Finally Had Enough || yourstrulyclare
"Cut!"
Imogen sighed as she turned from Eli to the source of the declaration- Fiona Coyne, the director of Love Roulette. "What?" she asked sharply, unable to keep the frustrated glare from her face. "Imogen, this is supposed to be a romantic scene" Fiona said wearily as she pinched the bridge of her nose "so why is Clara acting like she can't stand Ari? This is the tenth time we've tried this scene today... Don't you think you can try a little harder? You were great at this scene when we first started rehearsing" she complained, causing Imogen's glare to become more pronounced. She couldn't help it that she was having a hard time getting into character during the romantic scenes, that she was having a hard time looking Eli in the eye and smiling... No. Ari, not Eli. It's a play Imogen, get it together. She mentally scolded herself, though she seriously doubted that it was going to have an effect. It hadn't helped at all over the last couple weeks after all, and Imogen found herself just as disgusted with Eli Goldsworthy as she had been when Clare had stormed out of the auditorium, and the characters in the play were such an obvious reference to himself and Clare that she couldn't just forget it the way she had when they'd just been starting with rehearsals. No, her head had been painfully ripped from the sand by none other than Clare Edwards herself, and Imogen hadn't been able to look at the play the same since. Instead of seeing a romantic scene where she got to flirt with Eli's character, all she saw was a cruelly written satire of Clare Edwards, one that made her stomach churn every time she tried to do her part in acting it out. Ever since her encounter with Clare, Imogen had refrained from kissing Eli during rehearsals when the script called for it, instead insisting that they save that for the big day, or at least for the dress rehearsal. Although that small act of rebellion had been enough to stave off her anger at first, resentment quickly bubbled back up close beneath the surface, simmering away, making it progressively harder and harder for her to handle Love Roulette rehearsals.
"Uh, Imogen? I said action" Fiona said, drawing the younger girl out of her reverie. "What? Oh, sorry" she said distractedly, turning to face Eli once more. She stared him down, doing her best to keep the anger from her face as he started his monologue once more- but try as she might, she just couldn't seem to manage it. Worse still, when Eli finished speaking and looked to her, the words she was supposed to say in a sweet tone of voice turned harsh, dripping with venom. "Cut!" Fiona called once again, causing Imogen to whirl around in frustration. "Okay, Imogen, I think you might need a break" Fiona said, thinly veiled frustration colouring her tone. Imogen stopped dead, staring blankly at the other girl. A break... the words echoed in her mind, ricocheting off the walls of her skull. A break? No, she didn't need a break. What she needed was for this play not to be so spiteful, so angry... Most of all, what she needed was not to be in a play that wasn't so terrible. As soon as the thought entered Imogen's mind, all others cleared out, the gravity of what she'd just thought occurring to her. She didn't have to do this. "You know what?" she asked Fiona, an eerily calm smile appearing on her face. "You're right. I do need a break... a permanent one. I quit" she announced, causing startled gasps and stares from everyone in the auditorium. Not paying them any mind, Imogen marched off the stage, across the room, and out the door.
It wasn't until she was in the hallway that the weight of what Imogen had just done began to hit her. She'd quit the play. The one thing she'd been fighting tooth and nail for for months now, her surefire way to win over Eli Goldsworthy... and just like that, she'd quit. What was wrong with her? Sure, things hadn't exactly been great lately, but that didn't mean the solution was to just up and quit, to leave everything she knew behind... What had she done? She'd let Clare Edwards take her mind and shape it to her own will, twisting it until it did exactly what she wanted. Even as the thought occurred to her though, she knew it wasn't true- as much as she wanted to believe the girl to be evil and manipulative, the sole purposes of her actions being to make Imogen's life as hard as possible and to keep Eli Goldsworthy under her thumb, deep down she knew that it simply wasn't true. She was so preoccupied, so lost in her thoughts, that she didn't even notice that she wasn't alone in the hallway until she barreled straight into its other occupant. "Oh, sorry" she said instinctively, her eyes widening when she realized just who it was. "Clare Edwards," she stated, unable to think of anything else to say.
