It wasn’t until later, in the hospital after X-rays and ultrasounds, when my faculties returned to me, that I knew the truth.
I had torn my ACL.
Mom put a hand over her mouth.
I felt a tear slide down my face.
We both knew what this meant.
Surgery.
A long recovery.
And I could kiss my first year of football goodbye.
So much for continuing the Trist legacy.
I, Blaze Trist, am the first family failure.
Chapter Two
Five Weeks Later
Melissa
We are not ready to go on in two weeks, that much is clear.
Our Puck keeps dropping his lines, the set is proving to be very ambitious for the small stage that we are working with, and we just lost our light guy.
Sully, our director, does not seem concerned in the least. It’s his senior year and he already booked a job at a theater in Ohio somewhere, so he is basically checked out.
And since no one else seems to be stepping up to right this ship.
So?
I am the one who somehow has to take on the work.
What other choice do I have?
I love this show.
I love my role as Hermia. She’s strong and rebellious, and she is one of my favorite Shakespeare women. (And no, Juliet is not my favorite. She’s way too dramatic.)
If I want to be in a show that I’m proud of, then I am going to have to make that happen for myself.
Currently, I am watching one of our crew members trying to assemble one of the trees on stage. The tree is not painted and it is the only one that we have managed to get into the building so far.
The crew member is trying to attach one of the tree limbs to the tree trunk and it’s not working out great.
“A little to the left,” I call up to him from below the ladder.
He moves the limb to the right.
“No, your other left,” I tell him.
How did I get saddled with such incompetence?
The crew member slides the limb through the air too quickly and somehow loses his grip on it, sending it torpedoing to the ground.