A Non-Preforming Act: A Short Story

Pretending has become second nature to me. When around friends and family, I camouflage my hurt and pain. However, I can glare at anyone and make them believe I feel normal. Yet, if people saw a glimpse beneath the surface they see a broken girl.

When I was in the third grade and began to take an interest in musicals, my two best friends and I decided we would perform “Popular” from Wicked in our school’s talent show. I was looking forward to having fun with my friends onstage, but secretly I was wondering what I had gotten myself into. I had so many doubts about going onstage in front of my entire school. What if they thought I sang badly? Why didn’t we use backup music? Pink is definitely not my color. It was my first time singing by myself with a large audience watching me, but nonetheless, the three of us went onstage. Regardless of what others may have thought about us, we all felt exhilarated and relieved once we were done.

A couple of months later competition season came and I was so nervous to go out there and perform in front of a lot of people. After the first

Marie and I had just left her house and were walking to the tryouts. It was a really quick walk because she lives only 2 houses away from the studio. This was back in August 2017, a few days after dance camp ended for the summer. We hurried down the stairs to go inside and kept talking about how nervous and excited we were the whole way down. Once we got inside of Bleker’s, we started talking to the other girls. After just a few minutes we were all taken into the dance room and together we all learned a hip hop, jazz, and tap routine. We only had about 30 minutes to learn all of the routines so we were all feeling a little rushed. Before we knew it, the dance teachers put us into groups of 3-5 girls. These groups were the people we would perform our dance routines with. My group was Meghan S, Grace, and I.

I was the only one who was fearful for what was about to happen because the humiliation of being unprepared to perform in front of the whole school left me with a sense of angst. Color guard was just called up to perform and as the music started, cheers were ringing through the gym. Everyone seemed excited for the performance, yet I remember everything going in slow motion: students yelling, teachers clapping, and yet my girls looked clueless. This was the moment I was dreading since before the school year started.

Then we started to warm up because we had a judge's preview. So basically we just went into a classroom and performed our dance it was really scary at first, but then it got better because I knew they weren’t judging us that

Freshman year me really, really wanted to make District band. In middle of August, 2014, the etude for my audition almost four months away

I'm snapped out of my thoughts by a light beeping sound. I stand up, and walk over to the end table at the start of the couch. I open the drawer, take out my IPhone, and look

We had to wait in the hallway because the party girls went during first act and we went during the second act. We played games and talked and drew things. One time we said “let's practice all together.” After the Party Girls left we got to go into the dressing room

I had almost drifted off to sleep when my phone buzzed it's LED lighting up the room. Quickly I fumbled to unlock it and view the message.

A warm smile spread across her face when she heard Dory “Don’t worry about it Dory, I understand.” She stated with a slight nod as a giggle escaped her lips. “I know you aren’t trying to chase me away or anything like that, you just have responsibilities to deal with at the moment and I understand that completely.” She added, a smile quickly spread across her face. Taking in a deep breath she stood from the chair she sat in, dark hues stared at Dory. “We will see eachother again tomorrow.” She nodded, “Plus, it's getting awfully late, I need to get up early tomorrow to be at the club for rehearsals.” Rapunzel stated in a soft voice. Turning around she quickly made her way off the boat.

The short story “The Act” by Adam Haslett is a synopsis of the protagonist’s life from when he is going off to college to when he dies. The story starts off with the man and his distant father dropping him off at the protagonist’s dorm. When at the dorm his father asks his son to not take a corporate job and to do something more meaningful with his degree. Then the story fast forwards to the protagonist graduating, going to law school, getting married, working a corporate job and having a child. Then the protagonist finds out his father is sick and visits him in the hospital. The protagonist has never told his dad of his job and feels that he should finally tell him the truth. Knowing that his dad will be disappointed he gains the courage to tell him. The protagonists’ father then passes away the next day. The story goes on with the protaginst’s son Gabriel growing up, going to college and then becoming a political campaigner. The protagonist is fond of running and goes on a trip to Hawaii with his family to run a marathon. While on a jog with Gabriel the protagonist begins to go into cardiac arrest and is laying on the ground waiting to die with his son is by his side. The central idea is that a person should not keep secrets will hinder a relationship.

His cell phone was buzzing his head felt like it was going to split open. Reaching blindly for the phone until he found it he swiped the answer button.

All of the messages on my phone confused me, but my sister’s message was the one that stood out the most and would eventually impact my life in a somewhat huge way. Chelsey’s message read, “Mom’s house is

While I was chowing down on my scrumptious breakfast like I hadn’t eaten in months the leaders of the camp explained to us with big grins on their faces that could not be trusted what was going to happen today “Alright everyone today we will have a relax day so we will walk to the market have some free time there, come back and play some fun mini games and…” I swore their grins got even bigger like the joker had just killed batman “We will be doing a theatre night!” “Uuggghhhhh,” chorused every single poor unfortunate soul in the room. I was alright with a theatre night since I had some experience in drama club but there was no way in hell I was going to perform in front of everyone.