Page 21 of What Comes After

And right there, sitting across from him as he gobbled down the delicious food, I’d decided my birthday party was already a success. As long as I had Theo here with me to celebrate, I wouldn’t care if nobody else showed up.

Because with each day that passed, I grew more and more confident in the way I felt about him. I grew more and more in love with him.

I just refused to tell him, because I was afraid. Theo was the same as he’d always been with me, and sadly, I was convinced it was because he only saw me as just a friend.

* * *

Theo

Eleven months later

I did it.

I couldn’t believe I did it.

As I stood staring at the list of names posted for the high school Christmas play, I was in utter disbelief that my name was there next to the lead male, Ebenezer Scrooge, in the Charles Dickens play A Christmas Carol.

While I was confident in my acting ability, I had questioned whether they’d consider someone who wasn’t a senior student to play the lead role.

But it seemed I had nothing to worry about, because I’d taken that chance and gotten the role. It felt like one of the greatest moments of my life.

For the last year or two, I’d been thinking seriously about what I wanted to do with myself. Though I enjoyed being active and having fun, I wasn’t interested in organized sports. Playing high school football was of no interest to me.

And even if I didn’t mind occasionally working on a project with my dad around the house, construction wasn’t my gig.

Being able to play a character sounded like a lot of fun, and I decided to start practicing. I’d asked my parents to sign me up for acting classes, and I’d been taking them for almost a year now. It seemed they’d paid off.

I couldn’t wait to tell my parents. I couldn’t wait to tell Devyn. If anyone was going to be excited for me, it would be her.

Glad it was the end of the school day, I turned around and walked away toward my locker. I had to grab a couple of books there that I’d need for my homework and studying this weekend.

But I hadn’t gotten more than twenty feet away when I ended up being stopped. Or, I guess, it wasn’t so much that I’d been stopped. Rather, someone ran into me, and it quickly became clear it wasn’t on accident.

“Kiss ass.”

I took a step back, blinking my eyes in surprise, and replied, “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“Yeah, I heard you, but I’m not sure I understand what the problem is,” I explained.

Three guys were standing there, all seniors I’d recognized from the auditions, though I didn’t recall their names.

“Who do you think you are? No sophomore has ever had the lead role in the play, and you think you can come along and take it?” one of the guys questioned me.

“I don’t think that at all,” I insisted. “I know it, considering I did.”

No way would I apologize for being good at what I did. If he had auditioned for the part and wanted it, it was a shame he hadn’t gotten it. But I worked hard to improve my acting skills, and I deserved the part I’d been given.

“Are you fucking serious right now, dude?”

I pressed my lips together as my brows shot up, offering a look of indifference while I nodded. “Yeah, I am.”

The ringleader of the group looked to his buddies, evidently shocked that I didn’t seem to care how he felt about this whole situation.

When he returned his attention to me, he took two steps in my direction, dropped his voice a couple of octaves—a vain attempt to appear intimidating—and said, “I’m your understudy right now, and this is how it’s going to work. You can pretend all you want that you’ll be playing the lead role, but on the night of the performance, you’ll be feeling a bit unwell.”

“No, he won’t.”

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