Aura In LaLaLand Read online

  Aura in LaLaLand

  By

  Skye Grace

  Copyright © 2017 by Skye Grace

  First Edition

  All rights reserved. This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission of the publisher, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  ISBN-10: 1539092534

  ISBN-13: 978-1539092537

  For my Rowan, my best friend and first beta reader, Emily. Thank you for always being real and being there for me. Thank you to my beloved friend and editor Lori Mentele for your time and love. To my husband, family, and friends, thank you for all your support on this journey. This is for you.

  Chapter One

  Aura wakes slowly, the realization that she’s awake happening long before she’s able to open her eyes. They’re crusted together with sleep and tears from the night prior. Tears, oh god, the tears.

  Her hazel eyes, deep pools of green mixed with swirls of light brown and dusted with copper specks, make a sad, crusty little sound as she forces them open. She immediately rolls herself, all at once, over and out of her bed and flings herself into her computer desk chair.

  She quickly looks around the room to see if Rowan is still there, and realizes she must have walked home late last night after hours of crying and holding each other tightly. The best friends, though they prefer to call each other sisters, had quite a difficult time after the season finale of their favorite TV show, The Protectors. She must have sneaked out after I fell asleep, Aura thinks.

  She simultaneously dials Rowan on her cotton candy pink bedroom telephone that perfectly matches her punky, pastel locks that fall just below her shoulders, as she starts up her computer. She opens her web browser to make sure Jacksen Andrews, the beautiful man that plays her favorite character, Blaise Remington, was okay, even if his character wasn’t.

  “Hello?” Rowan croaks, barely awake after answering on the fourth ring.

  “I just can’t believe he’s dead,” Aura whispers.

  Rowan whines, “How are they going to keep the show going without Blaise?!”

  “They can’t!” Aura shouts in response. “It says online that they’ve been confirmed for a third season! Oh my God! Listen, it says here, ‘Everyone’s favorite warlock brothers, Blaise and Brody Remington, usually have no problem warding off dark entities with powerful magic. But who will protect mankind now that one of the brothers is dead… or is he?’...Oh my gosh! Do you think Brody will find a way to bring him back?”

  Rowan just swoons, “Brody…”

  Rowan was primarily a ‘Brody Girl,’ and was in fact so fond of the show’s enormously tall yet baby-faced younger brother that just the mention of him, or Jameson Peters, the actor who played him, could send her straight to the floor.

  “Rowan!” Aura snaps.

  “Oh! Um… Yeah, of course he will! Wait... did they just say he might not even be dead??”

  “He sure looked dead…” Aura sulks, “But if he’s not! And he’s been captured by the Sorcerer, then I’m sure Brody…”

  “Brody will find a way,” Rowan assures her.

  Aura nods her head in the empty room, knowing Rowan will somehow sense it. “I don’t want to go to school today, I’m too depressed,” she pouts. Her fictional boyfriend’s potential death is too much for her fragile teenage heart.

  Blaise was, however broken, the most perfect man, real or fictional, that Aura could imagine. The badass wielder of wickedly white magic, the protector of all that is good in the mortal realm; nothing scared him, which to her is probably the most attractive trait of all. She just can’t stomach the thought of him not existing, and lets her head fall hard on her computer desk, landing with a defeated thud.

  “Oh come on, it’s your last day of being 15! Enjoy the simplicity, because as soon as you turn 16, everything is just going to blow up! We’ll be driving around everywhere, probably get super hot boyfriends with pierced eyebrows that will take us out to their rock shows every weekend, and the next thing you know, we’ll wonder why we never get to see each other anymore!” Rowan increases in volume with every plea. “And besides! It’s no fair your parents let you stay home any time you have a blocked chakra or whatever! I wish my parents were hippies…”

  Aura rolls her eyes. “They’re artists, Rowan!” she protests weakly, knowing that taking this particular day off could ruin all chances for future greatness. “Fine, I’ll meet you out front in 20.”

  The girls fall into stride with each other instantly, combat boots

  clunking simultaneously on the concrete as they link arms and continue on their way to school.

  Aura sighs deeply, “I’m thinking of looking in the mirror tomorrow morning to see if I look different, like Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles.”

  Rowan scoffs, “Why? And be just as disappointed as she was? I don’t think you’ll look different, but you’ll… feel different. Plus, I think we’re already adorable.” Rowan smiles, her almond shaped honey brown eyes squinting in the morning spring sun, her ivory pale skin almost reflecting, a luminescent porcelain in the early light.

  You may be adorable, Aura thinks to herself about her bestie, admiring her pop of pastel violet hair peeking out from her maroon flowered hat like Blossom would have sported. In fact, both girls appear as though they’d stepped out of an episode of ‘My So Called Life.’ Despite having left the 90’s multiple years ago, both look to be vying for the part of Angela, all tights and long flannels.

  “But I’m barely cute,” Aura mumbles out loud. “Like maybe… you have a strong prescription but broke your glasses that day so you think I’m cute, cute.”

  “Shut up! We’ve got the new look, no one else at school has this hair and they’re gonna freak. In a good way. So... new hair, new attitude!” Rowan rants.

  The pink haired doll twists a fluffy piece between her fingers, unsure of how candy colored hair makes them different people, but still holds out a small hope that they’ll finally get noticed now. The girls have always been unique, and she just hopes that now someone, anyone, will notice. It’s not as if the punky hair is common at their school, since almost everyone attending is currently in the throes of a passionate love affair with Abercrombie and Fitch.

  “Do you think your parents are going to finally get you a cell phone for your birthday?” Rowan wonders aloud with a smirk, pulling her flip phone from her pocket and showing it off like a shiny piece of jewelry.

  “Not everyone’s as spoiled as you, Rowan! And they’re already giving me the Cabrio! I’m not asking for anything else!”

  “I know! And I can’t wait to ride shotgun in that baby with the top down! But everyone at school has a cell now, Aura! Not that I have to follow trends but come on… If you get one then we can talk even when we’re not at home!”

  “Maybe with my Grandma birthday funds…”

  “Yes!!!” Rowan exclaims, her mood falling seconds later as her eyes land on the enormous, monolith building that is their high school.

  The girls make it to the front steps of school and their separation anxiety sets in like it always does. “I’m sad I don’t get to see you till 6th period,” Rowan groans. Acting class, their favorite and final class of the day, was the only one they had together all year.

  “I’ll walk with you during passing time like I always do but… ugh… please don’t mention drama!” Aura pleads, her bestie grinning with the confidence that she always envies.

  “Getting nervous for auditions after school?” Rowans asks, Aura grimaces in response as she feels what must be a fleet of mutant butterflies flapping their way up her e
sophagus.

  “And you’re not?” she squeaks.

  “Babe, we got this!” Rowan reassures. “We’re hella good at acting! Face it! And besides… we’ve practiced these monologues like a thousand times each!”

  She does have a point there at the end, Aura muses. “A. Don’t says ‘Hella’ ever again and B. I can’t not get into Performance class next year!” she demands.

  Her mind races with just how completely over her life would be if she didn’t make it into Performance, their high school’s class for actors and stage crew that only the most dedicated Juniors and Seniors could enroll in. Students also have to perform an amazing two minute monologue in front of the troll-like yet sometimes wonderful drama teacher Ms. Matthis to get in for next year’s class.

  If you made it into the class, you were guaranteed to get a part in the fall one-acts, and promised a part in the big winter production. You were also allowed to direct or even write your own play if you were feeling ambitious, as Aura most definitely was. The elite Performance class was almost all she could think about the last two years while she paid her dues in Acting I and Acting II, all of that time spent preparing her for today. Now, just the thought of it makes her positively ill.

  Rowan’s eyes practically pop from her skull as she sees the look on her friend’s ashen face, “Aura! You’re turning gray, no wait, I think that’s green! Aura, stop!” Rowan shakes her friend’s frozen shoulders. “We gotta go in, I’ll check in with you after math. Please, don’t puke in there!”

  She groans in response, “Wouldn’t be the first time...”

  “Aura,” Rowan starts, “You know there’s always been this confident, bad-ass actress chick inside you, just waiting to get out?” Aura nods. “Today is the day! You can do this, ok?” Rowan asks for confirmation.

  “Okay,” Aura smiles weakly, never having known a time that Rowan has been wrong, about anything. “Today’s the day.”

  Aura hangs on the corner of her locker, halfway through the day and her nerves are getting to her, anxious little electric shocks shooting through her arms and into each finger. She lets her mind drift as she stares into the glowing green eyes of Jacksen Andrews, a full page photo of him ripped from the pages of Television Weekly and stuck to the inside of her locker door with Hello Kitty and Sailor Moon magnets.

  Her eyes sweep down to his perfect, straight nose smattered lightly with freckles like hers, then to his angular cheekbones and chiseled jaw...his immaculately tousled golden brown hair, and those broad, muscular shoulders in that distressed brown leather jacket. She’s totally lost in a fuzzy, love struck haze and jumps with a squeak when she feels a hand clap on her shoulder.

  “Someone’s got some gossip that’s gonna make you ver-ry happy!” Rowan singsongs in her ear.

  “Huh?” Aura, who feels like she was floating above their heads, or rather, flying down an open highway next to Blaise in his 1970 Dodge Challenger, snaps back into her body with a twinge of melancholy. Her daydreams were always so much better than reality. Aura slams her locker shut and starts walking towards her next class, very close to where Rowan is headed for advanced Chem. Rowan was in all the hardest science and math classes that Aura wouldn’t dream of taking. According to Rowan, her half-Asian background is what makes her so good at it all, effortless even.

  “Don’t quote me on this but now I’ve heard five, count them, five! Five girls are doing the same Anne Frank monologue!”

  “The Anne Frank monologue?” Aura asks, incredulous. “They’re all doing the same one?”

  “The very same! Can you believe our luck?! SO cliché! Matthis is going to be so ecstatic to hear any monologue that isn’t Anne that we’ll be IN instantly!” Rowan beams. “And yours is funny too! That’s like icing on the cake, babe!”

  “She’ll be happy just to get a little relief from all the depressing…”

  “Yes! And you’re a comedic goddess, Aura!” Rowan cuts her off. “She’ll be dying for a little relief from the maudlin! You’ll have her rolling on the couches!”

  Aura cracks a smile at this, imagining straight and narrow Matthis rolling from laughter. The drama room is surrounded in old couches, from wall to wall, and she lets out a little giggle at the image of Matthis rolling from one to the next. It was one of the main heights of every Seattle Heights High drama kid’s career to make Matthis cry or laugh, and Aura made sure to picture it happening. Her parents always told her that’s how you get things to come true.

  Finally, last period drama class has let out and the bell tolls for school to be done and auditions to start. Aura lets out a deep, shaky exhale as she stares at the audition time sheet posted on the drama room door. Fifteen minutes until she has to do her monologue in front of the dreaded Matthis, the fiery dragon that guards the keys to the theater kingdom. It’s not that Matthis couldn’t be sweet occasionally, and sometimes even inspiring, but she could also be rather hard to impress.

  Aura presses her ear up against the door, but unfortunately can hear nary a mumble from Rowan, who is auditioning on the other side. Finally, she hears a click and jumps back from the door.

  “Thank you, Rowan!” Matthis calls as Rowan closes the door behind her, beaming.

  “How’d it go??” Aura asks, positively dying with curiosity.

  “Brilliant!” Rowan exclaims, her cheeks glowing English Rose pink.

  “I didn’t even think Matthis liked Rent!” Aura is happy for her friend, yet baffled. She wasn’t so sure Rowan’s short and edgy Maureen monologue would win their teacher over, but Rowan had insisted and, once again, was right.

  “Well, she likes Maureen! I mean, who doesn’t?! She was over the moo-oo-oon!”

  “Okay, true! So what’d she say?” Aura asks.

  “Eeeek!” Rowan squeals. “She said next year’s Performance class roster will be posted here tomorrow morning! I swear, she was smiling the whole time!”

  “You got it, girl,” Aura smiles. “I know it.”

  “You’ve both got it in the bag!” The girls whip around just in time to see the goofy, megawatt grin of fellow Sophomore Ethan as he walks up to the girls. He pats Aura on the shoulder encouragingly and she tries not to melt. She considers him a friend, both girls do, but to Aura, he’s more like an angel in skater boy clothing. The hopefully, someday more than a friend kind of friend.

  “You next Aura?” Ethan asks, smiling at her again.

  Ethan is not just any boy. He is the boy. The one who dissected the frog for her in biology when she just couldn’t bear it. The boy she confessed to that she was writing a play for the one-acts next year, if she got into Performance, and his eyes just smiled at her as he said, ‘You’re hilarious!’ and ‘I can’t wait to read it! I’ll even be in it if you want!’ He was sweeter than he needed to be, and something about his cool, unsolicited sweetness made Aura all glowy inside.

  “Um, yeah. After you, I mean!” She says, nerves instantly calmed by his big, brown eyes and silly black bangs that he swoops to the side with a full head hair flip to keep them out of this eyes.

  “Right! Well, wish me luck!”

  “You don’t need it!” Rowan laughs, knowing there isn’t anyone in the school that doesn’t love Ethan, including Matthis.

  “Break a leg!” Aura breathes to him as he smiles once more before disappearing into the drama room. It was like staring at the sun followed by a complete eclipse.

  “You okay?” Rowan stifles a laugh.

  “Yeah, it’s just…” Aura drops her voice to a whisper. “He makes me all, like, ooey-gooey!”

  “He’s your friend, Aura.”

  She knows what Rowan means. Ethan is nice to everyone, not just Aura. She doesn’t necessarily get vibes that he likes her like that either. He is her friend, and that’s cool, but if he was more, Aura thinks, that’d be pretty cool too.

  Ms. Matthis peeks her head out of the door, finally, her brown pixie cut framing her slender face along with those eyebrows, raised up expectantly, and grinning as her wire rim
glasses slide down her long nose. “Aura, you’re next!”

  “Good luck!” Ethan exclaims, bolting out the door and down the hall.

  “Ethan!” Rowan shouts at him in distaste.

  “I mean, break a leg! Sorry!”

  Chapter Two

  Aura’s never seen the drama room so empty before, and her nerves are thoroughly wracked as she stands in front of Ms. Matthis, who sits perched with perfect posture on her rolly chair, not a couch, and smiles with her trusty clipboard in her lap.

  “So, Aura, what do you have for me today?” Matthis asks brightly.

  ‘Well it sure as hell isn’t Anne Frank!’ she wants to say but doesn’t. She skipped the risqué, avant-garde piece like Rowan had done, and instead has picked a sweet, fun monologue about a pioneer girl who pulls pranks on her older sister to keep from getting bored on the settlement. She had decided on a character a little younger than herself because although she was allowed to pick any age she wanted, Aura just didn’t feel like she could pull off ‘woman’ just yet. She introduces the scene to Matthis and the teacher grins, having seen the full play a few years back. She loved it then, she’ll love me now, Aura tells herself before quickly getting into character.

  She uses her cutest, devilish little sister voice, describing the tricks her character plays, and does her very best devious tomboy impression, ending her scene with a little laugh and an evil grin. Matthis is laughing. Out loud. Her chuckle makes Aura’s heart so full she feels it may burst, and she bites her lip to keep from laughing with her.

  “Aura! I loved it!” the drama teacher crows.

  “Thanks, Ms. Matthis,” is all she can say, practically frozen in shock.

  “I’ll have next year’s class list posted here tomorrow morning,” Matthis says.

  “Thanks!” Aura turns to leave.

  “Aura?” Ms. Matthis asks.

  She turns on her heels, holding her breath. “Yes?”