I mean, I could smile, but it wouldn’t be real. These days it feels like the most real thing in my life are my books, the stories…this voice. He has this genuine quality, a way of capturing the truth in each character that puts every actor I know to shame. The stories might be silly and the plotlines outlandish, but he brings them to life, he makes them real and true.
So yeah, what you see is never what you get.
But what you hear?
That’s another story.
Chapter Two
Seth
The loner life isn’t for everyone. I wouldn't recommend it for your average Joe hanging at a normal school. But at Trudale School of Academic blah blah blah, it's a necessity.
Being a loner means not having to hang out with the giant D-bags and drama queens who make up the student body. And in classes like Mr. Anderson's, where it's an odd number of students, that means getting to do the big semester-long project all by myself.
Thank the freakin’ Lord.
"Are you sure?" Anderson had asked with a furrowed brow that was meant to convey teacherly concern but just made him look constipated.
I'd given him my best reassuring smile. "I'm sure, sir."
I think it was the sir that did it. Old dudes were suckers for "sirs" while "ma'ams" made older women flinch like they'd just been electrocuted. It was also important that I didn’t seem overly excited about the prospect of working alone or he might’ve gotten suspicious.
Teachers didn’t like it when you were too happy about a homework assignment, they thought you were missing the point.
But I digress. My point is, I hate my fellow classmates with the fiery passion of a burning supernova.
A little melodramatic? Maybe. But you would be too if you’d spent the last year surrounded by Barbie and Ken dolls, plastic on the outside and hollow on the inside.
But it’s worth it.
Hopefully it’ll be worth it.
No, it will be. I have to remind myself of that to make it through the days without setting fire to something or someone in this ridiculous hellhole. Graduating from this school is pretty much a golden ticket to the film school of my dreams. It opens doors to the best connections money could buy—not my money, obviously. I’m here on scholarship, which puts me in the lowest caste in this school’s social system, but I don’t care. Because that scholarship gives me access to all the advantages these catty airheads take for granted.
I’m not being sexist, FYI. The guys here are just as much catty airheads as the girls, maybe even more so. In fact, no one fits that definition better than my roommate and he’s as much of a manly man as anyone ever wants to meet.
Trust me. The stench of his testosterone has driven me out of our shared room on multiple occasions.
But right now, I’m safely away from his magnificent ego, and I slink down in my seat in the back of Anderson’s class as he continues to explain the fundamentals of shooting on a DSLR camera like we are a bunch of idiots.
I guarantee every kid in this class is more technologically inclined than Anderson. But the man does have some serious credentials when it comes to filmmaking. I’ve seen his IMDB page, and the man has worked with some of the greats. So, I listen. I pay attention. And I ignore the gossips around me who couldn’t care less about learning and are only here to socialize.
Or at least, I try to ignore them.
Soon the whispers start to drown out Anderson’s voice and the atmosphere in the room gets about a million times more tense.
Something’s up.
I shouldn’t care. I don’t want to care. But I’m only human, and I can’t fight the curiosity any longer. “What’s up?” I ask Demetri, the foreign exchange student from the Czech Republic whose father was a finalist for the Man Booker Prize this year.
He’s quiet and studious, which makes him one of the few people I don’t actively despise.
“How should I know?” he asks.
He’s also a cranky little turd, and I find myself staring back at an angry glare. He’s wearing a black turtleneck despite the fact that it’s an unseasonably warm fall in Upstate New York.
“Okaaay,” I drawl, holding up my hands, palms out. “Just asking.”
“Is there a problem here, people?” Mr. Anderson asks.
Poor Mr. Anderson. He even kind of looks like that comedian Rodney Dangerfield who had that slogan: I can’t get no respect.
Sometimes I’m pretty sure I can hear those words coming out of his mouth, muttered under his breath.
But that’s probably just my imagination. I have a good one, or so I’ve been told.
“No problem, Mr. Anderson,” Vanessa Lively says. She’s a goody two-shoes—class president, beloved by all. She’s also a raging bitch with a posse of frightening clones, but don’t try telling any of the teachers that. You might blow their minds.
Mr. Anderson gives her a small, grateful smile and it’s just another sign of how freakin’ downtrodden he is that he’s so appreciative of the slightest sign of a suck-up in his class.
Bryce Miller speaks up. “Yo, is it true that Avery Sinclair is at our school?”
Avery Sinclair? Why does that name sound familiar?
“Sadie Wrathmore is my favorite character,” a girl to my right says in a reverent tone.
Now that name I definitely recognize. And then it clicks. That show. That stupid, ridiculous crime of an art form show.
That terrible TV show that is everywhere you look these days. I mean everywhere. Every magazine cover, every late-night talk show guest, every Wednesday like clockwork in the dorms’ shared spaces—the only place we’re allowed to have legit televisions. Most people just watch shows and movies on their laptops but watching that ridiculous show, The Temptress, has become a group activity for guys and girls alike.
So yeah, even though I’m proud to say I’ve never seen an episode, I recognize the name, and it hits me right as one of the chattier girls in our class speaks up, her voice so high-pitched dogs are probably on their way. “Oh my gosh, is Avery Sinclair really coming to Trudale? I thought it was just a rumor.”
And, it seems we have a fan.
Judging by the way the room erupts into chaos, I think it’s safe to say the entire classroom is filled with her fan club. Although underneath the excited chatter are some low-pitched murmurs—the sound of rumors, of dirty, foul gossip. The kind Vanessa and her crew live for.
Honestly, I’m not really listening to either the upbeat fangirling (and fanboying—is that a thing?) or the more ominous gossip.
Who cares? I mean, seriously. Who freakin’ cares?
This school is a veritable melting pot of celebrities and their offspring. Yeah, sure, I might have been just a little taken aback when I’d met the girl from the underdog indie flick that had won the Oscar for best screenplay last year. But that was when I was new. Only a year has passed between then and now but in this weird bubble that was more than enough to inure me to the weird ways of Trudale, where everyone is a someone.
Except me, obviously.
But apparently, my classmates haven’t gotten the memo, because they’re all in an uproar about the fact that some chick from some stupid TV show is roaming the halls of our school.
One by one the voices come to a screeching halt as the door to our classroom opens and a blonde goddess appears in the doorway. The last voice to end is one of those low voices, but it can be heard loud and clear in the sudden silence. “…I hear she’s a total bitch.”
The goddess is not smiling and she doesn’t seem to notice us, the lowly peons in her presence. She’s beautiful, and I’m not saying that in a fawning kind of way, I’m saying it in the empirical fact kind of way.
The girl is gorgeous. Marilyn Monroe’s innate sexiness meets Grace Kelly’s untouchable perfection. Long, thick blonde waves frame a face sent from heaven, complete with cupid bow lips and unbelievably wide blue eyes.
I can feel the atmospheric shift in the room like we’ve all been pitched into the
sea. The oxygen is gone, and instead, we’re wading through air that hums with excitement and power and jealousy and desire and charisma.
Holy crap. So this is star quality. This is the kind of aura people talk about when they get all starstruck around celebrities. Suddenly I get it.
And I hate it.
I’m not above admitting that this girl makes me want to scream. Everything about her infuriates me as she slowly wanders over to Mr. Anderson’s desk and speaks to him, her voice a low, sweet sound, her words too soft to make out but not for lack of straining on my classmates’ part. Okay, fine, and mine.
It’s impossible to look away. She has us in thrall. I find myself dissecting her, from the tight-fitting black pants to the sheer purple blouse that has some sort of tank top underneath. She’s not dressed differently than the rest of the class. She’s just another girl.
But she’s not. And she knows it. Her confidence, the way her chin tilts up slightly like she knows she’s better than us, better than everyone. The freakin’ genetic jackpot that makes her jaw-droppingly hot. Everything about her is a reminder of why I despise this school and the people in it.
Oh sure, I want to be here. I’m happy to be here. But I’m only here for what I can get out of it. This girl…no, girl isn’t the right word. Neither is woman, because she seems too young and delicate to be called woman.
This chick is the living, breathing, walking embodiment of all I hate about this school. Her whole holier-than-thou air and the way everyone falls for it—it makes me sick with fury. She walks through life on a bed of roses, and why?
Because she was born with a pretty face. Okay fine, and body. She probably has connections, too. She’s probably from some rich family and has an uncle who’s a producer. I’m not just pulling that out of nowhere, that pretty much describes nine-tenths of the Trudale student body. Throw a rock and you’d hit the niece or nephew of a bigwig producer.
Mr. Anderson is staring up at her from his desk with his mouth partially open and his eyes wide and stunned. Poor Mr. Anderson. He doesn’t appear to say a word. He’s just listening as though this girl is the one in charge here.
And she probably is.
The silence, aside from her soft murmuring voice, is unbearable after a while. I shift in my seat and see others doing the same. We’re all just staring at this tableau at the front of the classroom like a bunch of morons.
It’s Avery who breaks the moment by turning away from Mr. Anderson and taking an empty seat near the doorway. She still hasn’t acknowledged the fact that there are seventeen other teenagers in this classroom and that every single one of them is staring at her.
She’s looking straight ahead at Mr. Anderson, and when she gives him a little nod, I swear it’s her way of giving him permission to carry on with class.
And it works.
Mr. Anderson scrambles to his feet and stammers for a moment. “O-okay c-class. Where were we?” He clears his throat and fidgets with his tie before he clearly decides on a new tack. “I’m sure you all know Avery Sinclair? She’ll be joining us for the rest of the semester. I expect you all to make her feel at home and help her as much as you can to catch up on her coursework.”
She doesn’t react at all as far as I can tell.
“Stuck-up bitch,” I hear one of the girls in Vanessa’s crew whisper beside me.
“Such a diva,” her friend responds, even less quietly so most of the room can hear, including the diva in question.
Now, I definitely don’t condone that sort of behavior, but I’m having a hard time disagreeing with their assessment. The girl looks like an aloof, entitled princess. But my resentment toward her goes deeper than that. I’m pissed beyond belief because this girl just waltzed into the most sought-after class at Trudale—the one I’d busted my butt to get accepted into—and she’d done it without so much as a batting of her eyelashes.
I force my gaze away from Avery and try to pay attention as a noticeably harried Mr. Anderson reminds us again about our end of semester projects. We still have two months, but I’m guessing most of the spoiled brats in this class haven’t even started to think about it.
We’ll be making a short film. No more than five minutes and it can be anything—documentary style, a funny skit, a mini soap opera, whatever. I already know what I want to do though I haven’t started filming.
I hear some furious whispers breaking out around me and it doesn’t take a genius to guess what the biggest issue is for these folks—who gets to be the star. No matter what these kids might tell you about why they’re pursuing the arts, there’s only one truth. They want to be stars. I guarantee each and every one is hoping to be the next Avery Sinclair, no matter what crap they might talk about her behind her back.
Or in front of it.
Not me, obviously. Acting is hardly an art form these days. I want to be the vision behind the camera, the one who actually has the ideas and gets to have a voice in the world. The actors are merely the puppets.
But a puppet is all my classmates want to be. Take Trent, my roommate. Does he talk a good game about wanting to be a world-class actor? Yeah. Sure. But that guy is all hot air. All he cares about is being famous. He’d happily give up his role in the spring Shakespeare festival for the right underwear ad, I guarantee it.
So that’s how I know that at this moment I am absolutely positive that my classmates are hissing and fighting over who gets to be the star of the show. One of many reasons I’m glad I don’t have to deal with a partner.
Because this project isn’t just a homework assignment. It’s an opportunity. A chance to be discovered.
In case you haven’t gotten it yet—Trudale isn’t like other schools. These short films won’t be seen by our parents before they’re chucked and forgotten. The best of each class will be revealed at the end-of-year “Highlights Ball.” Yes, you read that right. A highlights ball. As in football highlights? But in this case, it’s a formal event, and a showcase for the best projects, the best scenes, the best artwork, the best poems, etc.
It’s like a grand scale show-and-tell, but the audience isn’t just our classmates, it’s their parents and their parents’ friends, and basically everyone who is anyone.
It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. Well, one of many opportunities for the rest of my classmates, but it’s my one chance to be seen.
I should have seen it coming, but I don’t. When the bell rings, I get up to go just like everyone else in class but stop when Anderson calls out my name. “Seth, can I see you for a minute?”
I get some funny looks from a couple kids, but then they’re gone, fleeing the room like there’s a fire. I can already hear Avery’s name being spoken loudly and often in the hallway just outside the classroom.
Unless she’s deaf, Avery can too. She’s standing even closer to the door than I am, but she makes no move to follow the crowd out. Mr. Anderson beckons me over to his desk where he’s still seated and Avery stands patiently nearby.
It’s only when I join them at the front of the classroom that I realize what’s about to happen. It’s like being in a car crash that’s happening in slow motion, I can see the disaster coming but I can’t stop it.
“Seth, since you don’t have a partner for the final project, why don’t you and Avery team up?”
I don’t know if my horror is completely obvious or not but I don’t risk glancing in Avery’s direction. I mean, I don’t want to be a total prick to the new girl or anything but also…what the hell?
No. No way. No, no, no, no. This is my chance. Mine. This is my senior year and my first and possibly last chance to win a spot in the Highlights Ball, and I can’t have it ruined by Malibu Barbie over here.
“I don’t mind working alone,” she says quietly.
And now I feel like an ass. I still don’t look at her. It’s bad enough I can smell her shampoo or her perfume or whatever. It’s soft and it’s sweet and it could quite possibly cause a human to fall in love, because…pheromones. I don’t
know, I don’t have time to think that one through because I have much bigger problems on my plate.
Like, how the hell was I going to get out of this one? Because despite Avery’s offer, Mr. Anderson’s shaking his head. “Nonsense. This is supposed to be a team project. It’s all about collaboration.”
Funny how that hadn’t seemed to be an issue when there was an odd number of students and no one wanted to work with me. “But—” I start and then instantly stop because that one word, which comes out in a rather unmanly squeak, has them both looking in my direction.
Mr. Anderson arches his brows in a challenge and Avery…well, Avery is a blank slate. I have no idea what she’s thinking, but it’s impossible not to be just a little bit affected by those big eyes and that pretty mouth and that…that aura.
Holy crap, what is that? Do they teach that to starlets on the soundstage or is it a natural phenomenon? Did she always have this gravitational force surrounding her and that’s why she became a star or is this weird pull a result of her being a star?
That chicken-and-egg conundrum will have to wait. I’ve already stared for a heartbeat too long and now I feel like an idiot.
I also feel like maybe she did some sort of mind-meld during that stare because we both speak at the same time and we’re basically saying the same thing: don’t make us do this.
“I’ve already started,” I lie.
“I may not be here long enough to finish.” She’s probably lying too.
Or…maybe she’s not. I cut her a look trying to figure out what she means by that, but Mr. Anderson seems to already know.
He gives her a reassuring smile that falls just this side of sycophantic. “Don’t worry about that, Avery. I’m sure you’ll be able to do enough to earn your grade.”
And just like that, it clicks. She might leave, for whatever reason, and this teacher is pretty much saying that she’ll still get an A. Even if she doesn’t do the work.
Even if it’s me who does the entire project.
Time freezes for one split second, and it’s long enough for a world of emotions to surge through me.
Audible Love: A Young Adult Romance Page 2
