Work Text:
Senior year had been a collection of chaos. As part of the school’s theatre production class, you’d had the pleasure of working on two productions, a drama and a musical.
It had been seven months of absolute chaos. Long days of working on sets, shopping for makeup and clothes and watching people practice lines and dance routines.
You felt extremely lucky to be able to have the opportunity to participate in it all. You felt even luckier to know that you still had one final production, a comedy.
The comedy chosen was one about marriage. It was an utterly ridiculous play about a man who stumbles upon a struggling family who owned an inn and chooses to capitalize on the multiple marriages that had occurred over the past couple of weeks.
Set in the sixties, it allowed the class to embrace the ridiculousness and enjoy the last production of the year.
Currently you were shopping for clothes to use as costumes for the production alongside your girlfriend, Ellie.
Ellie had chosen to accompany you for, what would probably be, your last shopping trip of high school despite the fact that it was not her area of expertise.
As you looked around the thrift shop Ellie kept bringing you clothes that, although cute, would most definitely not pass as belonging in the sixties.
“Ellie, babe, I love you but that’s a very 2000s looking shirt”
She looked at you dejected.
“I think it could work”
You laugh, “We’re talking about the 60s, that shirt has Star Wars on it.”
She walked away to put the shirt away. It was moments like these that made you glad that she worked on lighting and sound for the show.
The two of you met on the first day of class. Your teacher Mr. Carter (known to students as Carter) had the class doing ice breakers and the two of you bonded over the awkwardness of the affair. You slowly developed a friendship until the two of you became practically inseparable. It became a rare sight to see one without the other. It was common to see you in the tech booth or Ellie in the dressing room during class. You would even visit Ellie in the booth on show nights in the middle of the show.
Over the course of the year, through the late night rehearsals, impromptu hair dye sessions in the dressing room and cast party shenanigans, your relationship shifted. You don’t know exactly when it happened but hang outs went from friends getting coffee to feeling like dates.
It all came to a head one night after rehearsal. Ellie was dropping you off after a rehearsal for the musical. She walked you from her car to the front door and the two of you just stared at each other. You knew you should enter the house, go to bed but the tension was palpable.
Ellie got closer to you, placing a hand on your waist. You don’t know who kissed who but you kissed and everything changed. The kiss was awkward, a little clumsy, but intoxicating. You made out in your doorway for ten minutes before your parents texted you, asking you where you were.
The relationship continued to develop. She would bring snacks and do boba and coffee runs while you worked with actors on makeup. You would bring her dinner and baked goods while she figured out the lighting and sound design.
There were stolen kisses in hallways and in the wings. She always had her hands on you somehow. On your thigh during lunch in the drama room, over your shoulder sat next to you in the theatre, with you sitting between her legs on the floor of the theatre entrance.
Movie nights and makeouts in her car became the norm. And then she started joining you on supply runs.
It was always extremely chaotic when she joined. Ellie knows very little about makeup and different eras of clothes. So the various trips to Target, CVS, Savers and other thrift shops always looked about the same.
Ellie came back with a pair of khaki women’s 3/4ths pants.
“I remember you told me you wanted some pants for Myrtle and I found these”
You looked at her for a second before smiling.
“Those actually work, good job babe.”
You turn back to the rack you were looking at and sigh.
“I think we’ve done the best we can. Let’s go check out.”
Ellie nods and holds out her hand for you. You take her hand and start walking towards the register.