She stared at me smiling, “Ms. Chiu, this class is for everyone. There is no discrimination.”

“He’s only here to annoy me. I can’t get away from him. Ms, please, I’m one of your favourite students; do me a favour and tell him to leave.”

“Kim, I don’t have the authority to do that.”

“Yes, yes you do. You’re the one who accepted him, you can just reject him,” I said pointing to the door. “Ms. Alvero, he’s an acoustic guitar player, not an actor. They’re two different things that don’t even compare.” I tried to argue, but all my points were failing miserably. “His parents didn’t even sign the forms.”

She stared at me, “Yes, but yours did. They even paid his fee. It’s completely legit. I’m sorry Ms. Chiu but from all his experiences, he’s going to be a really important part of this year.” She handed me some papers. “Look at this, he’s been part of his high school play for all four years, and even was recommended by his acting department. He’s been the lead, just like you have. You two are absolutely incredible actors, and it would be a huge disappointment if I lose you guys.”

“But you haven’t even seen him act.” I said.

“He sent me an audition tape, and if he’s as good as he was in person, than he’s better than some actors out there right now.” She took the papers from me, and began walking away. But stopped and turned towards me, “Kim, true actors do it for the audience rather than for the sake of themselves. Now if you want to go just to get rid of him, than go ahead, no one’s going to stop you; but than it means that you don’t really love acting and that’ll be a disappointment because you have talent. Don’t waste it over someone you can’t stand.”

I sighed and walked over to Gerald. “What the hell is your problem, joining my class?”

He pulled me over to the side. “I like acting.”

I scoffed, “Right, because you’ve never mentioned that before. And even if you do, did you really have to join this one? There are plenty of classes out there for acting, and did it ever occur to you that I would want to know that you planned on joining?”

“What is the big deal? It’s a class, it’s not like…”

“No, it’s not just a class. This is my life, Ge. I see you at home, I see you everyday at school when you drive me and pick me up. Okay, this is my thing, this is what I do when I need to blow off some steam; this is the place I go to when I need to blow off steam.”

“Look, I’m sorry but I’m staying.” He said walking away from me and talking to other people.

I shook my head and took my seat.

“Okay everyone, come to the circle and we’ll start out class with an oldie, but a goodie.” The teacher said holding a hat. “This hat includes everyone’s name and a script from movies. Each of you will choose a partner and the script will be one you have to act out. For the newcomers, this is something we do to warm up for the upcoming season and it’ll help me when the time comes to choose the characters with our upcoming play. So I everyone wants to come up one by one and choose a name, we’ll get started.”

Ms. Alvero told all the guys to come up and choose a girl partner, and as luck would have it, Gerald chose me. A part of me was extremely because the teacher adored him ad he did have an incredible background, but then I hated it because it was Gerald, though I knew it was a stupid reason. “You guys have five minutes to warm up and practice, and then we’re going to get started. Okay guys, go.”

The two of us walked to the corner and we got our script. “The Notebook? Great, a romance movie.” I muttered.

“You do realize that I can hear you.” He chuckled.

“Okay, let’s get one thing straight, if we’re gonna do this, as in be together like twenty-four-seven, then my thoughts stay to myself unless asked otherwise, do we have a deal?”

He smiled, “Deal,” he stuck his hand out.

I shook it, and I tried not to think about the electricity that ran through my veins the moment we touched. I took a deep breath and stared at him. “Let’s get this over with.” I read over the part and it was the one I absolutely didn’t want to get.

Five minutes later, Ms. Alvero called everyone back to the circle. “Before we start the miniature plays, I wanted everyone to understand something. Acting is not only just being there and reciting the lines one has been given; it is about behaving, it is about emotion coming through you. When an audience watched you, they should not be able to realize you are acting. It’s all about becoming the character, rather than playing the character. It’s the work of your imagination.” She sighed, “Don’t come up here if you’re just going to read the lines I’ve given to you. I want to feel the emotion, I want to feel the passion. Come up here and make this your stage, make it yours. Don’t copy wherever your words are from, whether it’s a movie or a play, do it from your heart. Be the character, feel the character and live out the character. Acting is probably 80% feeling and 20% all the rest.” She smiled at us and began calling the student’s name.

We were last. Gerald took my hand and brought me up to the mini stage that was set up. He took two chairs and placed them a couple of feet away from each other and sat down relaxed.

I sighed and felt the butterflies in my stomach. I wasn’t scared for forgetting the lines, but because I wanted it to be real, I wanted to show Gerald that this was my territory, and he was not going to make me run away for it. I was scared to fail myself. I took a deep breath and began walking towards him, each step I took I became the character, I started become Allie.

“Interesting morning,” his voice was detached, just like Noah’s.

I turned my head like I was staring at something behind me, and then turned back to him, sitting down. “Yeah,” I said heartbroken. “Lon’s here in town.”

“He looked at me like he didn’t understand what I was saying. I could see in his eyes that he wasn’t just Gerald Anderson anymore, he was now Noah Calhoun. “He’s here?”

“Yeah, we see his car outside the hotel.” I didn’t look at him.

“I see you got my letters,” he smiled at me.

I mirthlessly chuckled, “Yeah,” I nodded.

“Finally,” his voice was still detached. There was a long pause. I didn’t know if I should just go into my line, or wait. But then he started again, his voice became more hurt. “What are you going to do, Al?”

I looked at him now, more confused. “I…” I took a breath, “I don’t know.”

He clapped his hand, “So we’re back there? We’re back to that? What about the last couple of days, they happened you know?”

I turned my head, tears already forming into my eyes, and I felt the change in me. I was no longer Kim. “I know that they happened, and they wonderful, but they were also very irresponsible.” Gerald got up and threw the chair away. “I have a fiancé waiting for me back at the hotel who’s going to be crushed when he finds out what we did!” I screamed, I heard everyone gasp and move away.

He walked to my face, “So you make love to me, and then you go back to your husband?!” When I looked into his eyes, he also had tears now to. “Was that your plan?! Was that a test I didn’t pass?!”

I got up and now we were face to face. “No!” I screamed. “I made a promise to a man, he gave me a ring and I gave him my word.”

“Well your word is shot to hell now, don’t you think?”

“I don’t know! I’ll find out when I talk to him.”

He sighed, and stared at me with anger like he’s been betrayed. “This is not about keeping your promise and your proposal. This is about security!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean, huh?!” I asked him.

“He does have a lot of money,” he commented.

“What!? Now I hate you, you smug bastard!” I pushed him away from me.

He shook his head and pointed at me with his index finger, “If you leave here, I hate you.”

“Have you been paying attention to anything that’s been going on around here? You knew I as engaged, you knew I was getting married.”

“Right, I guess I wasn’t paying attention, and I misread all the signals you made.”

“Yeah, I guess you did.” I walked passed him, walking down the stairs and continuing to towards the audience.

“You’re bored!” He followed me. “You wouldn’t be here if there wasn’t something missing.”

I scoffed and I turned to him, “You sick son of a !”

He grabbed my hand and pulled me close to him, keeping a firm grip on my wrist. “Will you just stay with me?”

I yanked my hand away, “Stay with you? What for? Look at us, we’re already fighting!” We were now in between the two audience members, who kept their eyes on us.

“That’s what we do! We fight. It’s always been like this, you tell me when I’m being an arrogant son of a , and I tell you when you’re being a pain in the . Which you are, ninety-nine percent of the time. I’m not afraid to hurt your feelings. You have like a two-second rebound rate, and then you’re back doing the next pain in the thing.”

“So?” I stared at him.

He wiped his eyes. “So, it’s not going to be easy, it’s going to be hard. But I’m willing to go through that because I want you.” He took my hand. “I want all you, your hands,” he kissed my palm, “I want your heart, your beautiful heart.” I closed my eyes, sobbing. “I want you forever, you and me.” He paused, and placed my hand over his heart. “You’re the only I love; you’re the reason why I survived, Kim.” He slipped up, which caused me to cry more because he was more into it than I was. When I looked around, no one realized his mistake, and he kept going. “Can you do me favour? Can you picture your life for, twenty years from now, forty years now? What’s it look like?” I shook my head, tears streaming down my face. “If it’s with him, then go! Go! I lost you once, I think I could do it again, if I thought it’s what you really wanted. But don’t you dare take the easy way out?!”

I stared at him like his words cut me in half, “Easy way? What easy way? No matter what I do, someone gets hurt. Lon, me, you.”

“Will you stop thinking about what everybody wants?” He let go of my hand. “Stop thinking about what Lon want, what your parents wants, what I want. What do you want?”

“It’s not that simple.” I sobbed.

He grabbed my hand again, and squeezed it, “What do you want? Do you want to go back to him and wonder what could’ve been, or do you want to come back to me, where you know what it will be like? What do you want, Kim, huh?” I swallowed, taking a deep breath. “Damn it, What do you want!?”

I looked down, and I realized my hand was over his heart again. “I have to go.” I whispered, not meeting his eyes, exhaling hard.

It was quiet for a moment, and then he let go of my hand. He turned around and put his hands behind his head. “Then go,” he whispered.

I turned around and covered my mouth with my hand, trying to hide the misery that I conjured up for the performance, but realized that wasn’t just a performance anymore. I walked away slowly, wiping my eyes dry.

Ms. Alvero stood up and began the applause. “Amazing!” She breathed. Everyone else stood up and began clapping also.

I walked back to the circle and Gerald had a smile on his face. I smiled too, and he pulled me into hug. Surprisingly I hugged him back and I didn’t resist.

“This is what acting all about people. The connection, becoming the characters. Okay, great class, I’ll see you all next week.”

We left the class, and drove home. I went to the kitchen and made myself a bowl of ice cream, though it was nine at night. “Good job today,” he said to me.

“Thanks, you too. I didn’t you know you could act.”

He laughed. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Like my answer would stop you,” I said, eating the ice cream by the spoonful.

“Why is acting so important to you?”

I shrugged. “I told you, it’s an outlet. It’s like what your music does; acting does the same to me.”

“But you’re not you.” He said.

I put my spoon down and stared at him. “Who said I’m not me?”

“You’re acting. You’re a character, you’re not yourself.”

I nodded, “I know, that’s the whole point. I’m not me. I become someone else. Even if it’s just for five minutes or for a full hour or two, I lose myself completely into that character.” He stared at me like it wasn’t enough. “I won’t have to deal with my problems anymore, my world disappears and I’m stuck in this fake world where I don’t have to deal with it for a while. I like not dealing with it even for five minutes, it lets me cool down.”

“But it doesn’t disappear, because when the moment’s over you’re back to dealing with the problems.”

“Right, well, I don’t think about it. It’s a time where I don’t have to think about it.”

“Aren’t you ever tired of being someone else? Wouldn’t you rather be yourself?”

I laughed, “You’re looking at it way too literally. When I’m on stage, I’m a character and I’m not me. You know, people don’t judge me when I’m up there, they judge my character. And when I become the character, it’s like a load has been lifted off of shoulders. You wouldn’t understand because you don’t know what I go through every single day of my life, so you can’t judge me on that.”

He nodded, “Let me tell you something: no matter how long you’re in the lime light for, you’re still you. You may not be acting you, but you’re you. And you think people don’t judge you? Think again, people are watching you become someone else, and they judge you on that. You like being someone else? That just shows that you’re not comfortable in your own skin. In order to succeed in life, you need to know who you are. You becoming all these different characters, it shows how lost and confused you are.”

“Who are you to say that to me?” I asked, getting all defensive. “I’m lost? I’m confused? At least I trust others with my secrets. I have people in life who I can tell my deepest, darkest secrets to. I can go to them when I’m lost and confused and they’ll help me out to find my way. Acting is just a hobby, Gerald. Yes, it helps me, but for my reasons alone. You don’t need to understand them. Let me ask you something, do you have that type of support system? One you could go to with everything? At least I don’t trust issues like you.”

“But you do.” He said. I spun around and looked at him. “You have a whole lot of issues you need to deal with.”

“Like what?”

“Like trusting your instincts. If you just trusted your gut when you found out Jake was cheating on you from the very beginning, I highly doubt you would’ve been so hurt the time you actually caught him. But instead of trying to relieve yourself from that problem, you tried so hard to find out my secret. You need to stop focusing in on me and try to focus a little bit on yourself. I’m out in the real world, Kim. And with the way you’re acting, becoming little characters and building up the walls you have around you, you’re not going to go far.”

I scoffed, “But that’s where you’re wrong, you’re not in the real world. You’re in my world. That’s why you kept on listening in to my thoughts. The same reason why I build walls, it’s because you can’t deal with yourself. You don’t even accept who you are, Gerald. You’re so scared that someone’s going to find out this secret, that you key in on every little detail of everyone’s life just to make sure that they don’t figure it out. I have issues? I’m not going to go far? Well the same thing can be said about you. Because apparently we have the same problem, according to your theory about me. We have trouble dealing with our own realities.” I shook my head. “Maybe that’s why I do like acting, but before you try to read into everything I do, you better rethink this character you’re playing Gerald. This torn little boy who can’t accept himself so he trying to help the lost and confused girl he feels the need to protect so she won’t make the same mistakes he did, so she won’t end up getting hurt like he did; because I’m not buying it.”

I left to go upstairs and I slammed my door shut. Every time I think that he’s actually not too bad, he gives me another reason to hate him. But even though I hate him, why do I still feel this way about him?