Superimposed

27

The rest of the rehearsal process went smoothly, Lizzie and Taron stuck together through most of it and although no one said anything to Taron he knew that they didn't like him. There were the glares and the whispering, but no one actually ever said anything to his face.

"So are you ready for the show?" Lizzie asked Taron once they got outside for their routine cigarette break, which consisted of Taron actually smoking and Lizzie just standing with him, asking him all sorts of questions.
Even three weeks into rehearsals, things hadn't changed between them. Lizzie was intrigued as ever and Taron wasn't letting her in on anything. The only girl that he truly trusted was Belle and even though they didn't meet up a lot, when they did it felt as though the stars had aligned.

"Ready as I'll ever be" Taron smiled, lighting his cigarette and pushing his lighter back into his pocket, "I think the whole family is coming to see this one"
"They're all travelling over to watch?" Lizzie reiterated
"Mhm, mum and nan - all two of them" Taron sighed a little too sadly. Since moving to Bloomsbury he'd let his guard down a bit and he started to show his true emotions; something he'd not done for his entire life.
"Mum or dad's side?" Lizzie asked, crossing her arms as she leant on the brick wall
Taron turned to face Lizzie, "Mums, don't have much to do with dad's side," Taron said showing no emotion at all. He didn't really want to give Lizzie too much, but sometimes he made that mistake for the sake of conversation with the girl he didn't know anything about. 

"What about you? Who's coming to watch?" He flipped the conversation on her
"Mum, dad, sister - much to her disgust" Lizzie adds and Taron furrows his eyebrows, taking the last drag of his cigarette before putting it out on the ground.
"My sister is jealous of me and is convinced that I'm the favourite child because I go to RAD" She explains and Taron nodded. At least he didn't have any of that because he was an only child.
"And what does she do?"
"She's studying for her A-Levels and wants to be a doctor, but I think that's just to try to make mum and dad proud of her like they are of me. But they are proud of her already, she just thinks that they're not"
"Do you tell her that?" Taron asked. He liked asking the questions better than answering them. But Lizzie seemed like she was telling the entire truth and not hiding anything at all; something Taron admired and wished he could do more easily.

The trust issues he had ran deep, from a young age he taught himself to be quiet and not talk too much about himself and when people asked he would give a vague answer to avoid people knowing too much about him.

"Yeah, all the time but she doesn't listen I'm actually quite worried about her y'know. She's so caught up in the idea that she's the family disappointment. I just don't want her to take it too far" Lizzie continued, looking down at the floor and then back at Taron who had a sympathetic look in his eyes. He really did feel for Lizzie, it must be hard being the sister who seems to have it all.

Once back inside, the final rehearsals continued before the opening night tomorrow.
Taron called Belle that night, telling her that he wanted her to come along too, but Belle just apologised. Telling him that she couldn't make it because of some family thing she had going on, but she promised she'd make the next one.

That night, Taron couldn't sleep. Instead, he sat at his window chain-smoking the rest of his cigarettes and thinking about everything that had happened so far. All the things he'd done to get to this point where he finally began to feel happy and sure of himself.

Before Taron even realised the time it was six in the morning and he could hear Mike getting up, probably going to get supplies for the pub. Taron was supposed to work the day shift today, but he'd told Mike he couldn't because of the rehearsals and the run-up to the show tonight. With a sigh, he put his jeans and a black t-shirt on from the floor of his bedroom and went to make himself some breakfast. It was going to be a long day running on no sleep.