Fighting for Air

When I went to find Ella after I discovered her note, she was nowhere in sight. I figured she had already left for school, so I didn’t think about it too much. I got ready for my classes at the Academy, trying to push the thoughts of Ella still being mad at me aside. She never stayed mad at me for this long, but I guess she’ll get over it in time. Call me selfish, but I was not going to put myself through the pain of seeing them again.

By the time I emerged from the subway into the deeper part of the city where the Academy was located, snow flurries were slowly drifting down from the gray sky. I snuggled deeper into my coat, trying to ward off the winter air that surrounded me. By the time I made it to the Academy, my nose was red and my fingers and toes cold to the bone. It gets a lot colder here in the winter than it does back in Missouri. I mean it does get cold, but this is a different type of cold here, something I am totally unfamiliar with, but then again, this whole city is full of things I am unfamiliar with.

As I entered the Academy, the heat that hit me from the inside of the building made my muscles unclench and I let the warmth spread through my entire body. I made my way down to the theater where we have been learning stage presence, which hasn’t been hard for since I wasn’t a beginner to this whole acting thing, but I welcomed any advice. I was one of the first ones there. I laid my coat and scarf on one of the theater chairs as Lila, another student at the academy, made her way over to greet me. Lila was nice and beautiful in a non-American way. She was tall and slimly built with bony features and dark hair that was cut in a bob. We had gone out for coffee a few times and there is a possibility of friendship there.

“Hey Victoria, did you see the snow flurries out there? I really hope we get something so you can see what the city really looks like in the snow,” Lila quickly said with her French accent. This is one thing about NYC that I was totally in love with. It was full of so much diversity that I have met people from all over the world. Sure, I’ve met a few people in Kansas City from other places, but it wasn’t like here. Around every corner, there was someone from some place I’ve never been but have dreamt of.

“Beautiful I bet, but I’m not crazy about this cold air.” She smiled in response, when she did; wrinkles appeared around her blue eyes on her pale skin. She was a few years older than me, six or seven maybe, but I’ve heard stories from her life in France and you can tell the stress has taken a toll on her. Lila had told me how she was born in a small town by Paris. Her family wasn’t poor but they weren’t rich, they had what they needed. Lila told me how when she was sixteen, she fell in love with a local boy who had dreams that inspired her to dream as well. He encouraged her to go to Paris with him, but her parents wouldn’t allow it, so she ran away.

Lila explained to me how this boy showed her things she never knew were possible and things she only read about in books. But one morning, he left her behind for an Austrian woman. That was the day after she told him she was pregnant. Lila tried to go back to her family, but they wouldn’t take her back in with her being pregnant and not married. So, Lila’s aunt took her in, whom just so happened to be living in New York. Her aunt helped her raise her child while Lila worked to help get herself on her feet. Now Lila is going to the Academy and living on her own with her eleven-year old daughter. She was a true emblem of hope. She showed me that it is possible to better yourself in the long run; no matter how hard something is in the present.

“So, my daughter was wondering if you and your sister might want to come over this weekend.”

I flattened out my hair that had been blown by the wind, “I’ll ask her. What do you guys have in mind to do?”

“Anya has an obsession with that big boy band,” she rolled her eyes, “I can’t remember the name. Anyway, she wondered if maybe your sister liked them and they could watch them on that TV show, the one with all the, uh,” she snaps her fingers trying to remember the word.

I knew exactly what big boy band Lila was referring to. They seemed to be everywhere I turned. “Comedians,” I interject dully. Her face lit up, “Yes! Anyway, are you in? We could have a nice little meal. You haven’t been over to see my apartment yet anyway… So?”

If I wasn’t going to allow Ella to go see them, I definitely wasn’t going to torture her with making her watch them on TV. Now that was cruel. “I don’t know… Ella said something about putting up the Christmas tree. But I’ll let you know, okay?”

Lila smiled lightly, “Of course.”

The room was filling with the other academy students and our instructor had arrived, which means it was time to get down to business. Mr. Benson stood on the stage; looking at everyone aw we took a seat, halfway filling the theater. “Good morning everyone. Now before we begin, I would like to inform you all that since today is the last day for you all to be here, due to the upcoming holidays, this assignment will be worth half of your grade, so I suggest you take it seriously.” Mr. Benson fumbled with flipping a few pages around before looking back at us and speaking again, “Today, you all will be put on the spot to recite a fraction of a scene from Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. You will only be allowed a few minutes to look over the play write. If you can’t remember the words, it’s called improvising people. No one in the audience should be able to tell you are making it up. We all forget our lines once, so this is a good exercise for you all to improvise.” Mr. Benson looked back down at the paper, “First up is Victoria Thatcher.”

I stood up a bit reluctantly, I hate going first, but I did have a small advantage. I had done this play in high school, as the role of Juliet. Hell, I’ll be honest; I’ve probably read the play about five hundred times. Some girls like reading gibberish about vampires sparkling in the sun, I enjoy old gibberish written by a dead guy, sue me.
I got up on the stage by Mr. Benson, where he handed me a script, “You may pick whichever act and scene you feel best fits you.” I flipped through the papers, finding act two, scene two. This was the part of Shakespeare that made me fall in love with theater and Shakespeare’s mind. Geeky, I know.

The adrenaline that rushes through your veins when you walk on stage is almost addictive. It makes you feel like you are floating through a cloud of fog and that you can do anything and be anyone. It makes you forget your real problems, at least just for a few seconds. I took a deep breath, letting the script fall down to my side as I looked out into the audience who is looking directly back at me. Some are waiting for me to fail, some are cheering for me to succeed, but all is quiet, not giving away who is wishing for which outcome. My muscles relax and I let the words flow out of my mouth with the passion and the emotion needed for this scene as I recite Romeo’s lines:

“But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she.
Be not her maid since she is envious.
Her vestal livery is but sick and green,
And none but fools do wear it. Cast it off!
It is my lady. Oh, it is my love.
Oh, that she knew she were!
She speaks, yet she says nothing. What of that?

The words kept rolling off of my tongue as if they were embedded in my brain. I didn’t stutter, fumble, or forget any line. I felt like I was invincible.

Her eye discourses. I will answer it.—
I am too bold. 'Tis not to me she speaks.
Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,
Having some business, do entreat her eyes
To twinkle in their spheres till they return.
What if her eyes were there, they in her head?
The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars
As daylight doth a lamp. Her eye in heaven
Would through the airy region stream so bright
That birds would sing and think it were not night.
See how she leans her cheek upon her hand.
Oh, that I were a glove upon that hand
That I might touch that cheek!”

When I was finished, the theater was quiet as my heart raced. At one point I thought everyone could hear it, but then claps started to slowly fill my ears, drowning out the noise of my heart and before I realized it, everyone was on their feet, hands clapping with different types of emotions displayed on their faces: joy, sadness, amazement. It was in that exact moment that I knew this was my calling.
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After grabbing a late lunch with Lila, I headed home, happy to finally be able to get out of the cold weather for the rest of the day and be done with the Academy for the rest of the month. Mr. Benson told me I had passed with flying colors. That was the first and only compliment I have ever heard that man give. One thing I was not happy about was the fact that Ella was most likely still pissed at me. All positives come with negatives, right? I guess so.

I found the apartment empty of Ella, which was odd. She usually beats me home, but considering the weather, I figured she was just a bit behind. I flipped on the television, going through my DVR from the latest episode of Glee. Who doesn’t like Glee? I mean seriously? By the end of the episode, Ella still hadn’t made it home and that is when fear started to set in. I picked up my cell phone and dialed her number. The more rings I heard the further and further my heart fell into my stomach. Each time I called her, the ringing was only picked up by an automated voice. Where could she be?

I tried to calm myself down, telling myself not to jump to the horrible conclusions that were floating around in my mind. I called her friend Natalie, hoping that my heart would be put to ease. No answers. My heart was racing and my breathing was coming in rapid, labored pants. Who knows what has happened to her? It’s New York for Christ’s sake! All the horrible thoughts that I was trying to keep at bay of what could have happened to her, rushed through my head, my breathing quicker and swallower and I can hear my pulse in my ears. I was supposed to protect her and make sure she stayed safe, and here I am! Living in New York City and not knowing where the hell my little sister was. The most important job of my life, and I have failed.

Tears were streaming down my cheeks by the time I call the school to see if maybe she was being held late for some reason, “Has Ella Thatcher been withheld from leaving school this evening without my knowledge?”

The woman’s voiced sounded scratchy through the phone, “No miss. No students are withheld from going home without a parent or guardian being called to visit with the principle. Let me see here,” the line becomes quiet for a moment, “Ella Thatcher did not attend school today.”

“And no one called me to inform me of this,” I questioned angrily.

The woman sighed, “Miss, we have over 8,000 kids attending this facility. If we called every parent to let them know that a student missed school without parental consent, we would be busy all day. Is there anything else I-.”

I threw my phone down, both in anger and in grief. Where the hell is she if she didn’t go to school? Before I could mull the thought over anymore, the answer to my question hit me like a ton of bricks.

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I stormed up to the fancy hotel I was given directions to and moved right past the front desk to the elevators. Under other circumstances, I would have found the look on the staffs’ faces to be quite comical, but I was breathing fire and I think they could see that. They didn’t try to cause me problems. When the elevator dinged open to the 40th floor, my mind was reeling on how I would murder my sister. Slow and painful for sure, but the technique was still undecided.

At that moment, my mind could not process that I was getting ready to see these five boys again after all these months that have passed, and I honestly did not care. All I cared about was tearing into my sister for almost being the cause of my death. I reached the room number Niall had texted me after I blew up his phone. He made no excuse; he just simply replied the hotel name, addresses, and floor and room number. I think he knew he was in hot shit.

I took a deep breath, trying to compose myself so I wouldn’t look like such a psychopath. No, I would save that for Ella. I knocked on the door and a few seconds later it swung open.

And behind door number 376- my worst nightmare.

Notes