without reading through the script! So, Mr. Schue, you can take it from here!"
CLAIRE DEVINE: Ryan, are you online?
No reply. Ever since the whole journal incident, Claire and Ryan had barely spoken, besides the occasional one-word text back and forth.
CLAIRE DEVINE: Ryan, are you mad at me? It's been days since we've really talked, maybe even weeks by now…
Claire had spent this whole time convincing herself that Ryan was overreacting. He accused her of taking Cody's side over his, and that wasn't fair. She was just trying to warn him about Mitch blackmailing her.
CLAIRE DEVINE: I wasn't trying to take anyone's side besides yours… I promise.
Suddenly, the little "Read" message popped up, showing that Ryan was reading the messages. But he didn't respond. He was obviously ignoring her.
CLAIRE DEVINE: Hey, if you are seeing this, call me on Skype.
After a couple of minutes of waiting, Claire was about to log off, until a pop-up box appeared on the screen.
VIDEO CHAT FROM RYAN DAUGHTERY.
"Hey, I need to-" They both said at the same time, not even waiting a second for their web cameras to fully load.
"Me first." Claire said. "I just wanted to say-"
"No, me first, because I know what you are going to say." Ryan replied, sighing as he ran his fingers through his hair. "And I know what I want to say too. But I didn't know how to put it into words, so…" He got out of his desk chair and came back with a guitar.
"Ryan, I-"
"And I also know that, as performers, when we don't know how to say something, we put it into music. Because when you put something to music, even the most random string of words can sound like art. I mean, have you heard half the stuff on the radio lately? So, anyway, I want to put all of this past us, because I realized that, as difficult as it is trying to act civil around Cody… it's even more difficult to be angry at you. So, as long as you want to, I just want to put this in the past, because we are stronger than anything that Cody or Mitch could use against you. I know that you know this song, but I chose this one because of the lyrics so… don't say, just listen, okay?"
"Okay." Claire said, closing her eyes and letting her ears soak in the sound of Ryan's guitar, even though the sound was a bit warped from the low internet reception.
Welcome to the planet
Welcome to existence
Everyone's here
Everyone's here
Everybody's watching you now
Everybody waits for you now
What happens next
What happens next
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened before
Welcome to the fallout
Welcome to resistance
The tension is here
Tension is here
Between who you are and who you could be
Between how it is and how it should be
Maybe redemption has stories to tell
Maybe forgiveness is right where you fell
Where can you run to escape from yourself?
Where you gonna go?
Where you gonna go?
Salvation is here
Ryan knew that Claire listened to this song on an almost-daily basis, but he made it his goal to have Claire see the lyrics a different way. Yes, it showed that he wants to pretend that the whole fight didn't happen, and that even though they may go through hard times in the future, they have to keep working at their relationship, or it will never work out. But at the same time, he had a subconscious ulterior motive, a message that he found in this song that he was hoping that Claire might pick up on: that he was the one who was always by her side and led her on the right path. He was the one who Claire vented to. Not Cody. Not Mitch. So pretend like they don't exist. It'll be tough, but they can make it work.
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself up off the floor
I dare you to move
I dare you to move
Like today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened
Today never happened before
OHHHHHHH MY GOODNESS, IT'S BEEN OVER 5 MONTHS. I HONESTLY CAN'T EVEN EXPLAIN THAT. I CAN SAY THAT I HAVE BEEN IN 3 MUSICALS, BEEN WORKING REALLY HARD TO DO WELL IN SCHOOL, AND KEEP MY MENTAL SANITY AFTER A BUNCH OF STUFF HAPPENED, BUT I REALLY CAN'T DO THAT. I mean, yes, all writers have that time when they take a break from writing but... this was close to almost half a year of writer's block. Again, I can't even explain.
On the bright side, I have been making little notes on my phone about where I want this story to go. You know, I have been trying to update this story, but nothing seemed to fit right. It wasn't until today when it suddenly all came to me. (Sammi Story Time!)
Yesterday was the final performance of the year for my school's drama department, and you guys should have seen me, I was a mess. So many of my friends, my mentors, they are all graduating. And it occurred to me that soon, that'll be me leaving the department, what has become my closest family. That whole activity that Claire and the rest of the cast did? True event, and that is honestly what made me become so close to the other people in my cast at school. So I wanted to give Claire that same sort of experience. I kind of got a bit emotional, though, so I didn't go into as much detail as I wanted to.
Speaking of real life drama department, let's all take a moment to congratulate my friend Kirsten (TrueAngelOfMusic1) on being the most amazing Glinda that we could have asked for :) (And I may or may not be saying this because we decided to add each other as a character to our fanfics. There you go, Kirsten, a character and a compliment! I can only wonder what you have in store... :D )
Anyway, thank you all for putting up with me as I went MIA for the past few months. I really do appreciate everyone who reads and reviews. I know I'll regret doing this, but I PROMISE that I will update soon. (That's why I made this a multi-part chapter, I force myself to finish it!)
Again, thank you to everyone, you all mean so much to me :)