I'm really trying to hammer down the distance between the updates of the chapters. And if you've noticed the A/Ns are a lot shorter just because I've been out of stuff to tell you guys.

Since I've been feeling so shitty lately, I apologize if that's how the chapter comes out.

September 21st 2013

Christine's Pov

I held the script in hand, on stage and ready to go. I don't know what changed, but I was actually starting to warm up to the play—or, more so, the people in the play. Some of that were surprisingly not that terrible and stuck-up like I had prepared myself for.

Like the people who play my (or more accurately, Juliet's parents) were maybe the closest to me out of everyone, excluding Chase and Bree. Damon (Lord Capulet) and Gemma (Lady Capulet) were probably as close as two people could get. One day after rehearsal when it was raining and I felt like waiting a little to delay getting soaked, I mentioned to Gemma about how touchy-touchy they were. Blushingly, she admitted that, yeah, they were more than besties (i.e. friends with major benefits) but didn't like to use labels. Whatever, they were so into each other whether they admitted it or not.

I guess the others weren't bad either—like Mitchell, who played my (again, Juliet's) cousin, Tybalt. He was your typical child at heart kind of boy, happy about all the fighting scenes he gets to use. Did I mention that our school used light sabers instead of something more practical like, I don't know, plastic swords? They claim even plastic swords are considered weapons, but should light sabers be then by that logic?

And why would our principal be so concerned about violence rule being breached when last year she was practically condoning it with her death spiral smack down or whatever as I've been told? Maybe it was her paycheck time and she was just sucking up.

"You're looking pretty deep," Damon commented, making me jump as he came up from behind me. "Penny for your thoughts?"

"Our principal is a nutcase."

He gave me a parental kind of look with a lecturing hand on my shoulder. "Now, now Christina," he warned in a mock-deep tone. "We don't mock the crazy for what they are, only what we should fear them doing in the future."

I flicked his hand off me. "My full name isn't Christina."

"I knew that."

"Whatever."

"I did!" he continued to protest as I flipped through my script. I spent last night touching up my highlighting and putting sticky notes in my kissy-kissy scenes. And boy was there quite a few of them.

And what was with this dude and young, gross romances? I mean this chick was, what, thirteen while this guy was seventeen, eighteen? What the hell? Shakespeare was maybe the reason to inspire all the raping in this century—promoting all the "dating people five or six years younger than you" crap. But, whatever, that's just my opinion.

Alissa grew a spine this week. Suddenly she wasn't taking Tina's Little Miss Brat attitude anymore, startling pretty much everyone. Especially Tina. Or maybe it was just all the understudies because Alissa had been strongly snappy to Ronny, the scrawny understudy for Damon.

I was just the person she loved to pick on the most. Maybe she meant well and really thought I was the best to do the examples for the acting exercises she had us warm up with, but she always kept me front and center each morning for every new activity we did. And I was (sort of) flattered and all, but being the center of attention was a bit unnerving, for the lack of better word.

So I decided to confront her about it.

We were just finished with the final scene of the entire play (yeah, rehearsing the death scene after the opening scene made no sense to me, but no one listened to my opinion—not that I told anybody except when I complained to Bree about it). Alissa had been pretty moody through everything, claiming Callan had been holding the cup wrong. (How the hell can you hold a cup wrong?

"Alissa, can I talk to you for a minute?" I asked timidly. The script suddenly felt a little too heavy in my hands.

She smiled at me for once today—instead of that creepy, unreadable smirk she had been shooting off at everything today when they didn't deserve a scowl—and even called me my name instead of "female actor number one."

That was what I would call improvement.

"Yes, Christine?"

Oh, great. While I was determined to get some answers, I really hadn't expected for her to actually listen to me. I figured Alissa would be like all the other teachers in this school and brush me off, insisting she'll get back to me later and never do.

Otherwise, I didn't plan it out this far.

"I just had a question about some of the…um, acting exercises you have us do?" I asked, words coming out a question as I checked over how they sounded. Not as stupid as I thought they would.

"Yes…?" she prompted. Maybe it was just my imagination or the poor lighting of auditorium, but that unsure twinkle came back if only for a second. That meant she found likeable at least somewhat.

I stared down at the script in my hands. "Well, it's just that I feel like you've been centering me out a lot for most of them, and I was really just wondering—you know—why?"

Alissa was looking me over from head to toe; I felt the burning line of her eyes as they sized me up. I never liked inspections. Then, she started to laugh.

Wait, what?

Well that's just flipping fantastic. She's laughing at me and I don't even get what the hell was so funny in the first place.

"Oh." Alissa sobered pretty well, but still was giving me a pretty funny looking smile. "Christine, I know you better than you may think. You're new to acting; you're not used to being front and center on stage, having a lead role, and having the pressure of putting on a perfect performance…"

Well, gee. This pep-talk was helping nothing but to diminish my self-confidence, thanks.

"…And my job as a step-in drama teacher assistant is to help the blossoming actors, experienced or not. And you, Christine, are playing the lead role. Therefore, the audience is going to base the whole play off your performance—you are the face of the play."

God.

"But if you knew I would be so inexperienced, then why even give me a major role in the first place?" I asked, still not getting her point.

Alissa shrugged as if she didn't know, but her still-funny looking smile tipped me otherwise. "Potential," is what she left me with.

Freaking potential my ass.

But before I could share my thoughts on what she preached Alissa smirked that weird smirk at me again before gathering up her bag and leaving, swiftly cutting off our conversation.

Gee, thanks to you to.

I sighed, hiking my bag further up my shoulder and tucking my script into the front pocket before bounding up the stage steps and starting a search for Bree. We were going to walk home together because she needed my opinion on something involving her love life or lack of. That is, until I saw Barbie herself cornering my boyfriend.

What was she doing?

My anger bubbled, my fists gripping my script so hard I thought it would rip. Tina really needed to learn how to stay away from Chase before I did something that would land her needing an understudy.

"Com'n, Chase," she purred, running a hand down the length of his arm, lips pursed in a pout. "Do you really think it is fair for them to share the entire spotlight? I think you and me would be much better for the part, don't you think?"

Oh my god. Is she serious? This was what it was all about, me having the part and her throwing one of her diva fits because of it? Ridiculous.

"Listen, Tina." Chase used his free hand to pull - more like pry - her claws off his arm. "I'm sure that somewhere deep, deep, deep down you somehow have at least some heart, no matter how tiny, but I'm not going to sabotage my girlfriend. The play is nearly in a month anyway. I'm walking away now."

"Hah," Gemma said after creeping up behind me and nearly making my heart bust free from my chest. "Could she be anymore slutty? Seriously, it's like she's just begging to be called a whore."

Damon slipped up from behind her, making a noise of agreement from the back of his throat. "Good thing you're dating maybe one of the only trustable men in this school, Chris."

It was comments like that that made me think the main reason Gemma and him weren't together was that he was gay. But I've grown used to them by now so I just waved it off...for now.

"Calling her a whore won't do anything like slapping her would." I raised my hand to prove my point, but Gemma saw and slammed it back to my side.

"As much as we all would love to see Barbie have a swollen cheek and black eye, do you really need Principal Sports Bra coming after you again?"

I hated when she was right. When was kind of bad because she was never wrong—ever.

"Fine." But at least I knew when to admit defeat.

I told Bree what happened on the walk home. She was gaping and glaring down at the sidewalk once I finished, maybe exaggerating Tina's ways if only a little. But I pretty much had it down to what it was.

"Well," she drawled slowly, looking up at me. We were already at the Davenport residence and I felt bad for hogging all the time on the walk home because she never got a chance to tell me what she needed to say, Bree seemed to have forgotten all about that as she said, "It's not like we weren't expecting her to do something like that. The play and the jealously of them both being understudy is just giving all the perfect opportunities."

She left with that, waving goodbye before rushing up their huge, mile-long driveway to leave me stand there. I ran a hand through my hair and jogged down the street.

Rem was busy upstairs when I walked through the door, calling out, "There's a message for you on the machine!" before going back to what I guessed was dusting or using the broom on a couple unused rooms.

The machine? Rarely anybody called us on our home phone anymore since Dad got his own phone (in case he didn't have his pager, he'd told me when I asked—I didn't bother to tell him no one used a pager anymore) last year. I shrugged and threw my backpack onto the couch, hopping onto the counter and pressing the button as a tiny red one blinked up at me from the black screen.

When I heard his voice, I froze.

"Hey, Christine. I don't know if you're getting this because you guys rarely ever use your home phone but you weren't answering, so, uh…yeah. I just wanted to say that if you're made about last semester, then fine. But did you tell him? That's all I wanted to know. Yeah—call me back whenever you get this."

The awkward message was ended with a click.

Maybe he'd thought we were safe (and it was very possible I was blowing this way out of proportion like always), but it under absolutely no circumstances was he able to bring up the Secret any way but face to face. It was an unspoken rule since the Secret became a secret. My Dad may not seem like it, but he was one to dig his nose deep into something; he was where I got it from. If he thought something wasn't right, he'd go to extreme measures to find out why. It was part of the scientist in him. I bet Dad was crazy enough to tap into his own home phone to find out what was up.

Well, this wasn't good. If I ignored this, I was only stalling the inevitable, and that would help nothing. So I had to face the music.

Swallowing my pride, I dug my phone out of my pocket and scrolled through my contacts, my breathing hitching when I pressed on his name.

"Hey," I managed to greet, forcing a smile even though he couldn't see me. "Wanna come over?"

It took him ten minutes. Ten minutes before he was knocking on my door and Hunter was standing on my doorstep. In a way, it was kind of nice to see him. But the awkwardness was killing the kind of-niceness of it.

"I'm in a play," I blurted out. It was sudden and unexpected but helped fill the silence.

Hunter's eyebrows shot up to his hairline. For the years we've known each other, he'd always been the performer out of the two of us. "Oh, really?" he said, his tone as unreadable as his face.

"Yeah, Romeo and Juliet."

"And what are you, a maid or something?"

Offended, I crossed my arms and said a bit louder than necessary, "For your information, I happen to be playing Juliet—the lead."

"And lemme guess, your Prince Charming is the lead," Hunter grumbled, stepping into the house more and letting me slam the door behind him with a loud, echoing bang.

I was really starting to get fed up with his attitude. I had half the mind to kick him out. "Actually, no. Callan is playing Romeo."

"The athlete? Unlikely."

I glared at him as we both sat down on the couch. "For someone who wanted to be here so bad you sure are being a jerk."

"Does he kiss better than me?'

I jumped startled at the question and instinctively scooted closer to the other side of the couch. "What?"

"Does he kiss better than me?" Hunter persisted, not picking up that I wanted distance between us.

"Who?"

"Either of them?"

I started to fidget with hem of my shirt, unsure of how to answer the question without really answering it. "Why do want to know anyway?" I suddenly asked, realizing a friend wouldn't care about that kind of thing. "And it's not like I remember anyway."

"So maybe I just need to remind you." Hunter was practically on top of me, leaving me to slouch beneath while he breathed down my neck. "And it's not like you're cheating or anything, you're just doing a test, comparing two different things."

Really it was cheating and I was about to point that out when he grabbed me by the back of my neck and smashed his lips onto mine. I squirmed, our lips feeling weird against one another's—too wrong. I tried to push him away before I started kissing back.

I didn't mean to, but I began to get into, like I was kissing Chase. That's only what made it bearable. That I was kissing my boyfriend, Chase.

That is until Dad decided to walk into the room. "Hey, do you just want Chinese take-out or—whoa! Am I interrupting something?"

My eyes sprung open and I jumped from my seat on the couch, pushing Hunter away with both my hands. I was breathing heavy, panting as I shook my head at my father and ran my hand through my hands several times.

"I just needed some help with some scenes in the play," I fibbed weakly, hoping Dad wouldn't notice that there weren't any scripts out or anything of the sorts.

"Okay." Dad just nodded and shrugged it off, truly looking horrible. But he at least got changed out of his bathrobe and into some sweat a shirt-that was an improvement.

"So, Chinese take-out?"

This chapter was so crappy and lame for taking forever to write. At first I thought I had it nailed and everything and that I'd get it done in a few days, holidays or not. But it ended up taking weeks. That's pretty sad once you think about it.