Twisted Symphony

I hadn’t practiced in ages. Yeah, Johnnie was for sure a douche bag, but that didn’t stop him from being right about certain things. For a small flicker of time I had lost sight of why I was here, and I realized that I hadn’t been myself for a very long time. Reid and I spent too much time together. It wasn’t his fault, we had done it too each other, but a point had come where we had started to blend into the same person, and I didn’t understand who I was anymore.

Johnnie and I hadn’t spoken in four days. He wasn’t even in Fitz’s class. I didn’t really see him ,but I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to. I had only caught him with Kayla once the entire week, but they were actually watching a movie, as she tried to eat his face. She was alone, and it was foreign. She cried to me about a slew of girls that ate away at his time. I had quit my drunken nights, I even seriously contemplated calling Adam, but I didn’t have the guts.

I watched as my pen rolled across the top of the baby-grand. Fitz was killing me with this partner dialog. He had assigned it last week, but I had left it until now with his class lingering over tomorrow morning; a partner presentation. Johnnie hadn’t even brought it up, and as I tried to promise myself I didn’t care about the class, I knew it was a lie I wouldn’t get away with. I respected Fitz more than I cared to admit. While the fate of my scholarship had its own weight. Nearly everything had slipped, but Fitz’s class was my saving grace I put my fingers ti my temples and took a deep breath. I needed to find Johnnie.

“Johnnie.’ I rapped on his door and heard some shuffling, and then a light giggle. “I needed to talk to you.” I rested a hand on the crook of my neck.

“I’m busy.” I heard the door lock.

“It’s about Fitz’s class.” I tried to pull a response from him. More giggling.

“I don’t care.” I rapped on the door once more.

Silence.

“Johnnie!” I banged on the door before sliding down the wall next to his door. “Shit.” I mumbled, putting face in my hands.

“What?!” He swung his door open. “You’re going to start crying again?” He mocked.

“I’m going to lose my scholarship.” I looked up at him from the ground.

“What?” He narrowed his eyes at me.

“My GPA is riding on Fitz’s class. The rest of my grades are pretty crappy right now. And I know that’s not your problem, but Fitz has had it out for us since I started withdrawing last week, and you stopped showing up.” I looked at him desperately “I need you to finish this stupid dialog with me.”

He looked back into his dorm room, and then at me, She was surprisingly fully clothed.

“I have a project.” He shrugged, looking at her.

“You sure?” She smiled a pretentiously sweet smile. He contemplated it for three seconds.

“Yeah, sorry.” She rolled her eyes, half annoyed.

“Whatever.” She looked at me before walking away. He waved goodbye.

“Come on.” He pulled me up.

Two hours later I was sprawled out on the floor of a practice room, holding my lines to my face helplessly. “Thank god I’m not here for acting.” I sat up and adjusted the waistband of my yoga pants.

“You’re pretty terrible.” He rested his make-shift script on the knee of his blue mesh shorts and reached for his take-out carton of baby-spare ribs.

“So are you!” I sat up and crossed my legs.

“Yeah.” He agreed while grabbing a napkin. “But you’re worse.” He teased.

“We probably shouldn’t be eating in here.” I pointed to the take-out cartons around us and the fortune cookie wrappers next to the foot of the piano.

“Who’s going to stop us? It’s eleven forty at night. Do you see anyone?” He motioned to the rooms surrounding ours. “No one rational is up here now, at least not in the west wing. Insomniacs are usually in the west wing practice rooms.” He reassured me. “Did you eat my fortune cookie?” He looked at me skeptically as he felt around the bottom of the empty paper bag.

“Sorry.”

“Fine. I get yours next time.” He said matter-of-factly.

“Focus.” I tapped the script.

“We just took a break. Relax, it’ll work out.” He began to eyes the lines in front of him.

“Fine.” I pushed it aside.

“What?” He looked up from his script.

“Did Reid say something to you When you talked to him after my birthday?” I scooted closer to him.

“Gabrielle.” He looked at me as if I wouldn’t want to hear his answer.

“What did he say?” I moved closer and narrowed my eyes at him curiously.

”He asked me if I had a thing for you.” And I told him that it was whatever because you know… you don’t like me like that, but he freaked out and told me to step off.”

“And that was it?” I leaned towards him, looking for more.

“He told me that he doesn’t like me spending time with you. And he told me to stay away from you.” He glanced away from me for a second.

“And?” I could feel that there was more he wasn’t telling mr.

“We got into a fight. I mean, I didn’t hit him or anything. I just called him an asshole and he told me to fuck off. But when you got up dry I told him I’d stay away for a while. Then he fed you some crap about him being a bitch.”

“So you told him you’d stay away from me, and he came back.” I bit my lip nervously. “That was the only reason?” I began to make connections.

“That’s not true.”

“And you stayed away because of him.”

“No. It was because of you.”

“What?”

“I like you. I like you a lot, and that’s why I did it. It wasn’t for him. I think he’s an ass.”

“I’m a bitch sometimes.” I shrugged.

“I’m an asshole sometimes.” A smirk began to play on his lips.

“You did that for me?” I felt my mind wander back to what he had done.

He shrugged sheepishly.

“Yeah, well-” His cheeks started to get pink for the first time since I’ve met him. “We should try to finish.” He grabbed for his script.

We never did.