Page 37 of Drama Queens Don't Fall For Charming Boys

“What was that?”

Mia glares at me.

“I’m supposed to get close to you. Why are you messing up the scene?” I hiss at her.

She throws her hands up. “I’m making a scene? You’re not supposed to get so close. You’re supposed to stop in your tracks.”

I scan the script for the stage directions. “It says right here that William steps behind the bush and freezes. But he should be much closer than I am.”

“No, you’re too close.”

“Is there a problem?” Tori calls. “Do I need to get up there?”

“No,” Mia tells her, keeping her eyes on me. “We’re good.”

I move closer to her and she grits her teeth but remains in her spot. I know most of my lines in this scene and say them loud and clear so the invisible people in the back can hear me.

Mia doesn’t have her script with her this time, which is great because now we can perform the scene without looking at our scripts. Though she still won’t look at me…I can feel the anger and irritation seeping out of her.

Fine, whatever. She can be as difficult as she wants. I’m going to do my best to portray William properly.

After we exchange more words, I lunge at her, wrapping my hand around her throat. Mia yells as I gently slam her into the wall behind us, which is supposed to be a tree.

“Stop!” Tori says as she gets to her feet.

I drop my hand and turn to our director as she rushes onto the stage.

“Are you okay, Mia?” Tori asks.

“No. He hurt me.”

My eyes widen. “No, I didn’t.”

“Yes, you did.” She rubs her neck.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

Mia throws her hands up. “Right. Sure you didn’t. Just like you didn’t mean to hurt me during dodgeball,” she mutters.

“What’s going on, kids?” Tori asks. “You performed so well together on Monday. We had problems yesterday, but I hoped an early dismal would give you a chance to reassess and start fresh. Why are we having problems?”

Mia and I look at each other.

She raises her head high. “Just tell him not to hurt me and we’re good.”

“I didn’t hurt you.”

Tori places one hand on Mia’s shoulder and the other on mine. “Let’s start from the beginning of the scene, okay? Declan, try to be gentler and Mia, please don’t be so harsh with him. It’s been a while since he performed on a stage. Okay, let’s begin.” Tori walks to the side of the stage, maybe figuring she’ll need to intervene if things go south again.

This time, I’m careful to barely touch her and she backs away with me so I’m not pushing her. I’m not sure if she’s doing this because of the scene or because she doesn’t want me getting close to her. Either way, Tori is satisfied.

My hand is very loosely wrapped around her neck. We glare at each other as we say our lines. My chest heaves and so does hers.

“Good, but take the anger down a notch. You don’t really want to kill each other,” Tori says.

Mia and I get through the first half of the scene and now we’re rehearsing new material since we didn’t get this far yesterday.

“You shall what?” she asks. “Shoot me? If you wanted to shoot me, you would have done so by now.”

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