#Ria x Ajay | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rulesofthebeneath · 4 years

Link

@lilmissperfectlyimperfect @oops-metoo @awkwardalbatros

Chapter 3

As much as Grace tried to forget about her weird feelings, the subject of them kept texting her.

Ajay: So, remember how we talked about theatre?

Grace felt like she should respond, but it was an early morning, the sun was shining through her window just right, and she didn’t want to bother to turn off her BiPap. None of this actually prevented her from responding, because she’d fallen asleep with her phone just out of reach on her bed, but she was grasping for excuses. Eventually, she caved.

Grace: Yeah?

It sounded a little hostile, and she wanted to take it back almost as soon as she’d sent it. To his credit, though, Ajay appeared to ignore it.

Ajay: This summer, I’m directing the musical Ragtime at Cedar Cove Community Theatre.

Grace: That’s nice, Ragtime is one of my favorite soundtracks.

Ajay: It’s only been a few rehearsals, but it’s been going very well so far. Skye’s my stage manager, and Rory plays Coalhouse, of course.

Grace: Naturally. They’ve got the baritone for it.

She wasn’t surprised at all. Back in middle school choir, she could always hear Rory’s booming, deep voice from the baritone section across the room. They had always had a talent for singing that Grace was envious of. She had been a good singer herself, but her flooded lungs made things much more difficult.

Ajay: I’m still trying to find someone to do lights, though. It wouldn’t be hard, because Skye’s already set the lights up in the right configurations.

Grace narrowed her eyes at her phone.

Grace: Are you trying to recruit me?

Ajay: Is it that obvious?

Grace: Why? I don’t have any experience.

Ajay: Skye can teach you everything you need to know, and of course I’ll let you know what I think about your lighting decisions.

Grace: Your criticism sounds terrifying.

Despite the sentiment in her text, she laughed a little. She allowed herself to fantasize, for a moment, working tech on Ragtime. She imagined herself up in the cramped booth, with Skye teaching her the controls and Ajay standing over her chair, supervising. She thought of having a headset and hearing his voice in her ear, telling her to correct one of the spotlights or change the color of the backlighting.

She thought about Skye’s small voice calling cues, and Rory’s strong one singing the songs that made her tear up just from the pure emotion. It seemed almost too good to be true, and she told Ajay so.

Grace: It just seems too good to be true.

Ajay: It can be grueling work. During tech week, we’ll be there all day and into the night. You’ll get frustrated, angry, bored to tears, but you’ll also never be happier in your entire life than you will be on opening night.

Grace: I still don’t understand why you want me, but sure. I’ll do it, but you have to promise to let me quit when I mess up too much.

Ajay: I have the utmost faith in you. And if you mess up, I’ll just blame it on Rory.

Grace: Fine, fine. When’s the next rehearsal?

Ajay: Today, noon to six for techs. I can pick you up around 11 and we can get food beforehand, if you’d like.

Dammit, there goes that feeling again, Grace thought as her heart warmed up without her permission.

Grace: Fine by me. See you then.

She checked the time, she had about three more hours until he’d be there. Begrudgingly, she unhooked her BiPap and set up her oxygen, making sure to hook one of the bigger tanks up to her cart. That one should last her all day. She left her room and ambled down the hall to where her family was eating breakfast. They all looked up at her in surprise.

“What?” she asked defensively. “I do stuff too, you know.”

“If by ‘stuff’ you mean ‘sit on the couch watching America’s Most Eligible’, then of course you do,” James said. Grace gave him the best stink eye she could muster.

“Want some breakfast?” her mom asked, quickly standing up and abandoning her own plate of perfectly-cooked fluffy pancakes.

“Sure,” she said, sitting down at the table across from James.

“What brings you out of your cave this early?” James asked. Grace shot him another death glare.

“I got roped into helping with a theatre production,” she said.

Her mom turned around from the pancakes sizzling on the stove. “Oh, that’s great, Gracie! You used to love theatre. I’m glad you’re getting involved again.”

“Don’t get used to it. I told the director he has free reign to make me leave when I inevitably ruin his show.”

“Hm, director. Is that by any chance the handsome gentleman who dropped you off last night?”

Grace ducked her head, her cheeks quickly warming. James saw her reaction, and quickly started teasing her.

“Yeah, I thought you were going to dinner with the Silvas,” he said. “What gives?”

“I was rude during support group, and I didn’t want to see Mrs. Silva’s disappointed face.”

“Grace,” her father admonished. “You shouldn’t be rude to her. She’s one of the few people who really knows what you’re going through.”

Grace rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. So anyways, I didn’t want to go with them but I had already told James not to pick me up, then Ajay asked if I needed a ride home.”

“Took you an awful long time to get home,” James mentioned. Grace glared at him.

“We got lunch and talked, normal stuff.”

“Oh, now that you say it, I think I know who this guy is. Honey,” he asked, appealing to his wife, “Isn’t that the kid who helped Mrs. Silva?”

“With the school play last year? Oh, yes, I think so! He’s a very talented director.”

“Can we stop talking about this?” Grace asked, making pleading eyes at her mother as she dropped a generous helping onto Grace’s plate.

The family begrudgingly agreed, and the talk changed to one of James’ upcoming summer league soccer games. Once Grace got up from the table to clear her plate, though, James followed.

“I didn’t even know you liked guys,” he said in a low tone, trying not to attract the attention of their parents.

Grace could only shrug. “I dunno,” she said. “I really haven’t had much time to like anyone. I might be misreading the feelings.”

“I don’t think so,” James said. “Looks like a classic schoolgirl crush to me.”

Grace hit him with the rag she was using to clean her dishes.

“Go away, I need to get ready. He’s picking me up at 11.”

James wiggled his eyebrows at her, but retreated before she could hit him again.

After she wrestled with her wig for an hour and freaked out about her outfit and makeup for another, she got a text from Ajay letting her know he was in her driveway.

Ajay: I’m here, but no rush. Just a bit early.

Grace quickly threw on an oversized knit cardigan and escaped her room, oxygen cart in tow. When she made it out into the kitchen, her entire family was staring at her.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing,” her father said, being the first one to recover. “It’s just… you haven’t gone out in a while.”

“Be careful,” her mom said. “And tell Ajay that he’s welcome here for dinner after rehearsal.”

Several retorts crossed through her minds, sharp words that she knew from muscle memory. She could see the way her family’s hesitant smiles would drip off their faces into the masks that she knew they only wore for her. Ordinarily, she would’ve let those words fly off her tongue, but…

She was just so tired. Tired of her own happiness always being a battle. There wasn’t much she could do about it, but she could let herself have this. A new friend, a new hobby, and maybe something that took a little weight off her parents’ shoulders.

So she ducked her head, letting a small smile cross her face, and nodded. Then she turned around and left the house.

Ajay was waiting for her in his stupid sports car right out front, and once he saw her, he looked confused but played it off masterfully.

“Nice hair,” he said once she’d gotten buckled in.

“Hmm, thanks,” she said, avoiding looking at him.

“Special occasion?”

“Pretending I’m someone I’m not,” she said.

“Fair enough,” he replied, backing out of the driveway and onto the main road. “I don’t think anyone at the theatre except for Rory and Skye even know that I only have one and a third legs. They might just think I have a bad knee or something, and that’s why I use the cane.”

“Little do they know,” Grace said. “Lucky you, that you can hide it.” She tugged self-consciously at her cannula. No matter if she wore a wig, if she slathered concealer under her eyes, the cannula meant she’d always look sick.

“Just tell them you have asthma,” Ajay said after a few seconds of thought. “And if they give you any grief, I’ll threaten to kick them out of the show.”

“You wouldn’t do that,” Grace argued.

“You’re right, I wouldn’t kick them out. I spent far too long choosing the perfect cast and crew for this show. But they don’t know that.”

Grace rolled her eyes.

Thirty minutes, two take-out burgers, and a couple miles later, the two sat inside Ajay’s car in the parking lot of Cedar Cove Community Theatre. Ajay’s feet were kicked up on the dash as he finished off his fries, but Grace felt a little too self-conscious in the fancy car to do something like that.

“So Skye will be a better person to tell you what to do, but essentially you’ll be sitting in the house with her and I. I have your predecessor’s notebook, he made some notes on the first few scenes we blocked before he left, and I’ll give that to you once we go in. You’ll make notes on lighting that might look good, and she and I will both give you some pointers there.”

“And if I mess up?”

“We’ll fix it.”

Grace narrowed her eyes. “It seems like you guys can handle this on your own. Why do you want me there?”

It was a challenge, and they both sensed it. Ajay looked like he wanted to say something, but something in Grace’s expression must have changed his mind, because he just shrugged and looked away.

“We need someone to operate the light board, at the very least.”

Grace felt disappointment and relief all at once. As much as his answer had made her heart sink, she had been more scared to hear his actual reasoning.

“I think I can manage that,” she said, barbs returning to her tone. Pushing him away was natural territory, and so was sitting on Skye’s other side when rehearsal started.

Ajay had been right-- there really wasn’t much to do. Her predecessor had already given her a sense of how to draw out the blocking diagrams, and Skye told her that was all she really could do during blocking rehearsals, since Ajay was so prone to changing things around. Occasionally, one or the other of them would whisper a suggestion for a spotlight or a fade out to her, and she’d dutifully scribble it down. It wasn’t difficult work, but she tackled it with more focus than she’d tackled anything in months.

The scenes crawled by, Ajay criticizing more details than Grace could even notice. He’d adjust the angle Rory was facing the audience with, and would tweak it for five full minutes until he was happy. Skye wrote everything down until her copy of the script had more eraser shavings on it than actual words.

Watching them work was intoxicating for Grace. They were like a well-oiled machine, catching every tiny thing wrong with a hand gesture or a prop placement and shifting it until everything just fit. There was no other way to describe it. On first run through the scene would be good, but something was always missing. Ajay’s job, Grace realized, was to find that thing. Skye’s was to record it for posterity. And they were good at it.

By the time he finally called for a fifteen minute break, Grace was overwhelmed. While Ajay patrolled the theater, possibly in search of that missing something, Skye noticed Grace’s internal struggle.

“Want to go somewhere quiet?” she asked.

Grace nodded quickly, and stood up as fast as she could without passing out.

Skye’s lips curled into a small, nearly invisible smile, and then she led the way to the tech loft.

It was on top of a rather nasty set of stairs, but with Skye close behind and carrying Grace’s tank, it was bearable. Once they got to the loft, though, Grace sat heavily in the closest chair and caught her breath. Skye sat carefully across from her, looking out onto the stage.

“This is the booth,” she said. “It’s where we’ll be during performances. You, me, and the sound guy.”

Grace cringed at the thought of having to climb those stairs every night. Once again, she cursed her stupid lungs. Why couldn’t they just work?

“How did you… get started… here?” Grace choked out.

Skye ignored the coughing, which Grace was grateful for.

“Needed to get out of the house,” she said. “I’m head tech at Berry, so it’s something I’m good at already. I danced some before I got sick, but after I went into remission I was too weak to do that, so I started poking around in the tech booth, and here we are.”

“You had leukemia, right?”

Skye nodded once. “ALL,” she said. “Pretty much the easiest cancer to cure.”

“Chemo can’t have been fun, though. Especially being young like you were.”

“Eleven when I was diagnosed,” Skye admitted, lowering her eyes. “It wasn’t. Less so when my parents decided to use me as a guilt weapon against their competitors.”

Grace furrowed her brows. “What?”

“Nothing,” Skye said, her face blank again. Grace recognized the trick; she also knew how to turn her features into a mask at the slightest provocation. Skye had let something slip that she’d rather keep private. “Just frustrated. Don’t worry about it.”

Grace let it go with a nod, and Skye turned back to the light board, pulling the dust cover off.

“This is your station. Basically, this is how you’ll get the right lights turned on and off.”

Skye held out a thick book for Grace to take. “The manual,” she explained. “It’ll be easier if you’re familiar with it.”

“Well, I don’t have much else to do,” Grace muttered under her breath. Skye heard her, and she arched a single thin eyebrow. Grace swore she saw the hint of a smile on her dark lips. That ghost of a smile filled her with a sense of belonging, a sense of home there in the foreign booth. She never wanted it to stop.

Grace and Skye talked over the board and lighting operations, soft voices filling the small booth, until Skye looked over at the clock.

“Time to go back,” she said. Grace sighed.

“It’s too overwhelming down there. Can’t I just stay up here with you?”

Skye seemed to soften a little bit.

“I wish,” she said. “But we have a lot of work to do.”

Grace rolled her eyes, but took the hand that Skye offered her to help her up. Before Skye turned fully around, though, she bit her lip and looked directly at Grace.

Since the other girl was still holding her hand, the effect was a little overwhelming. Grace resisted the urge to step back, and instead stared right back into Skye’s blue eyes.

“I know this is all kind of intense,” Skye said softly. “But it really helped me. Maybe it’ll help you, too.”

Help me? I don’t need help, Grace immediately wanted to fire back, but she closed her mouth just in time to keep the words from escaping.

Skye seemed to recognize her mistake, but Grace shrugged both the words and the person who’d said them off with a tight nod, She carried her own oxygen down the stairs, even though it took her twice as long as if she’d accepted help.

It seemed like everything she did these days was to prove a point.

As soon as Grace made that realization, fatigue washed over her. It wasn’t the ordinary, sick-person fatigue, but a social fatigue. She didn’t like having to keep these walls up all the time.

Rehearsal continued at a turtle-like pace, but Grace found the entire process a little mesmerizing. It was like watching a tower being built, starting with the foundation.

Hours later, the clock struck six and Skye wrapped up rehearsal, reminding the actors about when to be off book.

“...And I’ll send out an email with notes tonight,” she concluded. With that, everyone stood up. Ajay stretched out and pulled his blazer back on; he’d shed it sometime during a big group scene.

“Need a ride home?” he asked Grace.

“Yup,” she replied, shaking her legs out before standing up. “Oh, and before I forget, my parents invited you to dinner.”

Ajay’s face lit up. “Really?”

“Mm-hmm,” Grace replied, trying not to look at him. His smile inexplicably made her want to smile too.

“That’s great. I was dreading going back home and facing my mom’s boyfriend. I’d love to come.”

“Good, they’ll be happy,” Grace said noncommittally. The wave of fatigue washed over her again. It was taking effort to appear bored, to pretend like she was uninterested in the world. Even her face muscles just wanted to let loose and smile back, and her brain was a little curious about how Ajay would react. But she suppressed it. No sense getting entangled in whatever this was.

Twenty minutes later, the two were walking up the front path to Grace’s house. They both took their shoes off on the porch before heading inside.

Grace’s mom caught sight of them immediately and abandoned her cooking, wiping her hands on an apron before walking up to them. She and Ajay shook hands.

“You must be Ajay,” she said. “It’s lovely to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, Mrs. Lee,” Ajay said, a polite smile on his face. “You have a lovely home, and the cooking smells wonderful.”

Grace rolled her eyes, but her mom seemed pleased.

“You’re very kind. And call me Rita, please. I have to go back to cooking, but Grace will show you around.”

“I will?” Grace asked, half-joking.

“Unless you want to cook,” she said. “Your father was called for dinner service, so it’s just the four of us tonight.”

Grace said nothing as guilt grew in her heart. She knew full well the only reason he worked such long, hard hours was to pay her medical bills. He hated missing family dinner, and here he was missing it again because of her.

Her mom had gone back to cooking, but Ajay had noticed the darkness growing behind her eyes.

“Come on,” he said, “You’re supposed to be showing me around.”

Snapped out of her guilt spiral, Grace nodded and stepped into the living room.

“Living room, kitchen, dining room, bathroom,” she said in a monotone voice, pointing to each room as they went. “My parents’ room and James’ room are both upstairs, but mine’s down here because stairs are kind of hard for me.”

“Understandable,” Ajay said. “Can I see it?”

“My room?”

“Yes. I think one can tell a lot about someone from their room.”

“You’re going to psychoanalyze my bedroom. Why did I invite you over?”

He laughed, and she rolled her eyes even though his laugh made her want to giggle. It definitely made her blush.

“Alright, then,” she mumbled, and led the way to her room.

It wasn’t much, a small but bright room with pink paint on the walls and her bed nestled into the corner. She hadn’t really had much cause or means to decorate the walls, but the floor and bed were covered in books, and her laptop laid open on the bed.

“Interesting,” Ajay said, looking around the small room.

“Interesting?”

“It kind of looks like mine, honestly,” he said. “Save for the paint. Mine’s green. And my books are a little more organized than yours.”

“So what are you learning about me from that? That I’m clumsy and messy?”

“Sure,” he said, leaning against her door frame, “but also that you’re a big nerd.”

“Nerd?” she asked, nearly laughing from surprise. “How do you figure that?”

“The sheer number of books is a dead giveaway,” he said, and then he crossed over to her bed before she could stop him and picked up a thick book with a blue cover. “And does any non-nerd read about advanced differential equations for fun?”

Grace’s cheeks turned red, and she moved to sit down in her desk chair because she was getting a little tired from standing for so long.

“You got me there. I’m a closeted math nerd.”

“I can tell,” Ajay remarked, flipping through the book. “How can you stand this stuff? I barely passed trig.”

“I don’t know, I just like it. Maybe I have a brain for math.”

“You and my mother,” he said. “She’s a math and physics professor at the community college.”

“I think I would’ve gone into physics,” Grace said. “You know, if I’d stayed in school and stuff.”

“Would’ve? There’s no reason you can’t still.”

“No college is going to accept a high school dropout, Ajay.”

Ajay furrowed his eyebrows. “You can get your GED, though,” he said. “It’s just a test. I’ll help you study for it, but if you can understand this stuff then you’re definitely smart enough to pass.”

“I don’t know.” Grace didn’t want to plan too much for the future. Especially because she most likely didn’t have one. “Maybe,” she said, just to get him to stop talking about it.

He put the book back down on her bed. Just as he opened his mouth to say something, his expression curiously soft, a knock at the door frame startled them both.

James stood there, a shit-eating grin on his face and mischief in his eyes.

“James!” Grace said, surprised. “I didn’t even know you were home.”

“I wasn’t until now. Hi, Ajay. Nice to officially meet you.”

Ajay nodded. “Yes, good to meet you. How’s your summer been?”

“Oh, it’s been fine,” James said. “Mostly summer league baseball. But Grace makes me marathon America’s Most Eligible with her when I have free time.”

“You like AME?” Ajay asked incredulously as Grace shot James a death glare.

“She loves it,” James said before Grace could say anything to defend herself. “She’ll watch entire seasons in one sitting, it’s actually impressive.”

“Shut up!” Grace managed, shoving James with the small amount of strength she had. Ajay just laughed.

“You continue to surprise me, Grace.”

“Anyways, Mom says dinner’s ready,” James said, then disappeared from the door frame.

“We’d better go,” Grace said, “or else he’ll eat everything and leave nothing for us.”

Ajay extended a hand to help Grace up.

“Who’s your favorite? On AME?”

Grace stared at him.

He raised an eyebrow, a smirk playing on his lips. “We all have our vices, Grace.”

Dinner went by uneventfully, Grace’s mom somehow knowing which questions to steer clear of. After the sun finally set, Grace walked Ajay out to his car.

“Thank your mother for dinner for me,” he said.

“You already thanked her five times, but I’ll tell her again.”

“It never hurts to be too polite. It’s important that I impress your parents.”

That statement confused Grace. “Wait, why?”

“Oh, never mind,” Ajay said, brushing the question off. Grace let it go, but she really wanted to know why he’d wanted her parents to like him. So she just squinted at him.

“I should go,” he said, patting the top of his car absent-mindedly.

“Thanks for coming over,” Grace said. “It was nice.”

Ajay’s smile reemerged, lighting up the dusk. “It was. See you later?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “Monday, right?”

He nodded. “Goodbye, Grace.”

With that, he got into his car. Grace almost felt disappointed as he drove off, but she couldn’t understand quite why.

#Ajay Bhandari #ajay x mc #hssca #High School Story #high school story fanfic #high school story class act #choices fanfiction #choices stories you play #playchoices #gloria writes #ria writes #my fanfic #moof

16 notes · View notes