and we scored

Scene 2

NINI

"Then have my lips the sin that they have took", I say, already knowing the text by heart. I am standing on the stage in the auditorium, rehearsing for the callbacks tomorrow. This place, the stage, is like a second home for me; since, as a drama major, I basically spend my entire days in this room.

This year, my university, Wrencore, puts on stage a big production of Romeo and Juliet and I have been selected to come to casting. Only a few students have been invited and they are all planning on giving their best to get the role. So am I. I might not be a doe-eyed brunette, but I can already see myself playing Juliet.

Soph looks up from where she is sitting on the stage and says the next line: "Sin from thy lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Give me my sin again". My bestie's eyes wide open as she processes what she has just said and she asks: "Nini, are you sure this is the role you want? I don't know how to put it nicely, but the play seems kinda messed up."
I reach out my hand and she hands me my pumpkin spice latte, the one drink in the world I might actually develop an addiction for. "I do", I say, partly convinced. I am not usually the drama-til-death-do-us-apart type of girl. I'm more of a romcom type of girl. I want the couple to love and to make me laugh at the same time. Playing a girl that kills herself with her boyfriend's dagger isn't exactly on my wish list. However, Wrencore's big productions are well known and producers from TV series and theater plays come from all around the world to search for talents here. This could be my shot at making a name for myself. I am not going to lose it.

"As you wish", Soph says, taking a sip from her pink lemonade and turning back to her scripts. We still have one hour to go over the lines. Sometimes, having a bestie that is freaking royalty helps. My bestie, Sofia Estair (Soph for me) is the Princess of Cordelia. And in case you don't know where that is (I also didn't know where that was, until at the beginning of last year when I was still a freshman, I wake up with this blonde blue-eyed princess as a roommate in my dorm and I searched up where the country is situated), it is between Switzerland and Italy. It only took Soph a polite letter addressed to the school board and the next thing we know we're able to have the auditorium all to ourselves for four whole hours. I just love that girl.

I go in a dramatic position again and continue reciting Juliet's lines: "You kiss by the book."

"Damn. Juliet has some standards." Soph lets out and I can't help but chuckle at the view. Her all-Chanel look with the cropped checkered white and black blazer, the skirt in the same pattern, knee long white thighs, a white blouse and the loafers don't seem to match with the unorganised script papers lying all around her and the many coloured tabs from the annotations I made to help her see what her lines are.

"Jealous much?" I ask her to which she smirks.

"How could I be? Alec doesn't kiss by the book; he makes the book", she replies, and I can't help but smile. Her boyfriend, Alec, gives the impression to be the worst guy on Earth with his bad boy aesthetic but in fact he's the sweetest guy ever. A few months ago, he crashed Soph's wedding with this random duke just so they can be together again. Let's just say my Pinterest loving heart skipped a beat.

Soph smirks and lies on the floor. I also sink down and come sit next to her.

"Tell me your favorite line from Juliet.", she tells me and I don't have to look at the script to be able to recite.

"O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore are thou Romeo?" I tried to make my voice as dramatic as possible as I said that, which seemed to have worked, since Soph sits upstraight now and looks me in the eyes.

"Babe!" she begins, and I have to smile, knowing she only begins a sentence like that if something good happened. "You are perfect for this role. That line...Oh my gosh, it was simply perfect. You got this, Nini."
I lose it and give her a big hug, to which she only pulls me closer. As we let go, she looks at me again and smirks: "Now, all we have to do is find you a Romeo."

I blush at the possibility of me dating. "No. And besides, let's not get too excited too soon. I haven't gotten the part yet."

"But you will. I am sure you will."

I smile to thank her for helping me. Truth is, I don't know what I would do without Soph. She's more than my bestie. She's like the sister I never had. And I love her to the moon and back for it.

"Thanks, babe. Now let's get back to practice. These lines won't learn themselves after all." I say, to bring us back to the original topic.

Yet what she said about finding me a Romeo still spins around my head like it's the only thought I hold. The thing is, I've been in relationships before. I really have. Yet every time it gets to close, I mess it up. On purpose. Because I have spent the last three years of my life trying to build myself a new life and run from a past that haunts me. No one knows about it. Not even my bestie. Some scars are best to let heal on their own. A boyfriend would only make me say my past and cut me open again. I'm not doing that.

So, unless there's a damn knight in shining armour that is coming for me, I am not planning on letting my walls down.

I defy you, stars.