Title: To Be or Not To Be
Written for: Cruiz107
Written By: MarieCarro
Beta/Pre-Readers: Alice's White Rabbit/LaMomo
Rating: NC-17
Summary/Prompt used: Enemies to Lovers. Two people with a common passion should get along fine, right? Unfortunately, classically trained actor Edward Cullen and self-taught actress Bella Swan didn't get that memo, and the two are notorious enemies. But what happens when they're both cast in the same stage production as lovers?
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CHAPTER 6
"Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream ..."
I looked at the time on my phone—reduced to a glorified clock as it had been—and couldn't believe it had only been ten minutes since we were locked in. It already felt like an eternity, and Bella's monotone singing didn't warm me up to the situation either.
"Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merril—"
"Do you not like silence or something?" I asked.
Bella directed her eyes my way as if it were the most grueling thing she'd ever had to do. "Normally, I don't mind it. But this oppressive tension is making me anxious, and since you don't want to talk … Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream. Row, row row your—"
"Fine!" I groaned and sat up straighter. "I'll talk just, please, stop singing that song."
She smirked with smug amusement. "You don't like nursery rhymes?"
"Not on repeat, no."
"Then perhaps we should start there," she said, still smiling. "Let us take a really long, hard look into the psyche of Edward Masen. What trauma do you have connected to nursery rhymes?"
I rolled my eyes at her sarcasm. "Shut up," I said as the "mature" twenty-nine-year-old I was.
With a soft laugh, she looked away from me but, thankfully, didn't continue singing.
Another ten minutes passed and Bella had abandoned her stool to choose the shoes that were the reason we were in the vault in the first place. It wasn't a bad idea because then it would at least show we'd done as instructed and not just sat down on our asses feeling sorry for ourselves even though that was also true. I decided, however, to wait until she was done so we wouldn't be in each other's space and incite another argument.
With a sharp exhale, I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. Might as well run through all of my lines since I had the time, and it would keep my mind occupied.
"Did you fall asleep?"
"No," I answered without opening my eyes. "Thought I'd be productive and go through the script in my head."
"What? The entire script?"
I sighed and finally looked at her. "Yes. Compared to when you're filming, in theater, it's only beneficial if you know the entire script by heart. Including the parts you're not in."
"Really? Why is that?" she asked, her eyes lighting up with genuine curiosity.
A building discomfort ran through me, but I answered her question anyway. "Because it lets us get to know all the characters we interact with. And if we know the characters, how we react to them and their lines comes on organically."
Bella narrowed her eyes in deep thought. "But isn't that counterproductive? If we already know exactly what the other person will say, how can we genuinely react as if it's the first time we hear it?"
"That is what training is for."
Her mouth tightened into a thin line. "Right. And because I'm not classically schooled, you won't share with me."
I shrugged, unbothered by her accusation. "It's basic knowledge for every actor."
She gestured toward herself in pure frustration. "Clearly, it isn't. You might not want to acknowledge me as such, but I've worked professionally as an actress for almost a full year. I am an actress."
"Never said you weren't."
"No, you only thought it. And heavily implied it."
I snorted, even as the heavy truth of her words sank in. "If that's how you want to interpret my words, that's on you."
Bella stepped close until she towered over me and pointed a warning finger at me. Her eyes were almost burning with fury. "Don't do that. Do not fucking gaslight me to make yourself the good guy. You know damn well what you said, how you said it, and what the underlying meaning was." Her lips curled up in disgust. "I might not have a degree in performing arts, but I know people."
Immediately, the dormant fire within me was stoked, and I got up on my feet. "Good for you! Then maybe you should've gone into psychology instead of taking opportunities from someone who actually fought for the honor of calling themselves an actress."
"You keep saying the same thing over and over again, don't you? You don't think I've fought just as much for every job I've been offered?"
"You want the truth?" I asked. I was more than ready to spill it all.
"Yes, I want the truth!"
I took a deep breath and looked straight into her eyes. "Without your uncle's connections, you would've just been another failed wannabe actress who'd only be cast as audience member number three."
We glared at each other for the longest minute of my life. A part of me regretted my harsh words because they made it sound as if I said her acting was bad—which wasn't true. But the reality of the business was that you could be the most talented person on earth, but without a network and a huge portion of good luck, you'd never get further than being a cast member in your local community theater group.
I had to give Bella credit when she didn't give me a low-handed retort back. All she did was keep staring at me until I was the one who had to look away.
And the tension thickened. It filled the vault to such capacity, it was as if the oxygen was evaporating.
Without saying another word, I turned to find shoes for myself as well.
"Is that your whole issue with me?" Bella asked before I could disappear. "My uncle and his connections?"
"My issue is people who take advantage of chances they haven't earned all because someone else already did all the heavy lifting," I said over my shoulder. Might as well get it all out in one go. It couldn't possibly get worse than it already was.
"You have an agent," she pointed out. "How is that any different from my uncle?"
"Are you serious?" I turned to fully face her, my mouth gaping in shock. "That's not at all the same thing. You're really disconnected from this business if that's what you think."
Two furiously red spots appeared on Bella's cheeks, and she looked to be seconds away from lunging at me. "You can't help but undermine me, can you? I know it's fundamentally different. I'm not stupid. But what I'm saying is, you built your resume up until your agent trusted you to be a professional, and then they utilized their network to help you. My uncle has known me since birth. He knows what I'm good at, and his job is to produce talent. The fact that you think for one second that he'd risk his standing and his reputation unless he was certain I represented him well says more about you than him or me."
I crossed my arms. "What it says about you is that the moment your plan A didn't work, you decided to plead with your uncle to fix a new career for you. There are people who've dedicated their entire life to this craft who'd kill for the opportunities you've been handed on a silver platter. How does that sound fair to you?"
Bella's eyes suddenly filled with angry tears, and it was so unexpected, I actually had to adjust my stance to make it less aggressively defensive.
"You do not get to decide which parts of my life are fair and which aren't," she said. Her voice was trembling with thick emotions, and my stomach clenched uncomfortably. "You don't know shit about me or what I went through before I moved in across from you. Until the day you decide to actually get to know a person, you're the last one to judge."
With shaky hands, she wiped her tears, then promptly turned on her heel and walked as far away from me as the vault allowed.
