Beck walked into Hollywood Arts, experiencing a normal Monday. He found a group of guys he knew well-enough to call them friends, his true friends were nowhere to be seen, and began to talk to them about the upcoming assignments and tests. Suddenly, the boys turned their attention to someone else walking their way and made sure to make way before she ran right through them. Jade West. She terrified everyone who made eye contact with her. Beck didn't really get it, the fear that surrounded her, but he had never even spoken words to her unless they were doing an in-class scene or something. She seemed more irritated today, probably because she had submitted a script to Sikowitz, but so had another student, and Sikowitz had to read both and decide on the one that will be performed.
The bell rang and the group of men dispersed as Beck walked to get to class before Sikowitz noticed he was gone. Sikowitz wasn't even there when he sat down in his seat, two empty chairs between him and Jade West. He frowned at the lack of people and looked around to see that everyone had crowded onto the other side of the room, as far away from Jade as possible. He shrugged his shoulders and sunk into his chair, looking at his phone, and missing the side-eye Jade was giving him. Sikowitz finally entered through the window, making everyone frown in confusion.
"A seagull chased me this way. So, I decided to just come in the window." He stated with a large smile. "Anyway, first things first, the play I've decided we will be putting on is," Sikowitz motioned for the class to do a drumroll, but none did, "Celeste!"
"WHAT?!" Jade exclaimed and the class went dead quiet.
"Jade," Sikowitz began slowly.
"You are going to put on another romance play? Written by Marshal? The guy who faints at the mention of any bodily fluids?" Jade complained.
"Jade, we can't do your play because it gave me nightmares all weekend, even when I wasn't sleeping. I don't think everyone, in the class, will be able to handle the horrifying images you want to create." Sikowitz explained calmly.
"Well can I get my play to be put on if people volunteered to be in it?" Jade questions, calming down a bit.
"I will look into that for you. Now, let's continue with class."
The rest of the class was uneventful. Beck didn't get called on to be part of a scene, so he got to sit back and relax. At the end of class, Sikowitz handed out the scripts for Marshal's play so everyone could start learning their parts.
The rest of the day went by slowly, Mondays really sucked sometimes. Beck became bored with his general lectures, so he began to read over the play, wondering what his part all entailed, being the butler. As he read, he was confused about how this was supposed to be romantic, but then he had the bright idea to read the front page. Turns out it was Jade's play, Tyrant, and that made a lot more sense. Beck figured he had nothing better to do, and now he had proper context, so he continued to read further.
After class, he went to find Sikowitz and get his actual script. When he found Sikowitz, drinking coconut milk, he walked closer until Sikowitz looked up. Upon seeing Beck, Sikowitz began to scream and ran away. He did say the coconut milk gave him visions, and that worried Beck. He guessed he would just get the script tomorrow. He walked out to his car, but as he passed a trimmed, tall bush, he heard some grunting. Beck stepped into the bush, to find a small open space just behind it, walls of bushes creating a 360-degree wall. In the center was Jade West, sitting on a large rock, cutting up a bundle of branches with some scissors, and quietly letting tears leak down her face.
"Hey." Beck said softly, stepping around to see her face.
Jade quickly wiped her face, dropping the plant, and looked away, appearing to not care that he was there.
"What?" she said sharply.
"Are you okay?" He asked calmly, not wanting to upset her further.
"Yeah." She responded coldly.
"You sure?"
"I said, yeah, open your ears!"
Beck stood silently for a while. She obviously didn't want to talk about it. Oh well, he had wanted to tell her something anyway.
"I read your play." He stated matter-of-factly.
"What are you talking about? Sikowitz has the only copy." She scoffed.
"He accidently gave it to me, so I read it. I like it."
Jade finally looked up at him, eyes still red but no more tears forming, "You do? It's not too, …scary." She said the last word sarcastically.
"I mean, some parts are morbid, but overall it is sweet." Beck smiled.
"Sweet? Are you trying to insult me?" Jade glared.
"No, I just mean there are a lot of underlying themes that some may miss when they are wrapped up in the fear." Beck explained, taking a seat on the rock next to her.
"I guess writing is meant to be look at in different ways, even if they are idiotic." Jade groaned, picking at her nails.
Beck sat down on the rock with her, giving the conversation a rest. He had one more thing to ask her.
"Would you want to rehearse with me tonight?"
Jade looked over slowly, eyes wide and glaring at him, "Why would we do that? I have one line as the maid."
"Well, I don't have a script so I can't really practice." Beck shrugged.
"Here, just take mine. Like I said, I have one line." She smacked the script into his chest.
"But you should practice how you want to say it."
"The line is 'I don't know,' which I say to your character when you ask, 'Do you know where she is?'." Jade rolled her eyes.
"But you can do so much with a single line. You can have an accent, or add any type of emotion to it. You can add more to the story just by delivering a single line." Beck told passionately, making Jade frown.
She took a second to think about it before sighing, "Fine. But it'll just be tonight, because you should have your script by tomorrow."
"That's okay." Beck nodded, pursing his lips out.
Jade sighed and rolled her eyes as she stood and walked through the bushes, "See you tonight at 7."
Beck let out a breath as well, a small smile on his face and got up to go back to his car.