Nerd Loves Boy (Boy Meets Nerd #3)

Chapter 30

"Yes, now that's exactly what I'm looking for!" Trish exclaims standing up from her chair. "Now just do that again on opening night and we're home free!"

"No pressure," Fiona calls to the cast on stage with a smile. They reset the stage while Trish calls for a five-minute break and I continue writing down my notes from my textbook where I sit in the seat watching everything play out on stage here in dress rehearsals. The costumes look amazing and the actors are doing such a great job with bringing the characters to life and they're all so talented when it came to their performances. There are definitely some shining stars on the stage and it makes me more excited to see the production in its final form on opening night that's only about a month away. Everything was really coming together and it was really neat to see the process of it moving from rehearsals to the finished product. I was a little distracted with doing my homework but every now and then I'd focus on the rehearsals and it gave me a chance to take a minute or two break from thinking which kept me going pretty steadily on my note taking. I should study during dress rehearsals more often now that I think about it.

"Hey," Trish says coming to stand next to me. "Still studying?"

"You ask like it's surprising," I reply narrowing my eyes at her. "What else would I be doing?"

"You know, eventually you're going to have to experience things in order to learn instead of reading about it," she replies and sits down next to me.

"Yeah, don't remind me," I sigh and flip to another page in my textbook that's been highlighted like crazy. Trish watches me for a second before she sighs and I brace myself for what's to come. It's not like she hasn't avoided the subject at all in the past couple of weeks. Then again, she only did ask once so I guess I shouldn't be mad about her asking a second time.

"Are you doing okay?" she asks and I keep my eyes on the book open on my lap.

"I guess," I shrug. "I'm still figuring it out."

"You know he doesn't hate you, right?" I look at her skeptically and she rolls her eyes at me. "Well, he doesn't. He's just giving you some breathing room."

"Funny, I was the one hoping he would stop avoiding me and yet that's exactly what I'm doing to him."

"You can't avoid him forever, Audry. Eventually, things will work out but it would help if you talked to him about it. He might be more willing than you think."

"It's not that I'm worried about talking to him," I say slumping down further in my chair. "I just don't know if this time talking will fix anything. All the talking we've done in the past only made things worse than they were before."

"That doesn't mean talking can't fix anything at all," she replies with a shrug of her shoulder. "Sometimes it surprises you."

"Well, I'm tired of surprises," I reply and highlight something else in my textbook. Trish is quiet for a moment before she stands up and walks over to the stage with her notebook in hand. I know she's giving me some breathing room too but I feel bad for pushing her away. Even Cameron had a few words for me when Trish told her everything that happened and I barely listened to what she said. I just wanted and needed to figure this out on my own and figure out the problem by trial and error. I knew talking wasn't working so I needed to find a different way of figuring out how to fix all of this. If that meant Jace and I not talking then so be it. I had no idea if this was the bitter end to our friendship forever but there was a part of me that still held out hope that we'd work everything out somehow. I'd been so determined to have my friends back and now I was more confused than ever about the future. For once, it'd be really nice if there was someone who could tell me exactly what to do to clear all of this up. That would be so darn helpful and more than amazing right about now.