Malory and Kyle must participate in the annual April Fest production as the leading co-stars. If they can cooperate by the end of the production, their long records of uncivilized behaviour towards each other will be forgotten. 
Malory and Kyle attempt to cooperate, grabbing the opportunity to make a positive impact on their own future. In the process, they become entangled in the chaos of the other’s personal life. Malory learns of Kyle’s disturbing reality, and Kyle learns of Malory’s scarring past. Can these two brilliant but messy teens learn to rely on each other in the face of their silent battles?

Between The Lines

 Clark greets me with a smile and lets me into the compound. This morning, he asked about how I’d gotten my bleeding lip when I was leaving for school, and I didn’t have a choice but to tell him that I took a punch to the face. 


 Clark is strange, but warm. I have one memory of a time he had once helped me, but he never pressured me for answers over what had happened. 


 When I was twelve, and had gotten beaten til’ I was knocked unconscious at the side of the road near that abandoned gas station and left there alone for the night, I woke up to find that I was being taken care of by him. 


 He was the one who had brought me back to the compound. He was the one who had treated my wounds me before sending me home. 


 At first he had assumed the worst of things, but I quickly put his mind at ease by making up a vague story. I suppose at twelve I was nowhere near as good a liar as I am now, but he got the memo and decided not to press on the matter. I guess he thought that eventually I’d come around. 


 He begged me not to go somewhere all by myself like that ever again –he was the only person who was ever truly worried about me. 


 I stroll to the house and open the small gate to let myself in. I immediately hear the crashing of bottles, and the sound of hysterical laughter coming from men in the house. 


 “Kyle’s back,” Bill, one of the men, says as he walks over to me –clearly drunk- with a half empty bottle of wine. “Want a drink? This is some goooood shit,” he slurs. 


 I exhale sharply through my nose and stare at the bottle in his hand that he can’t hold still for a second. 


 I reach my hand out and he pulls the bottle towards himself to hug it. 


 “No way,” he says, laughing again, “Get your own bottle, bitch.” 


 I don’t know how I ever got used to these people. 


 I don’t know how I find the patience to deal with them. 


 “Boss is in the back having a smoke,” he says. “And he’s been on the phone for the past two hours doing who-knows-what. Can’t wait to find out what good ounce of fuckery he’s up to this time,” Bill says, tripping over his own feet and almost tumbling to the ground. 


 “Don’t you think you’ve had too much wine?” I ask him, raising a brow. 


 He leans in closer to me and glares as if he’s suddenly regained soberness. He breathes his reply into my face, “Never...” and the putrefying scent of the alcohol lingers in the air around me. My nose itches. He pulls his face away and laughs again. 


 “I win, Bill,” says the other guy, Franco, sitting at a table in the distance. “A monkey would take longer to get drunk than you. Get yourself together.” 


 Bill turns to him, clearly seeking the ability to see him with ease but failing, “Real funny, jackass. That’s coming from a guy who trades pills as often as he breathes. Don’t get me started on the overfilled containers I found in your locker at work, you son of a bitch.” He laughs again, wiggling his brows. 


 “That has absolutely nothing to do what I’m talking about,” Franco says, folding his arms and rolling his eyes with a sigh. He turns to me. “Yo, Kyle. Boss wants to see you.” 


"Before" [4]