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“You’re awfully popular with the drama crowd,” she says, pausing when Hastings calls you, ‘at best, an amateur’. “Well, with most of them.”
“I played Caesar three years in a row,” you say. “Besides, I’m the only one here with an IMDb page.”
Her eyes are glued to your face. “You’re a real actor?”
“At best, an amateur,” you joke. “I’ve had a few minor roles. Played a dead kid once on Law & Order.”
“Wow,” she says. “Remind me to get your autograph later.”
You laugh at her deadpan. “Mostly, I’ve done local theater. Started taking acting classes as soon as I was old enough. Haven’t done anything lately, though, unless this counts.”
The words seem to be just falling from your lips, like talking to her comes natural.
“It counts,” she says.
“Does it?” you ask, and you’re serious about that. “Am I still an actor if I don’t have an audience?”
“Is a writer still a writer if nobody reads what they wrote?”
You consider that. The arguing on stage is growing louder, almost to the point of coming to blows. It amuses you, on one hand, but mostly it fills you with a sense of sadness that this is what you look forward to. Your art is belittled down to a fight over who gets to be the hero in a high school production. Your dreams were always much bigger than that.
“I should intervene,” you say, standing up, “before somebody does something stupid and gets us shut down.”
“Well, if that happens, the ‘eff your clubs’ club is here.”
“Make sure you hold my spot,” you tell her before heading up on stage to say, “You know, I’d much rather be Brutus this year.”
“Is that right?” Hastings asks.
“Absolutely.” You poke him dead center of the chest with your pointer finger, hard enough that he takes a step back. “It would be my pleasure to be the one who takes you down.”
The others divide up the rest of the parts. They took so long making decisions that there’s no time to get the scripts today. You have the entire thing memorized, though. So does Hastings. The two of you spit lines back and forth for a bit, things growing heated.
The girl remains seated in the back of the auditorium, no longer reading her comic book. She watches your every move, absorbing every syllable. You have an audience today, as you act your heart out, and she’s captivated.
When the day ends, people leave, but you’re in no hurry. You stroll down the aisle to where the girl still sits. She watches you approach and says, “If what I just witnessed is any indication, you might've been the best dead kid Law & Order has ever seen.”
You sit down with her, laughing. There’s no space between the two of you now. “It was a ‘parents are monsters behind closed doors’ storyline. I had a handful of lines. I was five.”
“Wow,” she says. “When I was five, I couldn’t even remember how to spell my own name, and you were already memorizing dialogue.”
“Ah, well, I have a good memory,” you say. “Besides, it’s easier when things are relatable.”
You don’t elaborate.
She doesn’t ask you what you mean by that.
She’s fidgeting with her comic book, thumbing through pages. Silence surrounds you but it isn’t awkward. She’s nervous, though—nervous sitting so close to you.
“So, you like comic books?” You pluck the one from her hand. “Breezeo.”
Breezeo: Ghosted
Issue #4 of 5
“Have you read it?” she asks.
“Never heard of it,” you say, flipping through the thing. “Looks shitty.”
She snatches the comic right back. “How dare you! Blasphemous.”
“Okay, fine, I retract that.” Laughing, you grab the comic book again. She reluctantly releases it. “So, what, he’s some kind of superhero?”
“Something like that,” she says. “He was a normal guy, but he caught an experimental virus that’s making him disappear.”
“Like a ghost,” you say, glancing at the pictures.
“Yeah, so he’s just doing what he can to save the girl he loves while he has the chance.”
“Huh, let me guess—they find a cure and live happily ever after?”
“It’s not over yet. There’s still one more issue left.”
“But you have the others?”
“Yes.”
“Bring them to me,” you say. “Let me read them.”
She gives you a horrified look. “Why in the world would I do that?”
“Because we’re in ‘fuck your clubs’ club together.”
“You didn’t join.”
“I still might.”
She rolls her eyes as she gets up to leave. You walk her to the front of the school. Nearly everyone is gone, just a handful of students remaining. A maroon-colored Honda is parked along the right-hand side of the circular driveway, a man approaching the building.
She tenses, feet stalling, when she notices him. “Dad! You’re early.”
“Figured you’d appreciate not having to hang out here on a Friday,” the man says, smiling until his gaze shifts to you, standing awfully close to his daughter. His eyes narrow as he holds his hand out to introduce himself. “Michael Garfield.”
