Chapter 13
The play ran for a week, and it opened on a Friday night. Darren had made his excuses—not, he suspected, that Father had paid much attention to the blatant lie—and it had only occurred to him exactly why he had avoided drama since he was about eight.
Namely: he was petrified.
In a way, it was oddly preferable. It had been…a bad week. He’d woken on Monday with that crushing weight on his chest, and even Jayden had picked up on it, watching him throughout Thursday’s dress rehearsal with a pinched, anxious expression. So to be feeling anything at all was definitely preferable to that odd, bleeding-out lethargy, but…
But then the feeling was sheer terror.
Scott laughed at him for it. Darren had been performing music on stage since he was eight years old and had never felt fear
