Inevitable and Only(9)

Did I mention that the whole class fell in love with him in the first ten minutes?

Anyway, the Meisner exercise. The repetitions were just that: we worked with a partner, repeating one simple phrase back and forth to each other over and over, responding to the way our partner said it or something about their body language.

“The phrase can be a simple observation, or something meaningless. For example,” Robin said, “you could say, You look so sad today, or How are you? or even I love you.”

The class giggled nervously.

“When you have a given line, you don’t have to worry about what to say—only how to say it. Be spontaneous! Respond to what you’re given, people! Respond truly to each other as human beings, not as actors, or however you think an actor should act.” He thumped the Meisner book he was holding. “Don’t try to be an actor. I am here to teach you how to respond, not how to act.”

Then he paired us up, and we got started.

My partner was Sam Shotwell, a junior, who I was surprised to see in this class. Sam was a jock—or that’s what I’d always thought. Dad liked to say, Jocks have feelings, too. They just express them differently than we do—by throwing small projectiles at each other and running in circles.

Dad.

I swallowed and pushed the thought away.

“You look so sad today,” Sam said.

I jumped and felt my face flush before I remembered what we were doing. “Let’s try a different one,” I said quickly.

Sam shrugged. “Okay. What do you want to use?”

But Robin had already stopped beside us. “No, no, that was very good!” he said. “Keep it up. Cadie?”

I looked at Sam’s ear and said, “You look so sad today.”

Robin waved his arms. “Time out. Cadie, listen to the way Sam says it, then respond. Sam, again.”

Sam took a deep breath, then let it out slowly as he said, “You look so sad today.” The breathy way he said it sounded like he was truly concerned. Not just a student repeating a line in drama class.

I narrowed my eyes. “You look so sad today.”

Robin wagged his head happily, pressed one hand to his lips, and gestured toward Sam.

“You look so sad today?” Sam questioned.

“You look so sad today,” I confirmed.

Sam quirked an eyebrow at me and winked. “You look so saaad today,” he said, managing to make it sound suggestive.

I fluttered my eyelashes and said each word separately, a hand on my hip. “You. Look. So. Sad. Today …”

“Whew!” Robin interjected, unable to contain himself. “People, this is excellent work. Keep it up, keep it up!” He clapped one hand on Sam’s shoulder and the other on mine, then moved on to the next group.

My pulse was racing from the adrenaline, and I felt myself blush again. “Okay. Should we try another phrase?”

Sam grinned. “I love you.”

Who knew drama class would be flirting class?

And who knew that Sam Shotwell was cute?

Of course, none of this changed the fact that Farhan Mazandarani was my one true love.

Which was what me and Raven had called him for almost a decade now. Farhan and I had barely ever spoken to each other, but what did that matter? In fact, it was part of the romance. Raven used to call him Afar-han, because she said I pined for him from afar (I know, very funny, hardy-har). I’d started at Fern Grove in second grade, which made me a perpetual newcomer—most kids attended kindergarten through the twelfth grade. “Lifers,” they were called. Raven was a lifer, but Farhan was a newcomer like me. He started in second grade, too, when his family moved here from Iran. I instantly fell in love with everything about him: his dark curly hair, his accent (which was mostly gone now). His chubbiness, which made me feel less self-conscious about not being skinny like Raven.

Or Sam Shotwell, who wasn’t exactly skinny; more like—toned. Buff. Fit. As I left the Shed after class, I wondered if we’d ever do exercises that involved touching each other. I’d heard about lots of touchy-feely stuff from upperclassmen who’d taken drama before—trust circles, contact improv, stuff like that.

“Cadie!” I turned the corner to my locker, and there was Raven, waiting for me. Her curly red hair cascading down her back, her tight acid-washed jeans paired with chunky apple-green high-heels. Raven tended to look like she was dressed for a magazine photo shoot. “Where have you been all day? I kept trying to catch up with you but you were, like, running between all your classes. And I couldn’t find you at lunch.”

“Oh, sorry,” I said, trying to cram my books into my already-overcrowded locker. Trying to push away thoughts of last night.

You have to learn how to compartmentalize, Mom always said when I got upset or too emotional about something.

I pictured a little compartment labeled Dad and tried to shove my tangled mess of thoughts in there, slam the lid, and—

“Cadie?” Raven looked worried. “You’re making this face like you’re in pain. Are you feeling okay?”

“Fine! Just had the best class of my life, in fact. Drama with Mr. Goodfellow. I mean, Robin. He wants us to call him by his first name.” I chattered away about Meisner repetitions while we walked to our next class. “In what universe can a teenage guy say ‘I love you’ to a female classmate with a straight face?”