(song: "Give me a Try" - The Wombats)

Natalie had this picturesque idea of what the improv group would be like.

She had imagined several talented young adults in an auditorium with metal chairs standing in a circle playing confidence boosting exercises. What she got was the messy apartment of a bachelor in his 40's leading six young adults of questionable character into acting out random scenarios.

Natalie struggled to be comfortable sitting on a couch that clearly had seen it's share of women and discarded pizza crusts.

Kaden had informed Natalie that the leader was a man named Casey. He was supposedly some sort of theater actor with a lot of productions under his belt, but due to many bad decisions he lost his chance at Broadway. The most he could do was offer workshops that no one showed up to.

Casey inhaled deeply and ran his hand down in front of his face to wash it of all emotion. He kept still and silent as if he were receiving a message from a departed soul. "Kaden, you are a wizard with one leg who fails in his magic. Shawn, you are an ogre who is non-violent and has dreams of being a dainty princess. And. . .action!"

Kaden immediately snapped into character. He began limping around the room and squinted with one eye while holding an imaginary stick. His performance caused Natalie to laugh hard without being able to contain it.

Shawn pretended to storm around like a large ogre and made the ugliest face he could manage. With a dark and booming voice he said, "Oh great and powerful wizard, I am an ogre. My whole family kills and eats people for a living, but that's not the life for me. You see. . .I want to be a pretty, pretty princess with ribbons and curls in my hair. Can you use your magic on me and help?"

Kaden spun on his leg and squinted in the opposite direction to look at Natalie. "Well, hello there, you certainly are the prettiest ogre I've ever seen."

"Um, Wizard? It was me who spoke, I'm behind you." Shawn said.

Kaden spun around again and when he saw Shawn he pretended to look mortified. "Sweet baby Jesus, Joseph and Mary! Oh my god, you are one ugly son of a bitch! I have seen bunions the size of my head on a sleeping giants toe that looked better than you do! You're kind of making me want to take out my eyes and throw them into the fires of mordor."

Shawn tried to act daintily which caused more stifled giggles from Natalie. "Yeah, so can you help me? Turn me into a pretty, pretty princess?"

"Of course! Look, if I can't fix you then my name isn't Farkle the Wizard McFarkelstien." Kaden stated with pride.

"But. . .your name isn't Farkle the Wizard McFarkelstien, it's just Steve. . ." Shawn added with uncertainty.

Kaden faked spitting into his hands and rubbing them together. He raised up his imaginary stick and waved it around. "With the power of this stick I bought off ebay, you are now a pretty, pretty print set! With colored and black ink included!"

Shawn pretended to drop to the floor and spit out papers.

Everyone laughed and applauded. Kaden and Steve took a bow before them. Natalie hadn't laughed so hard in a long time. She'd spent so many sleepless nights obsessed over maintaining her grades that she barely gave herself a moment to just sit back and relax. It felt good.

Kaden dropped down to sit beside her on the couch and combed his hair from off his face with his fingers. "Do you want to try, Naty?" He asked her.

Natalie shook her head nervously and pushed herself far back into the couch wishing she could disappear. "No, nooo, definitely not. No, I do not have a single drop of blood in me that can do acting. I am a pre-med student, okay? My talent is human anatomy, if you want to know where your rectus femoris is, then I'm your girl."

"Okay, fine." Kaden said it casually, he didn't seem disappointed by her decisions at all. "I just thought you were going to prove to me you're not up-tight, but you know, it's totally cool if you can't. . ." his voice trailed.

Natalie wasn't amused. "Seriously, Kaden? Are you seriously trying to bait me into doing improv?"

Kaden pointed at himself a couple of times. "Me? No. Me? No. . ."

"Okay. I'll do it." Natalie gave in and immediately regretted it. She stood to her feet and there really was no turning back. She cast Casey her most pleading expression that he wouldn't be too brutal on her performance and awaited her fate.

Casey repeated the same pre-improv-idea ritual as he did before and with an exhale he delivered the scene. "Natalie, you are a girl who is obsessed with a boy, but you are a mermaid who experiences all the problems with being a fish. Kaden you are the boy she's obsessed with, but you are a TV-show competition chef with a deep obsession for seafood and Natalie looks like the ultimate plate of sushi to you. And. . .action!"

Natalie had never been one of those girls who wanted to be a mermaid. She knew better. Her father took her on a snorkeling trip when she was twelve. She could remember her hair getting matted from the harsh salt waters, seaweed wrapping around her arm and finding dead sea-life washed up on shore. If those things weren't horrifying enough, sand got stuck between her butt cheek.

She was traumatized from the ocean for life.

This made her give a very different depiction of a mermaid. Natalie dropped to the floor and pretended that she couldn't use her legs except to flop her feet occasionally.

Natalie prattled grimly with monotone acting skills. "Look at my stuff, isn't it neat? I have rusty fish hooks from my fin last week! Some old discarded human garbage from trash island and my hair is so shiny and smooth from all the oil spills from freighters in the ocean."

Kaden rolled up a piece of paper into a make-shift chefs hat and put it on his head. He began talking to an imaginary reality camera. "Last week, you saw me tackle combining sea urchin with a souffle, but this week you will witness my biggest challenge yet—mermaid wellington. It's just as like beef wellington, but with, you know, mermaid."

Natalie gazed up at him and pretended to have love at first sight. She pressed her hands against her chest. "I have never seen a better mating specimen. He doesn't have any harpoons stuck in his palmaris longus, and isn't missing any eyes from shark attacks. His great head of hair tells me that he must be my soulmate." Her voice was still flat and awkward to listen to.

"I'm going to engage with the mermaid now." He said to the fake viewers. Kaden knelt down in front of Natalie and got close enough where his face was a few inches from hers. He offered her his hand to help her from the floor.

The way his eyes looked at her, and the way he reached for her practically made Natalie stop breathing. "I think you're the one I've always been looking for. . ." He said smoothly with their gazes locked.

Natalie reached out her hand to touch his and she had drawn a total blank on her acting ability. She just wondered why she suddenly felt so strange. She rose to her feet and found her hand still in Kaden's.

Kaden—without any warning—lifted Natalie up into his arms to carry her. "The one dish I've always been looking for! Look out Gordon Ramsey, because my mermaid wellington is going to make my ratings jump through the roof!"

The room clapped and applauded. It brought Natalie to her senses.

She was in Kaden's arms still and their scene was over, but he hadn't put her down yet. His breath smelled like peppermints and his gray sweater smelled like his deodorant. It was a pleasant aroma. Natalie had never been lifted up by a guy before. She'd envisioned Gardner being the first to do it, but no, it was Kaden.

"You can put me down now," Natalie advised him with embarrassment.

Kaden obeyed her command and gently let her feet slide down to the floor. He stood directly in front of her when she regained footing. He took hold of her hand and with flare they both bowed to the other people in the room.

They turned their heads to look at one another. Kaden's smile was wild and untamed as he leaned in and tapped the tip of her nose with his finger. She laughed, just a little. The muscles in her cheeks already were hurt from laughing so much.

Then a terrible, horrible and intolerable realization took root inside of Natalie's mind.

She actually liked being around her tattoo-twin. . .