You in Five Acts by Una LaMarche

Author:Una LaMarche
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2016-09-30T13:47:00+00:00

When I came back from the bathroom, you and Ethan were alone on stage. You both looked miserable, like you were waiting for Godot but with period cramps.

“Well,” Ethan shouted when he saw me, pacing back and forth across the “bridge” that was marked on the floor with three pieces of gaff tape, “Mr. Francisco thinks we’re not ready to go up in a month. He told me I should consider recasting.”

“What?!” The pill hadn’t even dropped into my stomach and I felt a rush of vertigo. I knew if one of us got recast it would be me. You were a name people recognized. They didn’t know everything you’d told me in confidence, how you’d never even wanted to act, how your mom had pushed you into it, or how the Saving Nathan shoot ended up being so stressful that by the end of filming your parents were sleeping in separate rooms. They didn’t know and you wouldn’t tell them, so it would be me on the chopping block. Showcase could come and go and everyone else would get handshakes and business cards from agents and casting directors and I would get some terrible gap-year job folding palazzo pants at Forever 21. Even worse, Showcase was a half course credit. Without it, I wouldn’t even graduate.

“Don’t worry, I’m not doing it,” Ethan said, walking over and putting his hand on my back. It wouldn’t have been so bad except he kept moving his fingers around like he was trying to give me the world’s tiniest massage. “He’s a bloviating hack, but he made some good points. I mean, Jesus. I should at least have cast some understudies.”

You and I looked up at each other at the same time. You’re not his understudy, I wanted to scream. Don’t you see? He’s yours.

“Whatever,” you said, stretching your arms over your head.

“Glad to see you care so much,” Ethan snapped. He stopped pacing and put his hands on his hips. “Listen, your performances make or break this play. Two weeks ago you were on point. I need you back there. I don’t care what it takes.”

I glanced over at you, but you were staring pointedly at the empty front row. I wondered if it had been the same for both of us, before: the secret thrill of seeing a text come in, the delicious possibility of an innocent sentence ended with a semicolon followed by a right parenthesis. What would it take for us to get back there? I already knew the answer; he was still drawing circles on my spine.

“We only have a couple weeks before spring break,” Ethan sighed, and I let myself float out of the conversation, into ten days of possibility I’d forgotten were getting so close. Just remembering they existed made my heart stop sputtering like an outboard motor for a second. Over spring break I could sleep all day. I could stop making myself stay up and just chill, reset, start to fix things.

“I wish there

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