positive, is starting to feel true.
“Did you want to stay there?” Travis asks. “Like, does it suck being here?”
I seriously wish he would stop asking me things.
“Man, Kennedy, leave her alone,” Sai says. His hand is still on my shoulder. It’s probably bad I’m taking a nice, comforting moment and enjoying the weight and warmth of his hand on me when we’re talking about my dad. “Would you wanna talk about it?”
We pick up Mira next. As she walks up to the car, Travis leans over and elbows me. “You need to get in the back. Mira’ll be all carsick unless she rides shotgun.”
I wonder if that’s true or if Travis just wants me to sit in the backseat next to Sai. Or maybe Mira doesn’t want to have to sit by Sai because she hates us both.
Honestly, I’m not complaining. And Mira barely says a word to us, but I’m determined not to let her ruin anything. Plus I’m in the tiny backseat of a tiny car with Sai . Travis and Mira are having a big discussion about the filmed production of Into the Woods , but I’m not listening very closely because Sai starts this game on his phone and keeps passing it to me to take a turn. If I forget Nicole exists, it feels like a moment out of a montage in a romantic comedy.
The theatre is a tiny building off a dark street, and I hope it isn’t just my Midwestern naïveté or whatever telling me we aren’t in a great part of town. But people swarm into the little theatre, and seeing the showcards on the walls and the ushers holding programs, I feel like I’m home.
I saw my first musical as a fluke. In seventh grade, our choir class went as a field trip to see the high school’s spring show. It was just this average production of Grease but watching those kids onstage, something in me shifted. This need surged from my heart, and all I could think was that I wanted it to be me. I wanted to be up there. I needed to be part of this.
Choir is great because I get to sing, and show choir is better because it has a lot in common with musical theatre. But they’re just placeholders and ways to get better, until theatre is in my life all the time. I’m not sure I could go on if I didn’t believe eventually I’ll have it there constantly.
Which means that this tiny theatre is exactly where I need to be tonight.
During the show I sit between Travis and Sai, which is good for obvious reasons, but also because I’m pretty sure it isn’t just my paranoid imagination that Mira is still glaring at me. Also—probably more likely my imagination—Sai has plenty of space in his seat but he’s leaned in nice and close to me and I can pretend for at least the sake of the rest of the crowd that we’re here together together.
The show isn’t the most amazing production ever or anything, but I still get wrapped right into it as soon as the curtain goes up, and I feel the pull between the stage and myself. And, even more amazingly, I feel it from everyone else I’m sitting with, too.
Afterward Travis drives into Hollywood to a diner located under the freeway, and we crowd into a booth while Travis tries to spot celebrities (no luck but it doesn’t stop him). Sai and Mira both have their phones out, texting, I assume, with Nicole and Lissa, respectively.
Weirdly enough, though, I don’t feel left out, or out of place, or any of what I would have worried about. It’s enough just sitting here, listening to everyone else, chiming in occasionally.
It’s such a great night I don’t even freak out when I let myself into the house and walk in on my mother and Brad making out. (Okay, in my head of course I freak out. In person I pretend to laugh along with them before making a quick escape to my room.) And I feel—well, actually happy as I change into my pajamas and get into bed.
“Hey.” My mother leans into the room. “ So sorry. We lost track of time and— You don’t want to hear this. How was the show?”
“Fun,” I say because she definitely does not want to
“Did you want to stay there?” Travis asks. “Like, does it suck being here?”
I seriously wish he would stop asking me things.
“Man, Kennedy, leave her alone,” Sai says. His hand is still on my shoulder. It’s probably bad I’m taking a nice, comforting moment and enjoying the weight and warmth of his hand on me when we’re talking about my dad. “Would you wanna talk about it?”
We pick up Mira next. As she walks up to the car, Travis leans over and elbows me. “You need to get in the back. Mira’ll be all carsick unless she rides shotgun.”
I wonder if that’s true or if Travis just wants me to sit in the backseat next to Sai. Or maybe Mira doesn’t want to have to sit by Sai because she hates us both.
Honestly, I’m not complaining. And Mira barely says a word to us, but I’m determined not to let her ruin anything. Plus I’m in the tiny backseat of a tiny car with Sai . Travis and Mira are having a big discussion about the filmed production of Into the Woods , but I’m not listening very closely because Sai starts this game on his phone and keeps passing it to me to take a turn. If I forget Nicole exists, it feels like a moment out of a montage in a romantic comedy.
The theatre is a tiny building off a dark street, and I hope it isn’t just my Midwestern naïveté or whatever telling me we aren’t in a great part of town. But people swarm into the little theatre, and seeing the showcards on the walls and the ushers holding programs, I feel like I’m home.
I saw my first musical as a fluke. In seventh grade, our choir class went as a field trip to see the high school’s spring show. It was just this average production of Grease but watching those kids onstage, something in me shifted. This need surged from my heart, and all I could think was that I wanted it to be me. I wanted to be up there. I needed to be part of this.
Choir is great because I get to sing, and show choir is better because it has a lot in common with musical theatre. But they’re just placeholders and ways to get better, until theatre is in my life all the time. I’m not sure I could go on if I didn’t believe eventually I’ll have it there constantly.
Which means that this tiny theatre is exactly where I need to be tonight.
During the show I sit between Travis and Sai, which is good for obvious reasons, but also because I’m pretty sure it isn’t just my paranoid imagination that Mira is still glaring at me. Also—probably more likely my imagination—Sai has plenty of space in his seat but he’s leaned in nice and close to me and I can pretend for at least the sake of the rest of the crowd that we’re here together together.
The show isn’t the most amazing production ever or anything, but I still get wrapped right into it as soon as the curtain goes up, and I feel the pull between the stage and myself. And, even more amazingly, I feel it from everyone else I’m sitting with, too.
Afterward Travis drives into Hollywood to a diner located under the freeway, and we crowd into a booth while Travis tries to spot celebrities (no luck but it doesn’t stop him). Sai and Mira both have their phones out, texting, I assume, with Nicole and Lissa, respectively.
Weirdly enough, though, I don’t feel left out, or out of place, or any of what I would have worried about. It’s enough just sitting here, listening to everyone else, chiming in occasionally.
It’s such a great night I don’t even freak out when I let myself into the house and walk in on my mother and Brad making out. (Okay, in my head of course I freak out. In person I pretend to laugh along with them before making a quick escape to my room.) And I feel—well, actually happy as I change into my pajamas and get into bed.
“Hey.” My mother leans into the room. “ So sorry. We lost track of time and— You don’t want to hear this. How was the show?”
“Fun,” I say because she definitely does not want to
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