By seven p.m. the auditorium already sounds wrong.
It is too many noises at once—bass thumps from the speakers, actors shouting lines in the wings, mic checks bleeding into each other with that awful high-pitched whine whenever someone points the wrong way. Underneath all of it is the constant hum of the overhead lights, just a fraction lower than usual. Most people would never notice, but it's like a mosquito in my ear.
I tap my pen twice against my clipboard—left margin, top corner—until the hum lines up with the rhythm in my head. Okay. Survive the noise, survive the night. That is the deal.
"Singh, I need your brain." Aman leans over the sound booth rail, pushing his headset back so it hangs around his neck. "The jazz band wants to swap slots with the choir. Again."
"They can't." I don't even have to look at the schedule; the whole grid is printed behind my eyes. "If they move, we lose the buffer before the blackout test. Tell them no."
He rolls his eyes. "You say 'buffer' like it's holy scripture."
"It is," I say, flipping to the laminated master sheet anyway because if it's not written down, it can fall apart. "Seven thirty-two to seven thirty-four, manual blackout test, audio off, emergency aisle lights only. We agreed."
"Fine, priestess of timing." He raises both hands. "I'll crush their dreams."
He disappears back into the chaos of the booth. I scribble a tiny triangle next to the blackout block—my shorthand for "reconfirmed"—then initial the margin. If anyone asks later, there will be a mark. There is always a mark.
The student council office is supposed to be my refuge, but when I push the door open, it's worse. Paper everywhere. Clipboards stacked in precarious towers, boxes of glow sticks and programs exploded across the floor like someone shook the room and left.
In the middle of it, Rhea stands on a chair.
"Those are going to fall," I say automatically.
She glances down at the stack of posters she's pinning to the bulletin board. Her dark hair is twisted up with two pens stuck through it like improvised chopsticks. A lanyard of keys jingles at her hip every time she shifts her weight.
"They're fine," she says, then reconsiders. "Okay, they're moderately doomed. Hi, Aanya."
"Hi." I step around an avalanche of half-folded programs and close the door with my heel. The hallway noise dulls to a low murmur, replaced by the whir of the old desktop fan in the corner. "Did a raccoon get in here or was it just you?"
"Ha. Very funny." She stretches to pin the last poster—"Lakemont Cultural Night: Our Stories, Our Stage"—then hops down. The chair wobbles; I catch it with my knee before it tips. "It's organized chaos."
"It's not organized." I lift a sheet from the nearest pile. It's an equipment sign-out log, yesterday's date in Rhea's neat, looping handwriting. My stomach tightens when I see a familiar name in the margin—mine—next to a line that's been crossed out once, then rewritten. "You rewrote this."
"I fixed it," she says, slipping the keys off her lanyard and onto her wrist. "Your handwriting is a war crime."
"It was already in the system." I hold the log up. "You know that's supposed to match."
Rhea makes a face. "Relax. It's just paper, Aanya. You have the real version on your laptop."
"That's the point. They're supposed to match."
She rolls her shoulders, the way she does when she's deciding whether to argue. Then she smiles instead, the tired kind that doesn't quite reach her eyes.
"I trust you," she says. "You'll make it match if it matters."
That does not calm me. I slide the log back onto the stack and tap my pen against the clipboard again, a staccato Morse code only I understand.
"Okay." She claps once. "Two things. One: tech schedule. Two: I need you to do something with the music room door."
I flip to the tech page. The blackout block sits there, highlighted, my neat arrows marking entry and exit cues.
"What about it?" I ask.
"Mr. Harlan cornered me in the hallway." She mimics his nasal tone. "'If there's going to be any of your dramatic lighting nonsense, Ms. Patel, those practice rooms better be locked. We don't want anyone wandering where they shouldn't be.'" She shakes her head. "He actually said 'nonsense.'"
I feel my jaw tighten. "We already have a policy. 'Keep locked during performances; exceptions logged manually.' It's on the door."
"Apparently that's not enough." She fishes a folded sheet from her pocket and hands it to me. It's a printed door memo from yesterday, my own wording, with a red sticky note slapped on top: PLEASE UPDATE AND INITIAL – ADMIN.
"Can you just… redo it?" Rhea asks. "Make it sound like we've thought about liability or whatever. And add your little checkbox thing so I can tell Harlan we've upgraded security."
"I have a lot of little checkbox things," I say, but I'm already uncapping my pen.
Rhea steps beside me, close enough that her perfume—something faintly citrus and sweat—cuts through the paper smell. The lanyard brushes my arm as she leans in to read while I edit.
"'Door to remain locked during all performances,'" I mutter as I write, "'with exceptions logged on attached sheet by name, time, and reason.'"
"Scary," she says approvingly.
"'Any unlogged exceptions will be reported to…'" I hesitate. "Who? Harlan?"
"Student council," she says instantly. "If he wants us to sound official, he can deal with the consequences."
I smirk despite myself and finish the sentence. At the bottom of the memo, I add a small box: SCHEDULE REVIEWED – INITIALS: __.
I stare at it for a beat, then write: BLACKOUT TEST CONFIRMED: 7:32–7:34 PM.
"That's new," Rhea says.
"So there's a record," I reply. "In case someone 'forgets' we planned it."
She exhales, half laugh, half sigh. "You are going to make an excellent tyrant someday."
"Project manager," I correct.
"Same thing," she says.
Her phone buzzes. The screen lights up with a flood of notifications—texts from three different group chats, an email from the principal, a reminder labeled BACKUP MICS???
"Ugh." She presses the phone to her forehead for a second, then pockets it. "Okay, second thing. Actually, it's… kind of separate."
I look up. The joking drops from her face, just for a moment, and I see the version of Rhea that only comes out when everyone else is gone: the one who counts liabilities instead of fairy lights.
"What?" I ask.
She glances at the door, even though it's closed. The muffled thump of the band's warm-up leaks through the wall.
"Later," she says. "I'll write it down. That's easier."
"Write what down?" The words come out sharper than I intend. My brain jumps, uninvited, to a file I altered last semester, to the way Rhea's eyes had lingered on me when I'd asked her to help bury it. She'd never said the word blackmail. She hadn't had to.
"It's not…" She rubs her temple with two fingers. "It's nothing urgent. Just—can you swing by the music room before the blackout test? Ten minutes before, tops. I'll leave you a note if I get stuck somewhere."
"A note," I echo.
"Yeah." She smiles again, smaller. "Old-school. Pen and paper. I know you like those."
"I like records," I say.
"Exactly." She reaches for the updated memo. "I'll tape this to the music room door on my way past. You initial it, check the lock, and then… we talk, okay?"
There is a flicker under her words, something skittering just out of reach. I tell myself it's normal pre-show stress. She's juggling fifty things; of course she's scattered.
"Okay," I say slowly. "But if you're not there, I'm not waiting. I have to be in the booth for the blackout."
"Bossy," she teases.
"Efficient," I correct.
She threads the memo through her keyring so it dangles like an extra tag, then rummages in the mess on the desk and comes up with a small square of notepad paper. Lines, pale blue. She clicks a pen—one of mine, I recognize the brand—and writes quickly, shielding the words with her hand.
"This is for later," she says, folding the square into quarters. "In case we miss each other."
She presses it into my palm and curls my fingers around it, then looks up, searching my face like she's making sure I'm truly looking back.
"Promise you'll read it," she says.
I swallow. "Is this about—"
"Later," she cuts in, too fast. "Please, Aanya. I just… I need you to see it in writing."
That gets me. It always does. Writing is safe; writing can't distort itself mid-sentence the way people do when they talk.
"Okay," I say. "I promise."
The auditorium door bangs open somewhere down the hall. Someone yells her name. Rhea flinches, then forces a brighter expression onto her face.
"Coming!" she calls, then turns back to me. "You're my favorite control freak, you know that?"
"I'm not a control freak," I say.
She arches an eyebrow at my color-coded clipboard.
"Fine," I mutter. "I'm an organized person who likes things to go the way they were planned."
"Same thing," she repeats, softer now. "I'll see you before the blackout."
She's already halfway to the door before I can respond, keys jingling, memo swinging from her hand. The room empties with her; the paper and boxes and fan noise feel suddenly louder, like they've expanded to fill the space she leaves.
I look down at my fist, still clenched around the folded note. My palm is damp. Carefully, I slip it under the top metal clip of my board, tucking it between the tech schedule and the spare sign-out sheet. Safe. Contained.
My phone buzzes next—a text from Lena about the ticket table, one from Eli asking if the house lights can go a shade lower "for vibes," another from an unknown number that turns out to be a volunteer parent who can't find parking.
I answer all of them in order of priority, thumbs flying, brain already shifting into checklist mode. Ticket table. Seating. Cue sheet. Door memo.
Door memo.
I grab the updated notice, double-check my edits, and head back into the hallway. The sound swells around me again: laughter, footsteps, the distant whoop of someone testing a mic like they're at a concert instead of a school event. I almost miss the softer layer underneath, the rumble of the ancient air vents switching cycles.
The corridor to the music wing is cooler, quieter. The floors here still smell faintly of cleaning solution and brass polish. A row of trophy cases glints under the fluorescent buzz.
When I reach the music room, the door is propped six inches open with an instrument case. Someone's shortcut. Of course.
"Seriously?" I mutter.
I nudge the case aside with my foot until the door swings fully shut, then pull it back open just enough to slip inside. The room is empty for once; stands and chairs in neat rows, Rhea's mic stand still off to one side, a coil of cable like a sleeping snake at its base.
I check the lock from the inside, then from the hall. It catches cleanly. Good. At least one thing is working the way it's supposed to.
Back out in the corridor, I smooth the memo against the cool metal, then tape it at eye level so anyone approaching has to read it to miss the handle.
"Door to remain locked during all performances," I read under my breath. "Exceptions logged… unlogged access reported…"
The little box at the bottom waits, blank.
SCHEDULE REVIEWED – INITIALS: __
I hesitate only a second, then press the tip of my pen to the paper and sign my initials: AS.
There. Now it's official. Now, if anything weird happens with this door tonight, there will be a record that I checked it, that I confirmed the schedule, that I did my job.
A burst of feedback shrieks from the main hall, ricocheting down the corridor. I flinch, shoulders instinctively hunching.
"Great," I say to no one. "They're going to blow a speaker before we even start."
I turn away from the music room, already calculating the fastest route back to the booth, how long I can spare to stop by the council table, whether I can squeeze in one last check on the backstage emergency lights before the first act.
As I hurry off, my clipboard knocks lightly against my side. Something slips free with a soft whisper of paper on metal. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch a small white square fluttering down toward the floor near the music room door.
I slow for half a second, torn between the urge to pick it up and the shrill echo of Aman's voice over the system calling my name.
"Aanya! I need you up here, like, yesterday!"
I tighten my grip on the board, turn my back on the stray scrap, and break into a jog toward the sound booth, the hum of the lights rising in my ears until it's all I can hear.