Cole laughs, and I have to remind myself to focus. I’m looking at my script, but I can feel his eyes on me. So I glance up, and he grins.

ORION: I like that.

EDEN: You like what?

ORION: That you told the truth. Most girls don’t.

EDEN: Most people don’t.

Cole looks at me for a few seconds.

ORION: Do you want to hear a song? I just wrote it.

EDEN: You mean before you got here?

ORION: No. I mean just now. When I saw you sitting here. I wrote it in my head for you.

Cole picks up the guitar and strums a few notes. The opening of Eden’s melody floats across the barn. It’s the same song we heard at auditions, but it’s different hearing Cole play it. I get so lost in watching his fingers moving across the strings. Then I remember I have a line.

EDEN: No one’s ever written a song about me.

ORION: It’s not about you. It’s for you.

EDEN: Like a gift?

ORION: Like a gift.

EDEN: No one’s ever written a song for me, then.

ORION: I have.

EDEN: I’m Eden.

Cole puts down the guitar.

ORION: Do you eat lunch here every day, Eden?

EDEN: Almost every day. I like to sit and look at the river. Do you come out here often? To write songs.

ORION: I haven’t. But maybe I will now.

EDEN: I suppose I’ll be seeing you again, then, won’t I?

ORION: It sounds that way.

Cole stands up. He picks up the guitar and takes a few steps away from the bench before turning back and going on with the next line.

ORION: Do you want to know how the book ends?

EDEN: That would ruin the surprise.

Cole pins me down with those smoke-gray eyes.

ORION: But what if it makes you sad?

EDEN: I’d rather take my time to find out all the lovely things that happen along the way, without worrying about the ending. Wouldn’t you?

I smile at Cole, and he smiles back.

ORION: Yes, I think I would, too, now that you mention it.

“Blackout,” Jude calls from the stage manager’s table, and I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I let it out and tell myself to relax. I’m acting like I’ve never been onstage before. “Do you want to go back over that?” Jude asks Willa. “Before we go on?”

“I think so,” Willa says. “It’s so short, but there’s a lot happening.” She puts her hands on her hips and I hear the jangle of bracelets again. “So, what is this scene all about, lovelies?”

Rehearsals are supposed to be a learning opportunity for everyone, so she addresses the question to all of us, not just Cole and me.