Run, Girl (If You Can)

Jennica had been texting Cameron for hours about all sorts of random things because neither of them wanted the conversation to end. She didn't notice it was nearly 11 PM until Valentina came home.

"Is Keeley not back yet?" she asked as she hung up her coat.

Looking around, Jennica realized she hadn't even noticed that Keeley had left. Oops. She noticed that she had a message in her inbox from her that was time stamped as being sent hours ago but hadn't been opened.

"She's staying at her dad's and asked us to feed Molly."

"Okay. She hasn't done that in a while; I guess she missed him," Valentina mused. "What have you been doing all day? I was getting in hours at the hospital."

"Do you remember Cameron, that guy I introduced you to on Halloween? We've been texting," she said with a slight blush on her face, anticipating her roommate's reaction.

Valentina did not disappoint.

She squealed and jumped onto the couch cushion next to her. "All day?! He must really like you! What sort of things have you been talking about?"

Jennica hugged her knees to her chest. "All sorts of things: books, movies, music, childhood pets…he's really easy to talk to."

They spent about an hour going back and forth guessing movie quotes the other came up with and discovered they knew a lot of the same ones. Another hour focused solely on funny stories about their pets. He even sent her pictures of his dog Ziggy.

She hadn't enjoyed chatting with a guy this much in years.

"Has he asked you out?" Valentina asked eagerly.

Her face fell slightly. She wished he would so she could see him again. "No. But we only started texting each other today."

"It's a good thing you met him after your play finished; otherwise you wouldn't even have time for him to ask you out."

She had a point. Jennica's play ended two weeks before Halloween and had eight performances a week in a small role. In the two and a half months the play was open, she only utilized her understudy part four times because the main actress caught a nasty cold.

Since it ended, she had been lying around the house to recover but it was about time she started auditioning again. What a bother.

The stage was her passion but if she couldn't find something in the next month or two she might have to resort to commercials or music videos to pay the bills. Worst case scenario, she would have to be a clown or a princess at some kid's birthday party. Again.

It was unfortunate that prime 'audition' season occurred during the run of her play. Most directors already had their casts for all of the shows that would go on during the holidays.

"Don't remind me about work," Jennica moaned. She was getting stressed just thinking about it.

Valentina patted her arm. "You'll find something."

"You're lucky; at least doctors always have things to do."

"Too many things to do. You know how many hours I'll have to work during my residency? Eighty! I'm going to die," she said dramatically.

"Keeley's going to have the most normal schedule out of all of us."

"Once she finishes school, you mean. Her schedule is about as bad as mine right now."

Valentina yawned and rubbed her eyes. "I'm going to bed. Goodnight! Let me know if your cute guy asks you out!"

Jennica stared at her phone. Cameron still hadn't texted her back. Did he fall asleep or something? It was getting late.

With a resigned sigh, she decided to get ready for bed herself and see if he had responded in the morning.

===

"Jennica, your phone will not stop ringing! Wake up!" Valentina shouted while pounding on her bedroom door.

Blearily, she checked her phone and saw nine missed calls from her mom. Oh no. She fell out of bed in her haste to pick it up when it began ringing again.

"Hello?" she asked in a panic as she was tangled in the sheets on the floor.

"JENNICA RAY STEVENS WHY DIDN'T YOU ANSWER YOUR PHONE!"

She held it away from her ear so she wouldn't go deaf. "Mom, I just woke up! What's wrong?"

"It's almost noon, why are you still in bed?! Oh, that doesn't matter. I just got the call; your brother's deployment is ending. He'll be home the week of Thanksgiving."

"What?!"

Brian, her twin, was an officer in the Navy and had been working on a ship in the middle of nowhere for almost eight months now.

"He gets two weeks of shore leave before going back to work on the base and he's bringing his family. I don't care what you're doing; you better find a way to come home and see them for at least a few days," her mother said impatiently.

Jennica was offended. Of course she would go see Brian! They had always been close and she adored her two-year-old nephew.

The only problem was that she couldn't really afford a plane ticket. The money she made in her play was needed to pay for rent and other living expenses before she found another gig.

"…could you pay for my ticket?"

"No! I just had to replace all four tires on the car; I can't. See, this is why you should go find a real job. You would actually be able to afford to do things! Figure something out," she snapped before hanging up.

Conversations with the obstinate Anna Stevens always came back to this. Their relationship had been rocky since she decided to move to New York and become an actress.

All her life, Jennica had loved the performing arts. She was enrolled in every type of dance class you could think of since she was a toddler and was the star of her schools' drama programs from elementary school to high school. Her mother allowed this because she thought it would look good on college applications.

Little did she know, Jennica had no intention of becoming a dental hygienist.

She went to community college and got an associate's degree in theater, claiming that it didn't matter what she majored in before she transferred to a four-year-university. Her mother actually bought it.

When the time came to apply to Ohio State University, Jennica packed up her things in secret and moved to New York and stayed in a hostel until she found a bed in an apartment with five other aspiring actresses. Her mother was so furious that she wasn't invited home for Christmas that year.

This cold war continued for another year until Brian, recently graduated from college and off to join the Navy, begged Anna to let Jennica come home to see him off. Anna reluctantly accepted but gave her daughter a hard time at every given opportunity.

It had taken about four years after that but she was finally getting somewhere in the industry; her mother needed to lay off. It was better to be happy following her dreams than be miserable in a dead-end job.