Chapter 2: The Prop Room Story
1214 Words
After I hung up with my mom, I sat outside that pharmacy for another ten minutes before I made myself move.
I had a class to get to.
"Stage Movement and Performance Theory" — a cross-department elective I'd picked up sophomore year to round out my training. It also happened to be one of the few courses where drama students and athletes shared a room.
I'd originally signed up partly because Colt had asked me to.
That felt like a lifetime ago.
I wasn't going to skip it. I hadn't done anything wrong. Showing up was the most normal thing I could do, and normal was what I needed right now.
I was the first one in the room, same as always. I set my bag down, opened my notebook, and tried to breathe
through the low, twisting cramp working its way across my abdomen.
The last time I'd taken Plan B, I'd been wrecked for two days. I'd told myself I was prepared this time.
I wasn't.
By the time other students started filtering in, I'd given up on sitting upright. I folded my arms on the desk and rested
my forehead against them, eyes closed, a cold sweat creeping along my hairline.
I didn't hear him come in.
What I felt was a hand — large, hard — clamping around my elbow and yanking me to my feet. Pain shot straight
up to my shoulder.
"Hey—"
He didn't stop. Colt pulled me across the room before I could get my footing and shoved me behind the thick stage
curtain hanging at the back wall. The space was narrow. My back hit the wall, and he was right there, filling the whole gap between me and the rest of the room.
I looked up into his eyes. Blue and flat and completely unreadable.
He looked me over slowly — jacket, jeans, the same style of skirt I'd worn the night before. Something shifted in his
expression.
"You wore that again," he said. Low. Like an accusation.
"Colt—"
He stepped closer, one arm braced against the wall beside my head, his chest almost touching my shoulder. He
smelled like mint and sweat and whatever body wash he used, and for one terrible second my body remembered last night before my brain caught up.
"You're still thinking about it, aren't you?" His voice dropped. "Come on, Nora. I know you are."
I turned my face away. "Don't."
"That's not what you were saying a few hours ago."
"I said don't touch me."
He moved to close the distance anyway, and I started pushing back — both hands against his chest — when
footsteps outside cut through the curtain.
"Yo, is someone back there?"
"That better not be Sterling."
Colt went still. His jaw tightened. He stepped back — one inch, then two — eyes still locked on mine. The look on
his face wasn't embarrassment. It was irritation.
"Buzzkill," he muttered.
Then he grabbed the curtain and walked out like he owned the building.
The room erupted immediately.
"Steele! Bro!"
"Didn't even last as long as a first half!"
Colt dropped into his seat and leaned back, completely relaxed, scanning the room with that slow, amused look he
had. "Relax. That was just warmup."
Marcus lost it. Half the soccer guys followed. I could hear the girls in the front row whispering.
I stood behind the curtain for a few seconds longer than I needed to, straightening my jacket with hands that weren't
quite steady, waiting for my face to cool down.
Then I walked out.
I kept my chin up and my eyes forward. I didn't look at Colt.
He didn't look at me either. He was already back on his phone, scrolling like none of it happened.
I sat down, pressed my knees together, and stared at the board while my stomach cramped and my chest did
something worse.
Five days, I told myself. Five days and you're done with all of this.
* * * * * * * *
I should have gone back to the dorm after class.
Instead, Colt's hand closed around my wrist in the hallway before I made it to the door, and Marcus was already calling out behind us.
"Lakeview house tonight! Same crew! Nora, you're coming."
"I'm not feeling well," I started.
"Let's go." Colt's voice left no room. His grip tightened just enough to make the point.
I went.
* * * * * * * *
The Lakeview house sat on the edge of campus, technically off it — a rental the soccer team used for parties when the dorms got too small. By the time we arrived, it was already loud.
I spotted Brianna the moment I walked in.
She was standing near the fireplace in a fitted black dress, hair down, looking exactly the way she always did —
effortless, composed, the kind of beautiful that made a room rearrange itself around her. She wasn't even trying.
She never had to.
I was pale, cramping, hadn't touched my makeup, and felt about as glamorous as someone who'd spent the
morning at a pharmacy.
Colt went stiff beside me. I watched his gaze go straight to her before he could stop it.
Luke leaned toward Marcus. "Who invited Brianna?"
Marcus shrugged. "She's already here. Just roll with it."
The party loosened up after that. Someone suggested truth or dare around the living room, and the crowd pulled in.
I found a seat near the wall and tried to make myself invisible.
It didn't work.
When the bottle pointed at Colt, the room buzzed like it always did when his name was involved. He was leaning
back in his chair, lighter flicking open and closed in one hand, looking bored.
"Steele. Where was your last hookup? And be specific."
He let the lighter snap shut. His eyes moved across the room — not to me, not anywhere obvious — and then he
smiled. Slow. Deliberate.
"Addison Theater," he said. "Prop room."
The room detonated.
I gripped the edge of my seat hard enough to hurt.
My name didn't come out of his mouth. It didn't need to. Everyone in that room had seen us walk in together. They'd
seen him drag me behind the curtain that morning. The math wasn't complicated.
I heard my name in whispers around me. I heard things I'm not going to repeat.
I looked down at the floor and breathed through my nose and told myself I was already leaving. Five days. I was
already gone.
Then I made the mistake of looking up.
Colt was watching Brianna.
It was a quick look — maybe two seconds. Cold and deliberate. Like a man checking whether his move had landed.
She hadn't reacted yet. She was studying her drink.
The bottle spun again.
It landed on Brianna.
The room went quiet in that particular way that means everyone is paying attention but pretending not to.
Marcus, who was clearly three drinks past smart, leaned forward with a grin.
"Brianna." He pointed the empty bottle at her like a microphone. "You and Sterling used to be a thing — did he ever
take youto the prop room?"
The question landed like a dropped glass.
- Writer
