Greetinks friends foes and future children. I have brought for you today my last pre-written chapter of Twelfth Grade. As I pride myself on extreme slacking, I have managed not to write the finale, which means you will all be left hanging until I drink myself into a caffeine-filled writing stupor and bust it out in two hours. Let us all join hands and pray.

- Isadora -

The first words out of Blaire's mouth when we hear the news are, "I didn't do it."

I snort, but I believe her. Despite how evidently ecstatic she is that Bruno's caught the flu going around, I think it'd have been quite the trick to figure out how to infect him. Strangely, Freddy's been looking guilty. Now I wouldn't put it past him to figure out how to biological-warfare Bruno out of the show.

"At least Haiza's back," I point out. Leandro's been squirting her with hand sanitizer all day even though she looks perfectly fine, standing over there next to him.

Blaire's eyes are practically twinkling. "A great relief. I'm so, so sad that my brother won't be able to play his role tonight. On the closing night, and the sold-out show. This is really sad. I'm really sad."

"You're the worst liar I've ever seen." I poke her, and she shoves me back.

"Well, I'm gonna have to listen to him hack up his lungs for a week after this, so it's not a complete lie," she sighs, then recovers in an instant. "Okay, when does the show open?! I need to get ready!"

Like she hasn't been getting ready for this since she got Toby-understudy, I think. "Two hours. Keep it cool, girl."

"I'm cool as a cucumber," Blaire says, flapping a hand with too much zest for me to believe her, then speeds away to go tell Julio the news that he's doubtlessly heard already.

Mr. A approaches me after warm-up with a grave look. "Izzie, are you up for playing Fabian? Blaire's gonna have to take over Toby because Bruno's sick."

I know we're both thinking of my audition where I completely choked and the dress rehearsal where I lent new meaning to the word 'trainwreck,' but looking at Blaire doing laps around Julio in her wheelchair, too excited to contain herself, I swallow that down and say, "'Course! I've got a script already."

"I really appreciate it." Mr. A gives me an apologetic smile. "And you've been doing a great job as ASM. Are you thinking of applying to be tech head for next year?"

Finally. Speaking of waiting for this moment for months, I let out a long, cooling breath, and give the theatre teacher a subdued smile. "I am, actually."

"Well, my lips are sealed, but…" He winks, then disappears back into the crowd of the cast.

I manage to keep my squeal internal, but Blaire spots me silently celebrating and whizzes over.

"You got it?!" she asks.

"Not yet," I say, folding my hands to stop them from trembling. "But… my chances are looking good, apparently."

Blaire claps her hands. "Hell yes! No way he would tell you that unless he was a hundred percent gonna do it."

I try not to get too excited, because I don't want to be disappointed later, but looking at Blaire as she vibrates with enthusiasm, I can't help hoping she's right.

"And you're playin' Fabian tonight, right?" Blaire asks.

I wince. "I sure am."

Blaire grins and pats my arm. "You'll do great, kid. No time to run lines, though, we're opening in twenty minutes. Good luck!"

And she's disappearing again, wheeling herself up the ramp to the backstage area.

"Thanks. And I'm older than you!" I call after her, getting another dismissive wave.

Still, even though my stomach feels like I've eaten a sandwich with gluten in it (yes, I actually have celiac disease—my gluten-freeness is not a fad), I rub my hands together and head backstage. Fabian's costume is the basic white undershirt that most of the male characters wear with a rough brown vest over it, and I tie my hair back to keep it out of my face.

The last minutes are a blur of Mr. A running around, wishing everyone broken legs, staring at the script whose lines refuse to properly stick in my brain, and breaking into a cold sweat as the lights dim.

"If music be the food of love…"

And Lee's off again, delivering the iconic monologue for the very last time. Heloise and I work in practiced silence, each transition buttery smooth from a week worth of practice and adrenaline-induced hyper-focus. Mel and I exchange clipped instructions, each word conserved and underscored by mutual understanding of every piece of our tech set-up.

In no time at all, we've reached Fabian's first scene. I touch Heloise's shoulder with shaking hands in a gesture of good luck, and she whispers the same to me, taking the headset and slipping it over her honey-blond curls. Belle and I have commiserated plenty over what their budding relationship has meant for our tech crew's efficacy but in all honesty, I'm really happy to see her and Mel together. I know even Mel was in a bit of a funk after the break-up, and Heloise is so sweet and genuine that I think they really complement each other.

"Come thy ways, Signor Fabian," Blaire announces, rolling in fast enough that I have to jog to catch her.

"Nay, I'll come," I answer, definitely too quietly. The lights onstage are hot and right in my eyes, but I can still see the dark swath of the audience stretching out in front of me. And now I say… I falter, then announce, "If I lose this sport, let me be boiled with melancholy."

"Wouldst thou not be glad to have the miserly, rascally sheep-biter come by some notable shame?" Blaire says, grinning and tapping her fingers like castanets. The audience laughs. The lines burst out of her, ringing loud and still sounding like we're just having a conversation.

"I would…" I pause. Well, damn.

Blaire grins again and half-shouts, "You would exult? I know, he brought you out o' favor with my niece about a bear-baiting here."

"He sure did," I answer and Blaire's straight face doesn't crack for an instant. Nice save, I mouth to her. Guess it's useful to have a scene partner who knows both her lines and mine.

Whoever in the audience knows that Blaire had to fill my line is having the time of their life. Everyone else gets a chuckle out of my anachronism, anyway.

"To anger him, we'll have the bear again," Blaire declares, then wheels around in her chair fast enough to nearly crash into Baru who has just entered, "and we will fool him black and blue. Shall we not, Sir Andrew?"

Baru gives him a little bow, looking rather stuffed into his mustard-yellow finery. "And we do not, it is pity of our lives."

I manage to fade into the background a bit as Daphne enters, looking as alive and dramatic as I've ever seen her. She and Blaire play off each other beautifully; as Daphne takes centre to explain the plan—Stepping into the light, I note with satisfaction as the lights gleam off her brown ringlets—Blaire reacts with comically exaggerated expressions, egging Daphne on until they're practically miming the entire monologue to each other.

"'Tis but fortune, all is fortune."

That heralds Julio, who swans across the stage in his long white robe, practically petting his pendant. If I thought Daphne and Blaire made for a potent combination, the chemistry is palpable once Julio and Blaire start playing off each other. Malvolio technically doesn't even know Sir Toby's there, but I'm still impressed by how they instinctively balance the stage between them.

"What should I think on 't?" Julio asks the audience, stroking his chin thoughtfully.

Blaire winks at me, then hisses, "Here's an overweening rogue!" while wheeling forward. I react, probably a beat too late, and grab the back of her wheelchair to rein her in. I know from the grin she shoots me that's what she intended.

"Um…" I fumble for the line and before Blaire can jump in to save me again, announce, "He looks like a turkey!"

Blaire finally breaks character with a startled yelp of laughter echoed by the audience.

God, I'm gonna be adlibbing more than Freddy, I think. Still, my blush is more from frenetic energy than from embarrassment.

Luckily for me, most of the scene is just loudly shushing Blaire as she continues to make threats of violence to the blissfully unaware Malvolio. We exit in a fit of giggles, Blaire punching my arm in a poor attempt to get me to shut up. At least the audience is laughing along.

By the time I've got my composure back (act three), Fabian's onstage again. I've been mouthing the monologue about fourteen times in a row, and wipe my sweaty hands on my pants before entering with Baru and Blaire.

"Marry, I saw your niece do more favors to the Count's servingman than ever she bestowed upon me. I saw it in the orchard," Baru whines.

"Did she see thee the while, old boy? Tell me that," Blaire insists, putting herself in his way. Baru steps to the left and Blaire blocks his path, then he moves to the right and she goes with him.

"As plain as I see you now," Baru exclaims.

"This was a great argument of love in her toward you," I say wisely, tapping my temple. I've finally gotten the hang of speaking my lines loud enough for at least the front row to hear me. Everyone else will have to piece it together on their own.

"She did show favor to the youth in your sight only to exasperate you, to awake your dormouse valor, to put fire in your heart and brimstone in your liver," I explain. Blaire gestures grandly as if to punctuate my points. "You should then have accosted her, and with some excellent jests, you should have banged the youth into dumbness! You are now sailed into the north of my lady's opinion, where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman's beard"—Blaire begins to mime the world's tiniest violin—"unless you redeem yourself by some attempt either of valor or policy."

"An 't be any way, it must be with valor, for policy I hate," Baru grumbles. "I had as lief be a Brownist as a politician."

We banish Sir Andrew to go write his letter of challenge to Cesario, then Blaire whirls around back to face me with mirth glimmering in her gaze that I'm certain isn't entirely feigned. Oh no, it's my line, isn't it?

"You're about to say that he's been a dear manikin to me, aren't you?" Blaire says without missing a beat and nods. "I have been dear to him, lad, some two thousand strong, or so."

Saved again. I fish for the wording of my line and come up with, "His letter's going to be interesting. You won't deliver it, right?"

"Never trust me, then," Blaire says with another wicked grin. Sharing her conspiratorial look, once again I'm struck with the feeling that it's not feigned at all.

- Leandro -

Blaire is on fire. Also based on how fast she moves her wheels, that might be literally true soon. Jokes I've never been able to understand before click into place when she gestures lewdly or takes long swigs from her empty tin tankard. Moments where the audience has seemed half-asleep before have turned into riotous laughter. She's brilliant, and definitely learned all her lines, but really, it's nothing compared to when she's on with Julio.

"Which way is he, in the name of sanctity?" Blaire shouts, rocketing onstage again, leading her brigade of Maria and Fabian.

"Here he is," Izzie calls. "How is't with you, man?"

Jules has cast off his sneer in favour of a dreamy smile, but the sneer makes its encore when he notices them. Blaire watches him with an expectant grin as Jules waves his hand to dismiss them.

"Go to, go to! Peace, peace," Blaire hushes her party. "We must deal gently with him. Let me alone."

Then she wheels herself over to Jules, clears her throat, and asks gently, "How do you, Malvolio? How is't with you?"

Julio looks down, contemptful, at her.

Then in an explosive yell that catches everyone but Julio by surprise, Blaire clutches her chest and bellows, "What, man, defy the devil! Consider, he's an enemy to mankind!"

I can't help clapping my hands together like a kid as I watch them go back and forth, scenes that I don't doubt they've practiced together a hundred times finally being shown off to all of us, each word as precise as lightning strikes.

"Get him to say his prayers, good Sir Toby, get him to pray," Daphne urges.

"My prayers, minx?" Julio demands, curling his lip.

Blaire wheels herself in front of Daphne in an unexpectedly touching act of protectiveness. Daphne rolls her eyes and announces, "No, I warrant you, he will not hear of godliness."

The second Blaire and Julio are done, though, my mind returns to the one thing I've been desperately trying to get out of my head. Act two, scene four.

Mostly the way Haze tilted her head and said, "You cannot love her. You tell her so. Must she not then be answered?"

It took me a second too long to turn away, caught on the way she stared so earnestly at me. It took me another second after that to put on the light misogyny of Orsino as I said, "No woman's heart is so big, to hold so much. They lack retention."

And I looked back in time to see the painfully desperate look on her face as I said, "But mine is all as hungry as the sea."

She's a good actress, that's all, I tell myself. Right now, she's on the other side of the backstage, ready for the next scene; almost the last scene, where again I'll take her hand and hold my breath so the real truth doesn't spill out of me. The last scene, for the last time. This wonderful thing is almost over.

"Ay, but I know," she said, voice breaking.

"What dost thou know?"

"Too well what love women to men may owe."

Now I'm thinking of all the times we were running lines in her room, mine, in between classes, over the phone way after we both should've been asleep.

"That's how Shakespeare showed the strongest couples, you know," she observed to me, both of us a little delirious and more than a little sleep-deprived from running the same scenes for hours. She'd flung her arm over the side of my bed, and then when I'd sat back down, her arm had found itself fitted behind my head and over my shoulders. Neither of us said anything about it, not even when she started idly fiddling with my hair as though she'd mistaken it for my sheet. "The verse. I mean, the metre, or whatever. They literally finish each other's sentences."

"That's the nerdiest shit ever," I'd half-giggled, emboldened by her fingers at my neck, and turned to grin at her. We were close, so close I probably would've felt her eyelashes on my cheek if she blinked too hard.

"I think it's romantic," she said and smiled too. Then like the coward I am, I hurried off to get us a refill; mountain dew for her, cherry coke for me.

"A blank, my lord. She never told her love," Haiza said, and for the first time in the four performances we've had together, didn't do the Cesario intonation. Just in time for the last time she'll ever say the line. "She pined in thought, and with a green and yellow melancholy, she sat like patience on a monument—smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?"

Sitting backstage now, I realize something. She wasn't pretending to be someone else. That was… that was just her… For the first time in about four years I wonder, Is it possible that she doesn't just think of me as a friend?

Maybe Shakespeare's turning my brain into melodramatic mush, but goddamn, it would be the most Haze thing ever if she took the last performance as a chance to tell me something in Shakespeare-code. Now I'm remembering every little look, every touch, and re-evaluating.

The way her hand curled around mine when I handed her the jewel after the waltzing. Fuck, the waltzing, when she was looking anywhere except me. I thought that was a Cesario thing too.

My life upon't, young though thou art, thine eye hath stayed upon some favour that it loves. Hath it not, boy?
A little, by your favour.
The way she looked up at me, pressing her lips together as if to keep back a bittersweet smile.

I feel lightheaded. Either I'm going insane or I'm not doomed to eternal loneliness. I guess mistakenly thinking your long-shot-affections are being returned is also very Twelfth Night, though. And considering Malvolio's fate, do I want to risk it? I think of the snowflakes and her cold hands and then think, Yup, I sure do.

The question is actually, am I brave enough to take the chance?

Definitely not.

Well, I can't do it now, anyway. In public would be nightmarishly embarrassing for everyone involved, particularly if it went south. Didn't Freddy say he was going to organize a cast party or something? Maybe… if we get a chance alone, I promise myself. And if she still seems… like that… after we're not speaking in Shakespeare-lines.

There is still a non-zero chance that this is entirely my brain making this up, but I'm desperate to think it isn't. C'mon, Billy Shakes, you're my only hope, I think as I enter for the last scene.

- Corinne -

"What?" I demand of Moiz for the thousandth time as he chokes on another wheezing laugh.

"Nothing!" he swears again. "Nothing, nothing."

I give him a suspicious look, then shake out my heavy skirt and get ready to enter for the last scene. Just before I do, Moiz makes a noise.

"Oops, Julio forgot the letter," he comments, as if to himself, and snatches a folded up paper off the prop table next to us and hurries off to find him.

I take a deep breath and enter, savouring the way the light turns orange to signify me and my power. This is my favourite scene; the last one, where just about every character gets their moment, and every snag and every unexplained bit of misunderstanding snaps into sharp focus. It's also dramatic as hell and watching Lee and Haze shout at each other is satisfying.

When Moiz finally enters, he's looking weirdly pleased with himself.

"I am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman," he says and I gawk at him.

Ivy stands with her hands tied, next to Lee, and stares at Moiz with the same expression of utter bafflement.

"Antonio, oh my dear Antonio!" Moiz continues, hurrying over to Ivy. Maybe it's the last-show-recklessness that's making all of us a little crazy, but he bearhugs her, then cups her cheek like they're not heterosexual life partners.

"Sebastian, are you?" she asks.

"Fear'st thou that, Antonio?"

"How have you made division of yourself?" Ivy rasps. "An apple cleft in two is not more twin than these two creatures." She points at Haze, who's discreetly pulling her sash a little looser so it hangs the same way her brother's does. "Which is Sebastian?"

"Most wonderful," I exclaim, and get the usual burst of laughter.

Haiza and Moiz step forward as if they're the only ones onstage. Mel and Belle turn the lights to the powder blue of their vests. Haiza slowly raises one hand and Moiz copies it, so nearly synced that it's almost impossible to tell who moved first. A hush falls over the audience.

"I should my tears let fall upon your cheek," Moiz murmurs, stepping forward. "And say 'Thrice-welcome, drownèd Viola!'"

"My father had a mole upon his brow."

"And so had mine."

"And died that day when Viola from her birth had numbered thirteen years."

"Oh, that record is lively in my soul!" Moiz turns to the audience, a hint of his old puppy-dog energy in his voice. "He finished indeed his mortal act that day that made my sister thirteen years."

It made you thirteen too, dumbass, you're twins. But I shouldn't speak that way to my future husband.

"Do not embrace me till each circumstance of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump," Haiza runs out of breath and then spreads her arms wide and tells him, "that I am Viola."

Despite her words, Moiz steps forward to give her a big hug too.

I hear a few awws in the audience and smile.

Then finally, Lee steps forward and looks to Haiza. There's something different about him, a hopeful uptilt in his voice to counterbalance the storm of rage minutes before. "Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times… thou never shouldst love woman like to me."

"And all those sayings will I overswear; and those swearings keep as true in soul," Haze promises for the last time.

Moiz bounds over to stand with me, and I give him a little pat on the head to draw attention to the height difference, mostly because I think it is very funny. He grins at me with something I can't quite read in his expression, then looks back to watch as Lee and Haze finally take hands.

"The captain that did bring me first on shore hath my maid's garments. He, upon some action, is now in durance at Malvolio's suit, a gentleman and follower of my lady's," Haze tells Leandro, cheeks flushed with the thrill of the last show.

"He shall enlarge him," I promise. Izzie and Freddy enter as I command, "Fetch Malvolio hither: and yet, alas, now I remember me, they say, poor gentleman, he's much distract. A most extracting frenzy of mine own from my remembrance clearly banished his. How does he, sirrah?"

Freddy grins, then puts on a grave look. "Truly, madam, he holds Beelzebub at the staves' end as well as a man in his case may do. Has here writ a letter to you. I should have given 't you today morning, but as a madman's epistles are no gospels, so it skills not much when they are delivered."

I snap my fingers at him. "Open it, and read it."

"Look then to be well edified when the fool delivers the madman," Freddy declares, ripping open the paper with gusto, and screams at the top of his lungs, so loud that I and half the cast jump, "BY THE LORD, MADAM!"

"How now!" I shout over him when my heart's recovered, raising and then lowering my hands in a quieting gesture. The audience laughs as I give him a stare. "Art thou mad?"

"No, madam," he says, perfectly patient, "I do but read madness. And your ladyship will have it as it ought to be, you must allow vox."

I give him a look that says, I sure as fuck don't have to allow vox, then say aloud, with the most exhausted, so-sick-of-this tone I can muster, "Prithee, read in thy right wits."

Freddy pouts. "So I do, madonna. But to read his right wits is to read thus. Therefore perpend, my princess, and give ear!" He opens his mouth, drawing in an enormous breath like he's getting ready to let another scream rip.

I step forward and snatch the letter from his hands. "Read it you, sirrah." and slap it into Izzie's chest.

She sighs, dusts the paper off, and begins to read without vox.

"Did he write this?" I ask her.

Izzie gives me a blank look and Freddy pipes up from behind her, "Ay, madam."

"This savors not much of distraction," Lee points out. He and Haze are still half-attached to each other.

"See him delivered," I order and gesture for Izzie to exit. "Fabian; bring him hither."

Once she's gone, Lee delivers another sappy monologue, staring at Haiza like she's the sun. Then Haze turns to me with a dazzling smile and announces, "A sister, you are she."

A moment later, Izzie returns with a rather dishevelled-looking Julio.

"Madam, you have done me wrong," he announces without preamble. "Notorious wrong."
I shake my head. "Have I, Malvolio? No."
He produces the letter that Moiz tracked him down for and says, "Lady, you have. Pray you, peruse that letter."

As he passes it to me, Moiz bursts into muffled giggles. I shoot him a look, then flip open the letter and start reading.

My eyes catch on the first line. Julio launches into an explanation of the whole trick, but I can barely hear it because…

Malvolio's Marvelous Pick-up Linesis written in rather sloppy handwriting. And beneath it… I scan over each one, pressing my lips together so tightly that I feel them about to burst.

Art thou good Mistress Accost? Because I desire better acquaintance.

Art thou an undertaker? Because I am for you!

Art thou a fool? Because I want to take you away.

Art thou Malvolio? Because how is't with you, gurl?

I'm in tears by the time Julio demands, "Tell me why!"

I open my mouth to deliver my line and all that comes out is a long stream of garbled profanities and laughter. The 'letter' is signed by Antonio and Sebastian, so I have no doubt who was behind this. I also have no doubt as to why Moiz was giggling away. Finally, I gasp and catch my breath, a last tear streaking my cheek.

"Alas, Malvolio," I rasp, pressing back another helpless bout of laughter. "this is not my writing, though, I confess, much like the character. But out of question, 'tis Maria's hand."

Daphne's long gone, eloped with Blaire already. Still, I vaguely gesture in their direction.

Izzie staggers through Fabian's explanation, her brother swooping way too early to cut her off. Which was probably for the best.

"But do you remember?" Freddy asks, stalking over to Julio with a knife-sharp smile, then lowers his voice to mimic Malvolio. "'Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal; an you smile not, he's gagged?'" He sighs and smiles. "And thus the whirrrrrligig of time brings in his revenges." Freddy taps Julio's nose, who immediately slaps his hand away.

"I'll be revenged on the whole pack of you," Julio snarls and whips around to stalk offstage.

As he goes, I look at Moiz and think the same thing.

- Hermelinda -

"Why are you humming that?'

I blink at Belle, innocent as a baby deer. "Humming? Oh, sorry."

Once she's turned back to the stage out our window, I click on the screen of the dusty tech computer. It's still on the screen I opened it to. The sound system's mixer in one window, files in another, and my own google drive in a third.

Add audio files? The mixer program asks.

Yes, please, I think. It opens the pop-up. I move away from local documents.

"What are you up to over there?" Belle cranes her head and I square my shoulder to hide the screen from her.

"Oh, nothing."

Perfection - Final Ver. I drag the audiofile into the sound system mixer and wait a moment for Ms. Cary's piano as the final scene winds to a close. It doesn't get a chance to play.

"Here we go," I say.

Belle's expression of confusion turns into an interesting mix of terror and grudging respect.

Rasputin by Boney M's opening drums flood the auditorium, drowning out Ms. Cary's piano.

"Hey, hey, hey," I murmur along.

And then the recording I made of the cast singing When that I was and a Little Tiny Boy kicks in over the instrumental, their lyrics flying past so fast that most of the people onstage don't even bother trying to keep up.

Haiza's the one to start clapping in time, which catches among the rest of the cast, then through the whole audience until the massive, packed room is clapping along. As the second run of the lyrics begins, a couple of the cast members start singing. Izzie and Freddy are really the only ones who keep up with the speed, and step forward to start dancing.

I clap too, spinning to grin at Belle. She shakes her head, a laugh bubbling out of her.

"Goddamn," is all she says. "Fucking hell."

I tap my headphones, then turn back to watch the rest of the cast turn up to my Rapsutin-Shakespeare remix.

"Hey, hey, hey, hey!" Leandro pumps a fist and even Julio's begun to shift from foot to foot in time with the music.

Freddy has grabbed Baru's hands and started swinging him around like he's going to do shot put. Blaire takes Daphne's hand as well, both of them spinning loops around the cast. Cory and Izzie throw their heads back, more and more joining in until the whole cast is dancing with varying levels of coordination.

A great while ago, the world begun, with a hey-ho the wind and the rain, but that's all one, our play is done and we'll strive to please you e-very dayyy, the recording sings, then finally stops.

"Ohhhh, those Russians!" Blaire shouts, and the cast laughs. Then they form the shakiest line I've ever seen for the final bow.

I should hardly have to say it, but the audience surges to their feet in a standing ovation. I savour the sounds of the cheers and whistles.

"Good show," I say to Heloise through the headset.

"That was you, wasn't it?" she giggles.

"Mm."

"Pretty sure the audience thinks we planned that."

"Well, I planned it, and everyone else is good at improvising."

Heloise laughs again. "Ms. Cary's going to kill you."

"Eh, I can take her."

"I'm sure," Heloise says, and I can hear her smile. "Now come down, show's over. I miss you, up there."

I snort but can't help a little blush too. "Do you, now? Well, I'll be down in a minute unless Ms. Cary gets to me first."

"Godspeed," she says, then I hear a click as the comm shuts off.

I grin and swing off the chair, stretching my arms out and feeling terribly pleased with myself. Belle shoots me a look.

"Jealous, sweetheart?"

She rolls her eyes.

"How's Ivy?" I ask.

Belle leans back in her chair and examines her manicured nails. "Oh, yeah, I kissed her last night. We're going out on Sunday."

"What?!" I immediately sit back down. "Tell me everything."
She snorts, but I know she's satisfied. "Nothing really to tell. It was… kind of inevitable."

"Now what, though? How are you feeling?"
Belle shrugs. "A little terrified and a little excited? Well, you weren't the one to turn me gay, so I have to hope she won't break my heart."

"That's the spirit!" And then I leave her in the tech booth, hurrying down the auditorium's aisles, sprinting past the parents and up the stairs to the stage to greet Heloise and my brothers.

Heloise comes out from backstage, the commset slung around her neck and her cheeks bright red from the adrenaline. She nearly stumbles into me, then stands on her tiptoes to kiss me.

I pull her in close, then straighten, breathless, and grin down at her. "So, you enjoyed Rasputin, eh?"

"I did!" Blaire volunteers in a yell from the other side of the stage and laughter runs through the cast.

Keeping an arm around Heloise's waist, we forge into the clump of theatre kids, every last one of us practically buzzing with exhausted ecstasy. Julio's speaking animatedly to Blaire, more excited than I've seen him in a long time.

"And the fuckin'—" he breaks off into a laugh, then turns to me when I hm to signal my approach. "Mel! That was great, wasn't it? How'd you… the Rasputin thing was you."

It's not a question, but I say, "Sure was. Audacity is a miracle."

"Brilliant," he says, grinning wider than I actually thought he could.

"Where's Lee?"
"Oh, he and Haze are… y'know." Jules waves a hand. "And Blaire, the fucking exorcism, I can't believe…"

I exchange a look with Heloise and we leave Blaire, Julio, Daphne, and Izzie to excitedly relive the euphoria of the show. As Julio said, Leandro is standing with Moiz, Cory, and Haze. Cory's showing them something, stabbing a finger at Moiz and absolutely shaking with laughter. Even as Moiz and Haze join in, reading bits off the letter, my brother is staring in the most obvious way at Haze as she laughs.

I pause and Heloise looks up at me. Then I shrug. "Yeah, nevermind, I'll talk to him later. Let's go find Penelope."

Belle eventually comes down to join us and Ivy and Izzie peel away from their groups to form a tech-huddle-plus-Penelope.

"Nice work, everyone," I announce. "And I was tipped off that apparently Izzie has been named my successor."

"Not quite yet." Even she is red-cheeked and glowing. "But… hopefully."

"I'll throw my weight around," I promise.

"You're a darling," Izzie laughs. "Oh, before I forget, Freddy's inviting you all to a cast party next Friday. There will apparently be karaoke and a Malvolio-shaped, custom-ordered pinata involved. I don't know… how he's gonna pull that off, but yeah."

I'm sure after I one-upped his harp, he's itching to reclaim that particular crown of chaos. I shrug. "I have faith."

Well this is sort of fun! We've finished the last show, much emotion in me all around. Now's a good time to tell you all that I performed in Twelfth Night with a whole bunch of amigos. The pick-up line letter was an actual prank performed on a friend of mine by me and a couple others which of course you would know if you followed me on Tumblr akitsune-lune always be plugging, and I've sprinkled in a few other real-life moments. Now here's the million dollar question that probably has an obvious answer. Who did I play in Twelfth Night?

~Akila