Carmen slammed the door to our
dorm and practically threw her bag across the room, plopping despaired onto her
bed.
“What’s the matter?” I asked,
turning in my seat to face her.
She lifted her head out of her
pillow and turned towards me. “I got a secondary role. He fucking gave me a
secondary role. And, above all else, the character’s name is Mary Grace. Who
the fuck names their kid Mary Grace?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You should be. That and
ashamed. What did you do? Blow him? Or did you just out and out fuck him
senseless?”
“What?” I screeched, indignant.
She back on her heels. “Well
you got the lead. The part you knew I
wanted.”
“I—? He didn’t.”
“He did.”
“I told him I didn’t want it,”
I said. “I told him it was the wrong choice.”
“Damn right it was,” she threw
her pillow at me, hitting the wall next to me. “I’m the one who’s been singing,
who’s taken lessons and auditioned for everything. Who paid to go to sing camps
every summer;” she slammed her fist into her other pillow.
Grabbing my keys, I left. I was
done listening to her and, as crazy as it might have been, I thought there
might be some way to talk him into naming someone else the lead. Outside my
hall, I realized I didn’t know where to find him. So I went to the only place I
thought he might be.
The lights in the room were
off, and I left them that way. I dropped my keys beside me on the bench.
“Be here,” I whispered under my
breath. “Please be here.”
It felt like forever that I sat
there, waiting for absolutely nothing. My hatred for him, which had dissipated
some days ago, was renewed. He didn’t have a right to come into my life and
decide I needed to perform again. Or put something as silly as a role between
my roommate and I. Johnathan wasn’t the one who’d have to live with her for the
rest of the year; he didn’t have to worry about his best friend being her
boyfriend. Or any of that. So for him to upturn my entire world was completely
unfair, on so many levels. I had every right to hate him.
In my frustration for thinking
he’d be here in the first place, my fist landed on the keys, a harsh cacophony
of sound erupting in the room and slowly dying away. I felt this urge to sing
grow inside me. I hadn’t felt that urge in years.
“Don’t dare apologize; I know
you don’t mean it,” I began, giving into the feeling. Occasionally I’d hit a
chord on the piano, helping to build and simultaneously release the anger
flooding me. “Remove the sorrow from your eyes; and just admit you like it. You
hurt, you tear, you pull apart. Destroy, consume, damage my heart. You could
care less about it all. Don’t touch, don’t kiss, don’t even call me back. I
won’t answer. Don’t follow me. You know my answer.”
No more words came, and I
couldn’t tell if there was any emotion in me to fuel more. I slouched on the
bench, staring at the keys. My voice was rough, it was true, but I hadn’t had
lessons or sung—except for that one karaoke night—in a few years.
“Carmen really should’ve had
the part,” I whispered, my arms landing crossed on the keys and my head resting
on them. The plethora of notes sang and bounced around the room for a while,
but I didn’t move. I was waiting for something to happen, for some emotion to
move forward; but I didn’t want to cry, and any anger I had was practically a
distant memory now.
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