Prompt #7

The Prompt: “Hold still, I’m trying to kill you.”

Effie sighed as she leaned against the frame of the bed, craning her neck so Paul could wrap his hands around it. He kept them around the base, closer to her shoulders than her actual neck, but it still gave Effie the shivers. It felt strange to subject herself to this multiple times every afternoon.

“This is supposed to be a passionate scene, you two!” A voice interrupted them and a tall thin balding man stalked down the aisle of the auditorium. “Passion! Anger! Fighting for your life! You- Desdemona, you’ve just been accused of something you’d never do and now you’re being killed for it. Why do you look so bored?”

Effie rolled her eyes and Paul disentangled his hands from her hair. “Sorry,” she muttered, easily jumping off the bed.

“And you, Othello! You’ve been betrayed! Show us that pain! We want to feel your pain!” He sounded so excited that Effie just wanted to walk off the stage in frustration. She liked acting, being on the stage in front of so many people, but they’d been hearing the same things from Davies for months in rehearsal.

“It’s hard to act all impassioned when she’s so resistant to me getting close to her,” Paul whined.

Effie scowled at him. He didn’t have to throw her under the bus because he was a crap actor. “You try being strangled sometime,” she snapped, eyes blazing. “It’s rather difficult to look like you’re fighting for your life and keep your neck at just the right angle so you can grab me.”

“Well you knew this scene was in the play when you auditioned,” Paul shot back. “Don’t take the part if you can’t do the work.”

Effie huffed at him. He didn’t have to pretend to be strangled to death a dozen times every evening. “Well maybe I should just quit now, would that make you happy?” She asked scathingly. She was tired of having to deal with this every single night after school. She loved acting, but this was something more akin to torture.

“You can’t quit,” Davies protested, looking scandalized. “We open next weekend!”

“Well I don’t want to be strangled anymore,” Effie said, wiping her eyes and sniffling. A few tears slipped down her cheeks as she stalked out of the auditorium.

She heard Davies on the stage as she left, frantically calling for her understudy in the wings. Effie knew the freshman didn’t have her lines memorized, let alone the blocking. She’d get a phone call later that night begging her to come back. It wasn’t going to happen, though. She was done with the theater. It was all too much to handle.

As the double doors slammed shut behind her in a dramatic exit, Effie drowned out all sound from the stage. It was as though that part of her life had closed with those doors. Two girls walking down the hallway giggled at her and Effie refused to make eye contact. They could probably tell she’d already quit. Her fall from the school’s social ladder was beginning.

She didn’t wipe the tears from her face and instead hurried toward her car in the parking lot. Her hair whipped behind her rather dramatically and the tears only added to her image. Effie knew she looked good, but she didn’t think twice about it.

Her older brother Patrick was waiting by the car, smoking a cigarette. Effie scrunched her nose up at the smell. “That’s a disgusting habit,” she said. He was always smoking.

Patrick snorted. “Want one?”

Effie almost shook her head out of habit, but then thought about it. She’d quit acting, didn’t have to worry about the smoke damaging her vocal cords anymore. There was no real reason to say no. “Sure.”

Patrick turned the car on and offered her both cigarette and lighter. “So you quit again?”

“I quit for good!”

“Sure you did,” he replied. “Right up until they call you tonight and request that you return. Then you’ll change your mind again and burst into tears and I’ll have to pick you up from rehearsal tomorrow.” Patrick raised an eyebrow at her. “Acting’s what you do, Ef. It’s in your blood. You’re just a little drama queen.”

“Shut it,” she snapped turning away from him to scowl out the window. “I’m done.”

“Fine,” Patrick said as he laughed a bit. “Put down the window so I don’t have to hear to freak out about smoke inhalation and your vocal cords later.”

Effie considered arguing because she really was done with theater this time, but decided not to. Putting up a fight was simply too much work after the awful night she’d had. She rolled down the window and Patrick let out a loud guffaw. Effie huffed and determinedly stared out the window. She wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of arguing.

But she really was finished this time.