Jimin was shuffling through papers, searching for something when I entered the auditorium on Wednesday. "Oh, Jennie, you're early as always. That's great. I seem to be missing my notes, so I'm going to run back upstairs to my office. Take a seat with Lisa and just relax for a moment."

Despite the fact that I already had a part, I was a nervous wreck for these callbacks. What if everyone expected me to be perfect? What if my audition was totally a fluke? I watched Jimin leave through the backstage door and wondered… What if he changed his mind?

I took a seat on the row below Lisa, wishing I'd gone and killed some time in the greenroom with the actors waiting and prepping for their second round of auditions. When she leaned down toward me, I said, "Hey… friend."

I'd given up trying not to be awkward, and was just embracing it instead.

She laughed, which I guess was good. It certainly could have been worse. She said, "Not quite believable, but A for effort."

"Someone's an easy grader."

"Someone just has a soft spot where you are concerned." She was leaning down towards me and even though her face was a good foot away from me, I swear I felt those words like she'd whispered them into my ear. "Sorry," she replied almost immediately. "Sometimes I just forget."

I said, "Me too." But that was a lie. I never really forgot. I wanted to. I wished that I could forget about the miles separating us, and just let myself be there, only a foot away, but I couldn't. She cleared her throat, and this time I wasn't imagining her closeness, she was inches from my ear.

"I have to ask you something."

"Okay," came my breathy reply.

"Kai."

I turned, confused, and immediately leaned back because I'd brought our faces too close together.

"That's not a question."

"You're still with him?"

"With him?"

"I just—I can't tell. You still sit together in class, but it's different now. So, I thought maybe you two had broken it off."

She thought Kai and I were dating? How freaking oblivious was I? The whole world apparently noticed my best friend's feelings for me. So much for being like Nancy Drew, I was clearly the Shaggy and Scooby Doo of this scenario.

"There was nothing to break off," I told her.

"What?"

"Yes! Kai and I aren't together. We never have been." Her eyes were wide, and her head tilted in that way that said she didn't believe me. "Is that what you've thought this whole time? That I cheated on him with you?"

Oh, my God. The girl I may or may not have been falling for thought I was a slut. Could things be any more screwed up?

Her head was shaking back and forth, but I wasn't sure if that was a no or just her trying to puzzle this out. "I don't know what I thought. You're always together, and he touches you, he's always touching you. Believe me, I've noticed. I'd just assumed that was why… well, why you ran out that night."

"I didn't run out because of Kai. I had to get my cat…"

"Jennie, I'm not an idiot."

God, this was it. Somehow, I thought I'd gotten away with that horrible excuse. I mean, obviously, it hadn't completely put her off like I'd originally thought. But she'd always known it was excuse, she just had the reason wrong. And I couldn't let her know the real reason, not now, not here in this theatre where we were supposed to be professional (though I'm fairly certain professional had already been kicked to the curb).

"I have a cat! I do!" Damn it… why couldn't I ever remember my imaginary cat's gender? " Um… she's gray and adorable and her name is… " I said the first thing that popped into my head, "Hamlet."

I was a genius. I couldn't even invent a girl cat with a girl name. It's like there was this bridge in my brain between the rational and the absurd, and somehow I had burned it.

"You have a cat named Hamlet?"

"I do." Kill me now. "I definitely, definitely do."

That was it. I was going to have to get a cat.

"Fine. So, if you're not dating Kai, what's going on between the two of you?"

I could feel heat leeching into the skin of my neck. "Nothing."

"You are a terrible liar."

I was a terrible liar. My ears probably looked like I'd spent an hour in a tanning bed. "It's nothing. It's just something that happened Friday when I was… how do you British people say it? Pissed? Sloshed?"

She sat back away from me, but left her hands clenched on the back of my seat. "Did you sleep with him?"

"What? No!"

She didn't lean back toward me, but her grip on the chair loosened. One of her knuckles brushed against my arm. "Good."

"Lisa…" She was going to that place we weren't supposed to go.

She smiled cheekily. "What? Just because I can't have you right now, doesn't mean I'm okay with him having you."

My brain tripped over that right now phrase again, but I forced my thoughts away from it. "I'm going to pretend you didn't just refer to me like property to be owned."

"Can't we own each other?"

If brains could have orgasms, I'm pretty sure this was what it would feel like. I shouldn't like it, but there was possessiveness in her words that was echoed in her dark eyes, and it sent shivers down my spine until my fingers felt numb with their emptiness. I couldn't answer her question, so I asked my own. "What has gotten in to you? I thought you promised me we wouldn't do this again."

She pulled her hands through her hair, her curls sticking out in adorable ways that made my stomach flip-flop.

"I don't know. I just… I've been going crazy thinking about the two of you together."

"We kissed. Nothing else."

She flinched back like I'd said Kai and I were getting married and having a houseful of children. I couldn't look at her face. It made me want to do insane things. I repeated myself, "It was just a kiss. It didn't mean anything."

"I don't want anyone else to kiss you."

"Lisa…" I was starting to hate the warning tone in my own voice. If she kept pushing like this, I wouldn't be able to say no much longer. I was going to throw myself at her, most likely just in time for Jimin to walk back in.

"I know I'm not being fair. I'm being a right bastard, actually. I keep telling myself to leave you alone, but the truth is… I'm not sure I can. And now that I know you're not with Kai…"

"What are you saying?"

The backstage door creaked, and I realized how close we were. My heart thrumming like a plucked guitar string, I moved over a few seats seconds before Jimin re-entered the space.

He held up his notebook triumphantly. "Got it! And I brought down a real script for you, Jen, so you don't have to use the sides."

I fought to calm my heart when Jimin handed me the play.

Don't look at Lisa. Don't look at her.

It didn't matter… I was hyper aware of her. Even if I moved several rows away from her, I was certain I would know every time she shifted or breathed or looked at me.

The small book felt good in my hands, still warm from Jimin's grip, and I had to resist the urge to begin pouring over the words that very second to distract me from Lisa. The Stage Manager, Alyssa, who was a year younger than me, came in the room to announce that we were ready to begin whenever Jimin was.

He nodded the go ahead, and then turned to me. "Jennie, we're starting with Hippolytus. I'm going to have them perform their monologues one more time, then I'll have you jump up there. Just stick with what you were doing in your monologue. Play the objective—you want him, but your shame, your fear is your own obstacle."

I glanced at Lisa. Should be simple enough.

Alyssa came back in, Yedam walking calmly in her wake. She took a seat at the tech table, and he stood center stage, his shoulders back, his chin up.

He looked good. I smiled in pride at him. Our little sophomore.

"Hi Yedam. I'd like to start by seeing your monologue one more time, just to get things going. Then we'll see how you do with Jennie."

Yedam cleared his throat. Paused for a moment.

I loved that moment before. It was the height of anticipation and hope. It was like diving off a cliff, knowing what would come after was terrifying and beautiful and the point of living. That moment… it was addicting.

I have let myself run on too far.

I see my reason has given way to violence.

There was desperation in Yedam's performance as he began, but he sounded young. He looked young. When he spoke, his words and his emotions came rushing out. Like once he'd begun his confession of love for Aricia, there was no stopping the outpour.

My soul, so proud, is finally dependant.

For more than six months, desperate, ashamed,

Bearing throughout the wound with which I'm maimed,

I steeled myself towards you, and myself, in vain…

I hadn't realized until then that both Hippolytus and Phaedra were in love and ashamed—Phaedra because of whom she loved, and Hippolytus because he loved at all. I could see the shame in Yedamy's performance, eating away at him, and I wondered if that's what I looked like in my audition… if that's what I looked like every time I thought of Lisa.

Present, I flee you: absent, I find you again.

Lisa's eyes were on Yedam, glancing back occasionally at the notes she was writing on the notepad in her lap. That last line was echoing through my head like music, a melody that gets stuck and won't give you any rest.

Present, I fled him. But no matter the distance between us, I kept coming back to him. It all kept coming back to him.

Jimin stood from his spot and said, "Good. Good. Let's see you with Jennie."

I tore my eyes from Lisa, and fumbled for the script. I walked toward the stage, my knees a bit weak, and my feet somewhat numb.

As much as I loved Yedam, it was clear to me within minutes that he was not Hippolytus. For one, he was not the heroic, handsome young man who could turn Phaedra's heart so inside out. He was more of a boy. He had the passion, but sometimes even that wasn't enough.

We moved through two more boys who were also lacking—both in confidence. Those auditions went quickly.

Then it was Kai's turn.

I'd always thought Kai's best asset was his voice. On stage, it took on this low rumble that no matter the volume held power. And with a play that was so much about the text and the lyricism in the lines—his voice was perfect. It was always hard to read Jimin's face, but he definitely looked happier with Kai than he had the previous two auditions.

When things fell apart was when Kai and I took the stage together. We were doing the scene where Phaedra first reveals her feelings to Hippolytus. They were speaking of the death of Theseus—Phaedra's husband and Hippolytus's father. Hippolytus had never liked his stepmother. He didn't know that she'd treated him poorly, so that she might more easily keep her distance because she'd loved him even before Theseus supposedly died.

We did fine through the section about Theseus's death, but I was barely halfway through my monologue where I declared my feelings when Jimin came out of the house and onto the stage.

"Stop, stop. Kai, what are you doing?"

Kai looked stunned, and maybe on the verge of being sick. "I'm sorry?"

"You despise her. As the revelation of her feelings dawns on you, you should be horrified, disgusted, even angry."

"Of course, sir."

"So then why do you look like a love sick puppy who returns her affections?"

As if I weren't channeling enough guilt already for this performance, I felt the weight of my own guilt added. This was my fault. This wasn't about the play. It was about me. He'd kept his feelings under wraps for so long, but I'd noticed ever since that party, since I'd kissed him, it had all been closer to the surface. He wore his hope like a winter coat, layered over the top of all of him.

I didn't look at him as he and Jimin spoke, because I was not sure I could keep the pity out of my face, and he would hate seeing that. So, I looked at Lisa instead. Her face was drawn. Even though she was about fifteen feet from me, I felt like I was seeing her from far away. She only looked at me for a moment longer, before her gaze skipped to Kai, and her frown deepened. After a few seconds, she met my eyes again, and held me there with her stare. There was something different in this look, something changed, something that set my heart beating faster and the hair prickling on the surface of my skin.

Kai and I finished our scene without incident. It wasn't the strongest performance he could have given, but I thought it was still the best so far. Though I was biased, I guess. I should have been happy that my friend had trouble even acting disgusted with me. But in the back of my mind, a thought was planted, its roots digging deeper despite my attempts to push it away.

If he knew the real reason I'd said maybe… if he knew what was keeping us apart, he probably wouldn't have any trouble despising me.

I was a little unfocused through the next callback. So much so that Jimin decided it was time to give me a break. Needing the fresh air, I slipped out the Emergency Exit (which was never alarmed), and I knew before I heard the door creak open again behind me that Lisa would follow.

"You're doing well," she said.

I blew out a quick breath. It might have been a laugh, if I'd had more energy. "Yeah, that's why you're out here trying to make me feel better."

"My reasons for being out here are entirely selfish."

I kept thinking I would get used to her saying things like that, her directness.

I never did.

"You were right. You are acting like a right bastard."

What little heat there was in my words left when she grinned.

She walked around the side of me, staring out at some distant point on the campus. "I keep thinking that this play is a sign. It's so much like us."

"Am I the lust-filled mother in this situation or you?"

Her eyes came back to me, dipping and scanning the curves and lines of my body. "Oh, that's definitely me," she answered. "Phaedra keeps saying she's being selfish. That she hates herself for it, but she does it anyway. She can't deny herself what she wants, even if it brings about her downfall and his."

"And have you learned anything from our literary parallel?"

"Not really. I keep thinking that she would do it all over again if there were a chance… a chance that it could go right. Even if 99 times out of a 100 the story ends badly, it's worth it if only once she gets a happy ending."

"Listen, Lisa, while this parallel you're drawing is lovely, especially with that accent, I'm a little tired of the metaphors, and being compared to doomed love stories. Just say what you want to say. I've been puzzling out ancient text all night. I don't want to have to decipher you, too."

"I'm saying that I was wrong." She took a step closer, and my exhaustion fled, replaced with electricity under my skin. "I'm saying I like you. I'm saying I don't give a damn that I'm your teacher."

Then she kissed me.

I pushed her back before my heart and mind got swept away. The pleasure hit me after the kiss was already over, so that it felt like an echo. And even though I was the one who pushed her away, I missed her.

"Lisa, this is crazy."

"I like crazy."

The question was… did I? This was the craziest thing I'd ever done, and it both terrified and excited me. I backed away, needing the distance to think, to wrap my brain around the insanity. There were so many ways for this to go badly. But then again for the first time ever, I found my own life more interesting than the story of a character on a page. And God, did I want to know the ending.

And hadn't Jimin said I was better when I made bold choices. He'd been talking about acting, but didn't it hold true for life, too?

Lisa's hand brushed across my forehead, then pushed back into my hair.

"Just think about it."

Oh, I would think about it. It would likely be all I could think about.

She pressed a quick, barely there kiss to my forehead and left me outside, my thoughts in a jumble and my heart a mess.