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insideouttruths · 1 year ago

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A daydream I made up when I was in middle school

I keep on digging my nails into the palms of my hands and watching the door for Ms. Pride to walk in. I know why she told me to come see her during free period, and it's not my fault. It's not like I'm not turning in all my homework, it just always happens to be a week or two late. Another minute passes, and I start to rehearse what I'm going to say to her. I know I've been behind on my homework, and not passing my tests, but between babysitting and my job, I hardly have any time to study! I swallow hard. You'll try harder, Xi. Remember to tell her you'll try much, much harder. If I fail another class mom will go ballistic on me. I don't need her back on my case, she has enough going on already.

In the hallway, an outburst of guys laughing pulls me out of my thoughts, and I turn my head to the door. The quarterback of the football team and his posse stand there, blocking the door. Irritated by their presence, I shift in my seat and turn my attention to the window. "You may join me inside, Ivory." Ms. Pride waits for the quarterback to finish dapping up his boys, and closes the door behind him. I don't bother hiding my smirk when he drops his backpack and slides into the seat next to mine. Guess I'm not the only one failing, but unlike him, I'm not failing because I'm a total moron. Ms. Pride leans on the white board in front of us, and clasps her hands in front of her olive green, suede pants. "I'm sure you both know why you're here, so I won't make this long," she says, her eyes shifting between the two of us. "You both are failing this class quite miserably, and if you don't pull it together by the end of this semester, I'm going to have to fail you both."

My ears start ringing. I knew those words were coming, but nonetheless, they are ringing. "Ms. P, you can't fail me," Ivory says, "Coach said if he sees one more failing grade I'll be benched. I'm already on probation!" I can't help but roll my eyes. "One more failing grade" means he already has one, probably two, and when any athlete gets below a C they aren't supposed to play until they improve their grades. But I'm not surprised Ivory, the most popular guy in school, is getting special treatment. He hasn't missed a minute on the field since the season started. I stare at Ms. Pride, waiting for her to bend to his charm just like everyone else does, but she seems unbothered. Good for you, girl! She moves on, "unfortunately, because of how low your grades are, there is only one thing that will save the both of you by the time the final exams roll around." We both stare at her in silence, an unbearably long silence. "Which is?" I ask, unable to handle the suspense anymore.

She smiles inwardly, and turns around to pick up to packets of paper. "You two, are going to perform a play." She drops the packets of paper on both of our desks, and in the middle of the front page it reads "A PRINCE AND THE FARM GIRL-- A PLAY WRITTEN BY VIVIAN PRIDE". She has to be kidding! I slowly turn to the first page, hoping to see a huge "GOTCHA!" even bigger than the title, but I find an epilogue instead. And then lines. To a play. An actual play. "Ms. Pride," I say, standing. "You can't actually be serious. I barely have time to finish my homework. Between my job and babysitting, how am I supposed to have the time to rehearse for a play? And then actually perform one?" I tried to stick to my argument that I practiced in my head earlier, silently praying that she'll have an understanding bone in her body, but she's not budging.

She shakes her head, "I'm sorry to hear that, but you'll have to figure it out, if you don't want me to fail you. If passing means that much to you, I'm sure you will. You're both very bright." I scoff, then flop back into my seat feeling defeated. "Unfortunately, if one of you is unable to perform, then both of you fail. This is a team assignment and will be graded as such." I look at Ivory, and he's busy reading through the play. I can't seriously be the only one opposed to this heinous idea of hers. "Why can't you just give us regular extra credit like a nice, normal teacher would?" I plead. "I am being nice. With how low your grades are, making this a team assignment allows me to grade you much higher than I would on any regular extra credit." She hands us the grading rubric, and I see what she means. She's grading us on how well we say our lines, obviously our performance, our costumes, even how the audience reacts to our performance. I want to be more irritated, but I can see how much effort she's willing to put in to make sure we, I, don't fail. Ms. Pride is my favorite teacher, and even though I completely hate this entire thing, I appreciate her not giving up on me. Even after I let my grades get so low. I slouch in my chair, left with nothing else to say.

"Where are we supposed to rehearse?" Ivory asks, closing the packet. He must've finished reading through it. "You may practice in here after school if you decide that, but I only stay late three days out of the week. Other than that you'll have to figure that out as well." He nods, and puts his play in his backpack. He's way too okay with this, and it's pissing me off. "Oh, and one more thing. This will act as your final exam. You'll be performing in class for everyone the day before your final exam." Gulp. "I really hope that you guys don't disappoint me further."

The bell for 6th period rings, and Ivory gets up and thanks her before leaving the classroom. I sit there until people for her 6th period class start trickling in, then I thank her and leave too.

Thank God we had a sub in science, and was given easy book work, because I could barely concentrate on anything. A play. I have to be in a play. With Ivory! Just me and him. The idiot quarterback that acts like he can walk on water. And what rumor are people going to spread about me now? There's no way that we can rehearse in this school, where people might actually see us together. I push aside the vocabulary worksheet that I'm supposed to be working on and pull out the play. "The Prince and the Farm Girl". Of course, he's even royalty in the stupid play, figures. I'm expecting for it to be kind of trash, but it's actually pretty good. If this were a book, it's definitely something I'd pick up and read. It's heartfelt, and funny (but it won't be if we can't pull off our lines correctly), and the lines seem somewhat easy enough to memorize. I skim through the pages for signs of when she wrote it, assuming that it was something she wrote specifically for us, but there are no dates or anything. As I'm skimming towards the end of the play, I see the work kiss, and I die. Literally. And now I'm a ghost, floating in the chair that my once alive body is sitting in, staring at the sentence in big black bold letters.

"Nathaniel pulls Nastacia into him by her waist, and kisses her passionately for three seconds". We have to kiss! Is she insane? And didn't he sit there and read through the play? Didn't he see that we had to kiss? How did he not say anything? I read through the entire play twice to make sure there is only one kissing scene. In one scene we have to touch. In another scene we have to be close to one another, but no more kissing anywhere else. Thank God. By the end of the class I've talked myself down, assuring myself that three seconds is not that long. And even if we make it two seconds, one point taken off won't land us an F. Hopefully.

After class I wait for Ivory by his locker. I keep my eyes down to avoid all of the why-are-you-standing-at-Arianna's-boyfriend's-locker? looks. He hardly notices me when he walks up, and I have to back up a pace so that he doesn't bump into me. "Oh, hey, wassup?" He gives me a smile small enough to let me know he's not actually happy to see me, but big enough so that his braces are exposed, along with his dimple. I've always loved how people looked with braces, and I have to admit, he's another one that looks exceptionally good with them. I hand him a post it that I wrote my number on earlier before the bell rang. "Text me later whenever you have time, so we can go over the, um," I bite my lip, suddenly embarrassed to say the word play for the first time ever in my life. Especially when all of his friends won't stop staring at me. They could at least try to be a little less obvious about it.

He scratches his head before taking the folded piece of paper from me. "Thanks, I will. After practice," he tells me like he really means it. I nod, give him another small smile, and rush off to catch my bus.

I'm grateful that I don't have to babysit or work today. My little brother is spending the night at his friends house since mom won't be able to bring him to the bus stop in the morning. I catch up on my history and English homework. I finish them much faster than I thought I would, so I decide to get a jump on the next two lessons of my English. There's no way I'm going to have enough time to do all my work after today. I finish at about 6:30, and I call my boss, Antonio. My final exam is in a month and I'm going to need some time off to be able to have time to rehearse. Antonio is always pressing me to make sure my school work is coming before my work work (he'd kill me if he knew how bad my grades have gotten), but bills come before both of those, unfortunately. I make sure to make the play sound like it's important enough that I cant miss it, but it's not so much of a big thing that you need to buy tickets to come see it type of thing. I don't want him knowing this is an assignment that's standing between me and the twelfth grade.

When I get off of the phone with him, I see that I have a text message.

Hey. It's Ivory.

I don't bother wasting time with texting him back, I just call instead. He picks up on the fourth ring, right before I'm about to hang up. He clears his throat, "hi, uh, h-hey," he stammers. Then clears his throat again. Is he nervous or something? "Hey, sorry I didn't text back, I figured we'd be able to figure stuff out better over the phone. Is this a bad time?" I hear a lot of commotion going on in the background, then two seconds later a door closes, and it's silent. Now I'm nervous. "Hello?" I ask. He clears his throat again. "Yeah, I'm here. Sorry, I had to get somewhere quiet, I'm not home right now." I don't inquire further. It's not any of my business where he is, nor do I care.

"Okay, so I talked to my boss and he's letting me off the hook for the month to rehearse so I'm free every day after school except for Tuesdays and Thursdays. Did you talk to your coach? You're either going to have to miss some or all of practice on the days I'm free." I get up and start pacing. It's like my body is just now realizing who it is I'm on the phone with, and how abnormal it is. I hadn't said two words to him since that horrendous week of school in the beginning of the school year, and now we are on the phone making plans to spend most of our week together for the next month! "Yeah, I talked to coach. He said that I can make up the time missed in the morning, so we'll have as much time as we need in the afternoon."

I nod like he can see me, because I'm unsure of what to say now. This was as far as I got in my head, planning wise. "What do you want to do on the weekends, and the days we can't meet?" he asks, clearing his throat again. Either he really is nervous, or he's got some serious phlegm issues. "Well, during the week we could probably just memorize lines on our own. But on the weekend... I don't know, we could meet at your place, or mine if you prefer. My little brother usually goes to his friends house during the weekend while my mom and I are working so I'll have the house to myself." I tell him. I'm about to tell him that if that's too weird we could veto that whole come over plan and just meet up at the library when I hear someone call his name in the background. So I wait in silence instead, faintly noticing my fingernails pressing into my palm. Why am I so nervous?

"Uh, sorry. Meeting up at your place sounds good. We should probably only meet up on Saturday, though," He says. "Why?" Sick of me already? "So we don't get sick of each other, and burn out too quickly," He chuckles. Ha ha. "Yeah, you're probably right," I say, faking a smile at my reflection in the mirror hanging on the wall in front of me. "So, I guess I'll see you on Wednesday then. After school, in the library?" "Yeah, I'll see you then. I won't be late," He says, and then hangs up the phone. Weirdest phone call. Ever.

On Tuesday, I don't know how (probably Ivory's big mouth, AGAIN), but rumors about this play got out. Of course most of them were stupid and elementary, but it was still embarrassing. I accidentally, and very awkwardly, bumped into Ivory during lunch, and then got asked if it was true that I was trying to steal Arianna's boyfriend again twenty minutes later. The day couldn't end fast enough. When I saw Ivory on Wednesday, I wasn't exactly jazzed to see him. Or to Run through this play with him. But he, on the other hand, looked handsomely unbothered, per usual.

I'd suggested that we just practice saying our lines for this rehearsal. Without actually acting anything out. Reading through Ms. Pride's play is like reading "How to Act Out a Play For Dummies" because she has everything we are supposed to do in parentheses. When the prince announces that he's looking to take a wife it says, (Nastacia bites her lip, and starts to lovingly day dream). When Prince Nathaniel sees Nastacia for the first time it says, (Nathaniel stands up from his seat, and stares at her in awe). She even put how there is going to be a costume change, me in rags, but then I change into this dress that makes me look like I belong with him. I chuckle at the thought of me changing into a cheerleading costume and running back into the room expressing my love for Prince Quarterback. "What?" He asks me. His dimpled grin looks so perfect on his face, and he's wearing an expression that makes me believe that he actually wants to know what's going on in my head. I shake my head "Actually," I say, "I wanted to talk to you about this whole big kissing scene." He grins and wiggles his eyebrows. "Excited huh? We shouldn't jump ahead. Let's just get through everything first. But don't worry, we'll get there." Ugh, jackass. He doesn't even bother stifling his laugh, that's okay. I'll shut him up. "No, I was actually going to say that we shouldn't even do it," I stare at him blankly. His face falls, "wait, you're serious?" "As a heart attack. I just don't feel that it's necessary to practice it. We can just do it once during the actual play. I'm sure that would please your girlfriend too."

I'm trying to read his expression, but I can't. Not really. I can't tell if he's just annoyed that I'm not dying to kiss him like every other girl would be, or genuinely just hurt. I decide it's the former given his ego, and start back reading my lines. We read through the play two more times before we decide to call it quits, and go home. Thank God this play isn't super long and boring, because I'm already starting to memorize some of my lines. Three more weeks of this and I might actually be able to get through this play with very minimal stumbling, even with the nerves.

For the rest of the week we read through our lines like we did on Wednesday, and on Saturday, after we finished reading we figured out what our costumes were going to look like. Apparently both of our favorite color is purple, so that's the color we decided on wearing. I figured I didn't need him there to pick out the costumes so I'd make it a girls trip, and invite my best friend Natalie to go with me on a later date.

"There are two weeks left until our final exam, and I'm still having to look at some of my lines!" I shout, not exactly at him, but kind of at him. "Don't worry, you'll get it. You're doing so much better than you were doing a week ago," Ivory says, taking a seat next to me. "Yeah, that's easy for you to say, you memorized all of your lines last week." There is no way this jock is smarter than me. I won't allow it! "Well I took theater 8th, 9th, and 10th grade. So this is a little more natural to me. But you're a natural too. You've got the acting part down, you just stumble through a couple of the lines. But don't worry, you'll get it by next week. I promise." He puts his hand on my knee, and like magic, my frustration goes away. What the hell was that?

"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?" Arianna is standing by the entrance of the library with her arms crossed. I didn't even hear her come in. "So this is why you've been blowing me off?" He rolls his eyes, and tells me he'll be right back. I try and ignore her very snide comments about me, but she's not trying to be very inconspicuous. When they step outside of the door, I turn my back to them to give them some privacy. They don't have to know I have the ears of a bat. Through muffled shouts I get bits and pieces of their argument.

Arianna: "So, it's true. You are really in a play with her?" She hasn't known this whole time? What has he been telling her?

Arianna: "We haven't spent more than a couple of hours together in weeks!" Lucky him. "But you've been spending all this time with her." That's 'cause I'm more fun.

Ivory: "We are working on an assignment, I have to spend this much time with her." It's true, but I'm still more fun.

Arianna: "What days do you actually have to rehearse? Because I haven't seen you in weeks!" Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday.

Arianna: "Thursdays, and Sundays busy my ass!" Yikes, he really is blowing you off. You should just call it quits now.

Ivory: "Chill, you know my brother has chemo on those days. I have to be there with him!" Chemo? As in chemo therapy? As in cancer?

Suddenly, I'm not in the mood to eavesdrop anymore. But I wasn't able to ignore the series of bad names she called him before he came back inside. He sits down in the chair beside mine, and I decide to give him a minute. I'm sure he needs some time to cool down after that fiasco. Hell, I'm still trying to process some things myself if I'm being honest. My mind goes back to the phone call we had a couple of weeks ago, when he said we should take a breather on Sunday. He didn't even need to come up with an excuse as to why we couldn't rehearse on Thursdays since I already told him I wasn't free.

"Do... you want to talk about it?" my voice is almost a whisper. I wasn't sure he even heard until he sat back in his chair, and shifted to look at me a little bit. I wait for a while for him to speak, but he doesn't say anything. "When we first spoke on the phone, were you with your brother? At the hospital?" He nods. I wait a little more. This time, he finally speaks. "I'm always at the hospital. It's like I don't even live at home anymore. The only time I'm home is to shower or grab a change of clothes or to get ready for school. My mother works, a lot, so I'm there when I can be to keep him company. He gets scared if he's there by himself for too long." I put my hand over his, I can't help it. I can't imagine what he goes through everyday. How hard it must be for him. He turns all the way so that our knees are now touching.

He takes a deep breath. "How long has he had cancer?" He's looking up at me now, and I can tell that he's starting to relax. He must not have been talking to anyone about this. Except for maybe Arianna, but I doubt she's a very good listener. "He got diagnosed with it right before school started. It's in his lungs. They started him off with the chemo slowly because he's so young." I remember mentioning that his brother was six when he asked how old mine was.

"I'm so sorry you're having to deal with all of this." He shrugs as if to say, eh, it's no big deal. Everyone deals with their 6 year old brother getting lung cancer at some point in their life. "No, seriously. You've had such a hard year, and I've just been so annoyed with you thinking that your life was perfect. And after you spread that rumor about me, it was easier to just dislike you than give you a second chance." He looks at me confused. "Rumor, what rumor?" I can't believe he doesn't remember. But at the same time, he's had a lot to deal with so I guess I can. And besides, it wasn't his life he messed with, it was mine. Either way, bringing it back up is still pretty embarrassing. I shift in my seat, and turn away from him.

He pulls out my chair and turns it to face his, so that I'm face to face with him again. "Tell me, what you're talking about." Oh, he's serious. "If you don't remember, then it's probably not important," I lie, trying to get myself out of this grave that I quickly dug. "Xiomara, tell me." I roll my eyes, sigh an exasperated sigh, and put my hands under my legs. To keep my nails from digging into my palms.

"The first week of school I walked into the wrong locker room, and walked in on, and bumped into, a very shirtless, you. I was so embarrassed to say the least. I apologized like ten times, then you directed me to the girls locker room. And then later that day I saw you again, in our free period. I apologized again, and then after you assured me it was all good we just tarted talking. I thought you were a pretty cool guy, until the next day. When I found out that you told everyone I went into the boys locker room and started undressing in front of you." At every school I've gone to, I'd never really been a crowd favorite, but I had never had something like that happen before. "People were making it seem like I went in there to strip for you, and I didn't even know you!"

Ivory stands up like he was about to shout "Eureka!". "You know for the life of me I couldn't understand why everyone kept on asking me about you. Ari would seem to lose her mind whenever you came around. And I never got why you'd never say hi back or why you'd give me the death stare whenever we were in the same vicinity." I can't help but laugh at that. Because it's true. I would pray that at least one of my stares would pierce his heart and put him into cardiac arrest or something. "I want you to know I didn't start or feed into any rumors about you. I thought you were pretty cool too. I still do. Seriously." He stares at me, and I believe him. So I nod. "And I'm so sorry. That rumor must've made your life here suck." "Thank you, I really appreciate that. And I'm sorry too," I tell him. And I mean it.

It's exam day, and I'm stressed the hell out. I've memorized all my lines. Ivory and I rehearsed the play from start to finish about a hundred times, and still my heart is in my butthole. I'm sitting at the lunch table, trying to keep down my head, and my meal. Someone puts down their tray right in front of me, and I look up, shocked to see Ivory sitting down. "What are you doing?" I whisper, like lowering my voice is going to make me invisible. After Ivory and Arianna's huge fight in library, they obviously broke up, and the entire school believes it's my fault. So I've been trying to keep the lowest profile. Him sitting with me at lunch is like me putting a sign on my back that says "do your worst". AKA the exact opposite of a low profile.

He starts talking to me about the play. Asking me questions to make sure I'm fully prepared. Completely ignoring my "what are you doing?" from earlier. I answer all of his tedious questions, and even run through some of the lines I've been struggling with. He brings up his monologue right before our kiss, but then the bells rings, and I can't get away from him fast enough.

Ms. Pride introduced to the class that we were going to be putting on a play. She had to other students volunteer to memorize the play to fill in the "rest " of the cast. Probably so we didn't look extremely stupid talking to no one during the scenes only one of us were in. Which, I'll admit, makes this a lot less embarrassing. Ms. Pride is going to read through all of the narrating parts. She even has a back drop, and a play list. Ivory walks down the hallway in his old timey costume, and I think Ms. Pride picked the perfect part for him. He's too handsome for his own good, and he's strong, both inside and out. Like a prince should be.

I smooth out my rags, I'm nervous. Ivory nudges me, "we got this, don't worry. It'll be great. Every part. I'm sure of it."

Ms. Pride reads the epilogue, and Ivory hears his cue to walk in. When he does, the classroom bursts into applause. My stomach flips, I know I won't get that same appreciation. I really hope we can pull this off. On my cue, I walk in. Just like I practiced. Keep my eyes off the crowd. Do it just as we rehearsed. You'll be fine.

And for the first time, I'm right. As we get into the play, the lines just start flowing. As well as the acting. The audience laughs when they are supposed to, and I even got a couple of "ooh's" when I come back in in my "riches" dress.

And then, it's the kissing scene. Ms. Pride narrates: "After what seemed like forever, Nathaniel finally found Nastacia sitting on a tree stump by the river." Ivory walks over to me, and takes my hand. I stand to meet his loving gaze. Sounds of birds chirping and water flowing play in the background, filling the silent spaces. I'm nervous again. My left hand grips the side of my dress, to keep from my fingernails digging into them. Ivory notices this and grabs my other hand. I shake my head, "shouldn't you be off, getting ready for your wedding? Why are you here?" "I couldn't go through with it, Nastacia. I won't. My parents can't make me marry who I don't want to. That's my choice." He drops my hands like he's supposed to, and walks a few feet away from me, his back to me. I'm about to say my line, when he speaks. "But, I've made my decision," he says, turning to meet my gaze. There were two more lines I had to say before his monologue started, what's he doing?

"Before I met you, I thought I really was just going to have to settle for the woman that everyone thought was supposed to be by my side. But the day we met, instantly, I felt something different." He takes a step toward me. It's taking everything in me to not look at Ms. Pride. I know she knows he's going off script. He's going to cost us our A, what the hell is he doing? He continues, off script, "there was a certain sweetness, and honesty about you that no other woman I've ever met possesses. You're funny, and smart, and incredibly beautiful." He takes a few more steps again, so that he can get ready for what's supposed to come after his speech. He hesitates, but then he puts his hand on my face. Off script again. "I'm sure it'll be difficult at first, but everyone is just going to have to accept it, because I won't be with anyone but you. Nastacia, I love you. I am in love with you." My eyes betray me as they fill with tears. I keep trying to tell myself that I'm just moved by his really good acting, but I know that's not true. And this is no act that he's putting on, not for me anyway. He is looking deep into my eyes, clearly waiting for me to say, or do, something. "I don't know what to say," I tell him, shaking my head. And it's true. I can hardly wrap my mind about what he just said, and the fact that he went off script, I don't even know what to say next. I only know what comes after the kiss.

He chuckles, "say yes. Say you'll be with me." Something about the look in his eyes (and the fact that he completely changed his monologue) tells me that he doesn't just mean in the play. And something in me tells me that I don't want to miss this opportunity. To miss out on being with him. So I nod. "Yes," I say. And just like that, he's back on script. My mind follows the description as he follows Ms. Prides written words. "Nathaniel pulls Nastacia into him by her waist, and kisses her passionately for three seconds". This is the closest I've ever been to him, and I breathe in his sweet cologne before our lips touch. The kiss starts off sweet and soft. Then he puts his other hand on my cheek, while my hands gravitate to around his waist. He followed Ms. Pride's description to a T: the kiss is undeniably passionate and amazing. It was like our lips belonged together. One, two, three seconds pass, but we keep going. At some point my hands are in his soft, curly hair, and all I can think is I wish we had rehearsed this kiss weeks ago.

#writers on tumblr #love #long reads #short story #author #writing #writers and poets #fiction #drama #kiss

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