𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐢𝐱𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐧
━━ 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒂 𝒅𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒄𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒚

That whole encounter kind of sent Juliette's mood down for the rest of the day, but honestly, could she blame Gina? She had the same feelings for the boy so she was not one to talk at all.

The afternoon passed awfully slow. Not having to do anything for the show really took a toll on her so she just stayed on her room looking at the ceiling. There was no point in continuing with the props if she was not sure that there would be a show at all and she was not in the mood for drawing. After some hours, already tired of being in bed, she decided to look for a show on Netflix, hopefully one that would entertain her enough to stop thinking.

Her concentration, however, was interrupted by a knock at her door. "Come in," she replied, without changing positions. Ricky's curly hair soon appeared through it, "hey, what are you doing here?"

"I didn't want to be alone today, to be honest. Can I...?" he asked, pointing at the bed.

"Feel free to join me," she accepted leaving room for him to throw himself on the bed as well. Ricky simply sat by her side, watching attentively as the girl focused on the show.

"Feels weird, right? Not being at rehearsal?"

"It does. I didn't think I was going to miss it so much," she admitted, turning around to look at him only to find him looking at her as well, "what?"

"I do like you, Juliette," he admitted.

"I do like you too, Ricky," she smiled, taking his hand on hers and caressing it softly. This was the last thing that Ricky needed: first his parents get a divorce and now the whole show falls apart.

"I just don't want you to think otherwise after what we talked this morning."

"Hey, as long as we get to kiss, I'm okay with whatever you want," she joked, recalling Ricky's earlier statement.

The boy opened his arms for the girl to cuddle him, which she soon did, and they both stayed there for some minutes, playing with each other's hands and with the TV playing on the background. That was until Ricky's phone beeped with Big Red asking them to run to his house.

—

Once they got there, they noticed that everyone involved in the musical was there, sitting at Big Red's basement. Chairs, sofas, the floor... were all full of people in complete silence. The situation was uncomfortable at first but soon, Carlos dared to speak his mind, stating that he was mad at Miss Jenn because she was giving up.

"She was the first teacher to not see me as a punchline. And now she's not even a real teacher?"

"Define 'real teacher'", Ashlyn spoke. Her statement started a small argument which made EJ ready to get out of there, but Carlos intervened again.

"She gave me a shot and it's been a long time since someone gave me a shot."

"She gave me the sense that what I do is worth watching," Juliette followed.

"She gave me a voice," Nini continued.

"And now nobody's gonna get to hear it because Miss Jenn screwed up," Kourtney replied.

"Okay but does anyone here actually care that her past is a little bit sketchy?"

No one spoke at first, but then Ricky bluntly stated that he did, making everyone look at him in disbelief. However, he did not back up and stated his point with confidence.

"She put our show in jeopardy! And now we're all here maybe for the last time together, and for some of us this has become... I don't know..."

"Family," both Nini and Juliette continued his sentence at the same time, quickly turning to look at each other apologetically. And it was true, that had become family for everyone. It didn't matter if you were part from the main cast, a backup dancer, a part of the crew or a member of the art club. You belonged there the same as everybody else. You had a family there. You had people who understood you.

"So what team?"

"Wildcats."

"And what are we going to do?"

"What we do best," Juliette stated, "imitate a Disney Channel original movie."

—

Hours later, Big Red's alarm went off, startling everyone. They had fallen asleep in his basement after working all night on their plan to save Miss Jenn during the hearing that same day. Nini and Kourtney were cuddled together, Ricky was besides Big Red and Gina and Juliette, Alex and EJ were on the floor with pens still on their hands.

"Oh my God guys, we're all going to be late to school!" Nini got up of the couch she was in, waking everybody up. It was true, they were all going to be late if they didn't hurry.

They got up from couches, beds and carpets and picked everything up before literally running out of Big Red's house, saying goodbye to his parents on the way. While rushing to school, they were all too occupied talking to their parents on their respective phones that they didn't even run what they were going to do later on the day. So all they had was to pray to God that everything worked out.