1PinkandPeachy1

An ocean of anticipation swept across the audience filling the auditorium; chit-chatters took their seats, friends called out to one another and laughed at familiar names on the playbill. For all the fervor on the one side of the curtain, however, behind was ten times as chaotic! Stagehands sprinted to make it to their positions on time, last-minute costume alterations became last-second, and every actor big and small were pitching ad libs and honing their deliveries! But the excitement was unmistakable: opening night for ‘Fare Thee Well,’ the spring play, the payoff to a whole semester’s preparation! Unfortunately, as lead stage manager, celebration would have to come much, MUCH later for Claire! She’d sound tested enough to transcribe every beat and pause by hand, coordinated so many lighting rigs she was still seeing bright spots when she shut her eyes, and scoured every solitary inch of every single backdrop, making one THOUSAND percent sure that everything was set!

It always somewhat impressed Mallory how fast Eager Meadows cleared out after the closing bell. Not even a full five minutes later, and the flood of some couple hundred students had dwindled to not even ten, everyone either packed up and gone home or at whatever extracurricular filled their afternoon. Was it like that back at her old school? She’d never taken the time to notice, truthfully - she’d never had a reason to stick around so late! It’d been a few months at that point, and it still felt like she wasn’t fully adjusted, although she supposed that’s to be expected when you spent three and a half years somewhere else! Or maybe it was how it felt like something was missing, or rather *someone*, the whole reason she’d transferred in the first place. That was the whole point: to spend their last semester together… but then, mere days before the first day back, Candice called, and… that was that. Just thinking about it made Mallory feel ill. It was all her fault - she

Tingles of relief capered through Claire’s whole body upon exiting the bone-chill of a late January...