Embellished Truth & Polite Fiction

Prompt: It was the day before, and nobody was ready.

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“I can’t believe you’re not ready yet,” Sally scolded.

Jenny rolled her eyes and looked at her friend over her black rimmed glasses. If only Sally had even the slightest idea of what they’d been up to over the weekend, she might not be haggling her now.

“Sally, no one is ready. Not without Bobby. I don’t have any idea what we’re going to do now..”

“Bobby? Bobby had an understudy. We’ll be fine.”

“You’ve got to be kidding! Bobby’s understudy? What a joke. Larry couldn’t make it to even half the rehearsals and doesn’t have a single line memorized! And seriously.. Even if Bobby were here.. were you at the last rehearsal? I may have said I’m not ready, but I’m way more prepared than the rest of the cast.”

Sally sighed heavily and gazed off down the nearly empty hallway. “I suppose you’re right.”

Right or not, it was the day before the opening of MacBeth for the high school drama team, and nobody was ready. Nobody. They were going to have to cancel. But that didn’t bother Jenny at all, it just meant she had more time to do some digging.

As she suspected, Bobby’s file from the administration’s office yielded nothing but random personal information. And Jenny was just sure that there was something big going on that they were covering up. So why would they want to put it in his file? Talk about an easy paper trail. No, she was going to have to be a lot sneakier and a lot smarter if she was going to get to the bottom of this. Especially considering the security guard at the school that night had seen Jenny, Ted, and Tommy leaving the campus after breaking into the administration office. Had he seen the file that Jenny had hastily tucked in her sweater? Did he have any idea what they had been up to? She was quite sure he didn’t.. but he had still seen them. That meant that their faces meant trouble to him, and that could cause them problems in the future if they had any more such slip-ups.

Yes, extra caution would have to be used from here on out.

“Jenny?” Sally was looking at her as if she was waiting for an answer to a question. She’d been so lost in thought that she hadn’t heard a word Sally had said. “You look like you’re a million miles away, hon. You okay?”

“Yep, I’m fine.” Jenny smiled.

Ted came walking in the front doors of the school building and caught Jenny’s eye.

“Gotta run, Sally. I’ll chat with you later.” Sally raised a hand as if to try and stop her friend, but Jenny had already trotted half-way down the hall to meet Ted, her long red wool skirt bouncing along with her as she held her books tightly against her black cardigan clad chest.

Jenny smiled broadly at Ted, her blue eyes meeting his deep brown ones as her blond pony tail gave one last swing before settling in place on her back. Ted smiled back at her briefly before looking over her head and down the hall at Sally.

“What were you two little hens talking about?” he asked.

“Nothing special. Just the play. Don’t worry.” Jenny smiled as she made a motion of zipping her lips.

“Ah, good.” he said, relaxing for a moment. “Oh! The play! Man.. was she wondering about Bobby at all?”

“No. Not really. I think she was hoping that his understudy would just step in and fill the role. Perhaps a little relieved since he’d been so scattered and disorganized before he left.” Jenny answered, wrinkling her face. “I think she’s let this whole directing thing go to her head. It’s as if the play is suddenly more important to her than anything else.. even her friendships.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ted said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll calm down once it’s over.”

“Yeah.. I guess..” Jenny said, resisting the urge to look over her shoulder at her friend, not wanting her to know they were talking about her.

Just then, the principal’s door opened and Principal Wilson stepped out with the night guard that they had seen last Friday. Uh-oh. Jenny thought. The guard spotted them and turned quickly to say something in Principal Wilson’s ear. He listened carefully and set his gaze upon the pair of teenagers.

“Theodore, Jennifer.. may I speak with you two in my office for a moment?”

“I had one of those moments today. You know, the ones where you sit and wonder ‘what if?‘ for a little while..” Celia said.

“Okay.” answered Jacob, sounding only half interested, at best.

She sat for a minute, lost in thought, assuming he didn’t care to hear more. Why bother talking about it if he doesn’t even want to listen?

“What kind of ‘what if‘ were you thinking about?” he asked finally.

“Oh, nothing specific really.. I was more focused on what my feelings and reactions would be.”

“And what were they?”

Celia breathed a heavy sigh. Jacob was never fond of less than rosy topics. Still, she felt a small nagging to let it out, to talk about it.

“I didn’t care,” she answered, looking down at her rather worn boots. “I guess I’ve kind of reached a point where I feel more like a character in a story than a real person. I mean, bad things happening would make me sad and hurt me.. I guess. But in the end, what does it matter? I don’t really care. And I guess the bad things don’t matter or hurt quite so much if it makes the story more interesting, you know?”

“Umm.. okay..” Jacob looked at her like she was speaking another language.

“I know you don’t understand. I don’t really understand it either. But.. I guess I’m sort of numb to life.”

“That doesn’t sound normal.. or healthy.”

Celia started to squirm in her seat a little, started to feel uncomfortable. She was worried that Jacob was going to think she was a total freak and run screaming from her apartment. They’d only been dating a few months, but she felt close to him. She felt like he was a trustworthy person.. not that she felt she could trust him, or had any intention to trust him.. just that here, in this moment, he was worthy of trusting.

“You okay, Celia?” Jacob tried to make eye contact with her. She avoided him.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. I should get ready for work.”

“Ok. I’ve got some errands to run. You still want to have dinner when you’re off?”

“Of course. I’ll see you later.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and watched as he headed out the door.

Celia picked up the phone and called in sick to work. She just didn’t feel like going today. She couldn’t stand the idea of having to face so many people today, and in retail it’s just unavoidable.

Celia’s childhood had been rough. But through it all, she’d still had bright spots, good memories. But after she’d moved out of her parents house, after she’d started a life of her own, things got better. She started to feel really happy, really content. She had a boyfriend, Tim. He loved her, she loved him. They’d been together for over 2 years and had even started talking about marriage.

Then Celia’s younger brother died. He was only 19. He was out partying with his friends, he’d had a few drinks. Then, he tried to drive home. Yeah, we all know how that story ends, don’t we.

Not only was Celia devastated by her brother’s death but, to add insult to injury, she also had to deal with the embarrassment and humiliation of everyone knowing that her brother had died young because he was stupid enough to drive drunk. It was a hard pill to swallow. It caused distance in her relationship with Tim who grew impatient with her grieving. Who had no trouble finding someone new and leaving her behind.

Eventually, Celia shut down. Much like she had during the bulk of her childhood. She let herself go numb, because she couldn’t stand the pain anymore. Every time she’d try to deal with it, to allow herself to grieve, it would overtake her and she would find herself unable to function. She didn’t have time to not function. So she cut it off.

But now, Celia was with Jacob. And she had brief fleeting moments of happiness and contentment. Moments where she could feel again. Moments that, if she let them last long enough, quickly became mixed with intense sadness and pain. Sadness that was too big and too scary to face. She was tired of the flip-flopping. Exhausted from letting herself feel for a moment and then having to turn it off. Like living alone in a dark room and being allowed to turn on the light for a minute now and then, seeing that there are others there with you, and then quickly having to shut it off again.

Celia was tired. Exhausted. Celia had had enough. It was time to make a decision. Keep the lights on and let her eyes adjust to a new, and potentially very painful, reality.. or keep living in the dark?