Isaac
You’re the girl I want.
Wednesday afternoon, my confession resounded in my head again and again while I worked at the HCT. Willow may not have heard me say it, but I heard me say it. And there was no taking it back. The line could not be unsaid.
“Fuck,” I said, pushing a broom around the scuffed black floor of the stage.
I should’ve just kept my mouth shut, starting that day in Daisy’s Coffeehouse. Talking got me into this fucking mess. I’d been silent for more than ten years, and then Willow came along and I told her everything. Now I was stuck. Somehow, she’d gotten under my skin, into the marrow of my goddamn bones. Her happiness was becoming the air I breathed.
I didn’t want to stay.
I didn’t want to leave her.
Especially after what had happened to her.
God, Willow…
I stopped pushing the broom and rubbed my fist against my chest. Willow’s story was a sledgehammer to the heart. Another slug every time I thought of it. Over and over, it ripped through my thoughts. Conjuring images of a faceless guy dropping something in her drink, leading her to a bedroom, sliding her clothes off her semi-conscious body, lying on top of her…
I closed my eyes and clenched my jaw until my teeth ached.
Xavier. His name was Xavier.
Hatred for the rotten bastard smoldered in me like a low flame ready to combust the instant I ever laid eyes on him. Beating the shit out of him wouldn’t do anything for Willow. But he hurt her. In the worst way. Something deep and primal inside me demanded I hurt him in return.
“She’s not your girl, for fuck’s sake,” I told myself, sweeping again. “The play. Stick to the goddamn play.”
But now Hamlet, which had always given me a shred of hope, rang hollow too.
“Fuck.” I slammed the broom to the ground. It echoed through the theater with loud, hollow crack.
Martin came out of his office, and joined me on the stage, hands in his pockets.
“What’s happening?” he asked quietly.
“Nothing.” I bent to pick up the broom.
He watched me, waiting. I kept my mouth shut. I was fucking done talking.
Martin nodded to himself after a second and dragged two chairs onstage.
“Let’s talk Hamlet,” he said, taking one and patting the seat of the other. “A little character analysis before everyone gets here. I want to make sure you and I are on the same page through the rest of the rehearsal process.”
I set the broom down and sat in the chair, crossing my arms over my chest, and my feet at the ankles.
“Now that we are this far along, what do you think of Hamlet?”
“He talks too much.”
Marty sat back in his chair, lips pursed, thinking. “Can you expand on that?”
“He talks too fucking much.”
Marty gave me a look.
“He over-analyzes every aspect of every situation,” I said. “Instead of doing something, he winds up doing nothing.”
“Act Two,” Marty said with a nod of his head. “What an ass am I…?” He grinned. “But then he concocts the idea of having an acting troupe play out his father’s murder. That’s something.”
“The ghost of his father told him to seek vengeance,” I said. “Instead of walking up to Claudius in Act One and putting a knife in his ribs, he talks and talks and talks. Torturing himself. Hurting Ophelia.” My hands tightened into fists. “All he needs to do is what he vowed to do at the very beginning of the play.”
“Ah. But then there is no play.”
I shrugged. “In the end, everyone winds up dead. No one gets a happy fucking ending, Marty. No one.”
“That’s the peril of drama, isn’t it?” Martin said after a long moment. “You’re constrained to the lines that are given, and the fate of the character the playwright has written.” He leaned forward. “But you, Isaac, are not confined in that way. On the stage, yes. In real life, you’re free.”
Bullshit.
I didn’t feel free. Harmony constrained me with a role I never auditioned for. The son of an abusive alcoholic. A loser with a failed business. A high school drop-out. A potential criminal. The fate I needed to make for myself was to get out. End of story. Scene. Curtain.
Martin observed my hardened expression and sighed.
“Come on. Rehearsal is about to start. Is Willow going to be joining us?” he asked. “The other night she wasn’t feeling well.”
“I think so,” I said.
Willow texted me that Angie and her mom covered, but no other details. If Willow’s dad hadn’t found out about us and the cemetery by now, she was still in the play. And my stomach would stay tangled with nerves until she walked through the door.
Seven o’clock came and went, and no Willow.
When Justin Baker arrived, he shot me a look of contempt. Willow embarrassed him by ditching him at the dance and getting a ride with me. He didn’t give a shit about the reasons why, or how she’d felt. Only his pride.
Laertes would ultimately deal Hamlet his deathblow, but Hamlet kills Laertes in return. I suddenly had an intense desire to rehearse that scene so I could disarm the smug little bastard and run him through with his own sword.
Jesus, get a grip.
Fifteen minutes after seven, Willow appeared at the rear of the theater.
My eyes fell shut with relief, then opened and stared at her. Stared until my eyes itched from not blinking. Blinking would make her disappear and I wanted to freeze her in time. She looked whole and healthy and fucking gorgeous in a dark skirt and gray sweater. She scanned the theater and when she found me, she smiled and gave a little wave.
She’s going to be okay.
More than okay. Even all the way across the theater, I could see the tiniest change in the way she carried herself. Like some of the terrible weight pressing down on her had been lifted. Not all of it. I didn’t know if it would ever leave her completely. But telling me her story had helped in some way.
And it changed everything.
I saw it in her smile and in the way she looked at me. You don’t hear a story like hers and keep things casual. Even blind drunk, she’d trusted me. I was the keeper of her secret now, and nothing would be the same between us again.
That’s not the truth either, I realized, my heart pounding hard in my chest. Nothing was the same after that day in Daisy’s Coffeehouse.
“Sorry I’m late,” Willow said. “My ride got a flat.”
“It happens,” Martin said mildly. Rebecca joined us and they bent over their clipboards.
“We’re set to run Act Two, Scene Two,” she said.
Willow furrowed her brow, reaching into her bag for her script. “Is that… Sorry, which scene is that?”
“You’re not required, dear, but in spirit,” Martin said. “Act Two, Scene Two is where your dear old dad, Polonius—” he gestured to himself “—tells the king and queen he’s discovered the root of Hamlet’s madness. Or so he believes.”
He pulled a rolled-up piece of paper from his back pocket.
“The prop will look much better,” he said, “but this will do for now.”
“What is it?” Willow asked.
“A love letter from Hamlet to Ophelia.”
Martin handed the paper to Willow.
Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
“That’s beautiful,” Willow said. She glanced at me, then quickly looked away.
“Indeed, it is,” Martin said. “Love is always a beautiful thing.” He shook the paper. “And this is Exhibit A that Hamlet can, when he wants to, put his money where his mouth is.”
Martin beamed at my murderous glare, then clapped his hands to call rehearsal to order, leaving Willow and I alone for the time being.
“I love how Martin gets so into this stuff,” she said. “I guess it’s what makes him such a good director.”
“I guess so,” I said.
“Hamlet, Horatio, Fortinbras,” Rebecca called. “To me, please.”
“I gotta go.” I said.
“Sure,” she said, and I hated how unsure she sounded. “Break a leg.”
“Thanks,” I said, and we went our separate ways.
Just like we’re supposed to, I thought bitterly.
An hour later, Rebecca took center stage and consulted her clipboard again through her dark-rimmed glasses.
“We need Gertrude, Claudius, Ophelia, Laertes, Horatio and Hamlet. Act Five, Scene One.”
Ophelia’s funeral.
From the prop room, they pulled a wooden stretcher and Martin had Willow lie on it, her hands folded over her heart. Her hair lay spread around her in golden waves. Four actors carried her to the center of the stage where Gertrude, Claudius, and Laertes were waiting. Horatio and I stood stage right, watching the procession in hiding.
The scene began to seep into me, erasing my conscious thought and transporting me into a desolate graveyard…
With tilting tombstones like white, crooked teeth…
Willow was ethereal, lying still with her eyes closed. The single light shining down made her pale skin glow. Lorraine, as Gertrude, mimed laying flowers over Ophelia.
“Sweets to the sweet. Farewell!
I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife.
I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,
And not have strewed thy grave.”
As Laertes, Justin’s angry rant was overblown next to Gertrude’s dignified grief. He fell to his knees to curse Hamlet’s name.
“Oh, treble woe!
Fall ten times treble on that cursèd head,
Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense
Deprived thee of! Hold off the earth awhile
Till I have caught her once more in mine arms.”
Then Justin got to his feet and threw himself on the bier. He slipped his arms under Willow and hauled her up to him. Her body, graceful and limp before, now stiffened. Her face contorted behind her still-closed eyes, into the expression of someone suffering in barely-contained silence. The struggle to stay still. Stay quiet.
Don’t tell.
My vision clouded. Then sharpened and I saw a guy lying on top of Willow, touching her. She couldn’t move. Couldn’t stop him. He had her while inside she screamed and screamed…
I raced forward, my lines erupting incoherently. The blocking called for Hamlet to throw himself at Ophelia’s bier as well. I went for Justin instead.
Rage coursing through my blood like fire, I tore him off Willow. She fell back with a little gasp, her eyes still squeezed shut.
Justin whipped around, his own readiness to fight boiling over. “The devil take thy soul!”
He flew at me, hard and fast. The stage direction called for him to wrap his fingers around my neck, but Justin wasn’t acting. His hands around my throat squeezed, cutting off my air, his face inches from mine.
“Thou pray’st not well,” I choked out, a sneer on my lips as I took hold of his wrists and gripped hard. “I prithee, take thy fingers from my throat…”
Justin’s eyes flared and his jaw clenched as he squeezed harder through the pain. His eyes were flat with hatred.
Len, as King Claudius, cried his line with genuine fear. “Pluck them asunder!”
The ensemble actors struggled to tear Justin and me apart, and then held us back as we strained at each other like rabid dogs.
“Hamlet, Hamlet,” Lorraine cried.
Horatio was in my ear, taking hold of my arm. “Good my lord, be quiet.”
I seethed, glaring at Laertes, reality blurring. “I will fight with him upon this theme until my eyelids will no longer wag.”
“O my son, what theme?” Gertrude wailed.
Willow was on the bier now, eyes closed again, face pale and beautiful. The enormity of what had happened to her last summer welled up in me like a tremendous wave.
He drugged her. A deathless death that left her with relentless dreams, and I can’t change it. Marty’s wrong. I’m too late. The story is told.
I stood alone, my gaze on Willow and nowhere else, and spoke the line that was given to me to speak. “I loved Ophelia.”
No one spoke. No one moved.
Willow opened her eyes and her lips parted in a little gasp. A small intake of breath that whispered through the silent stage. She sat up slowly, a trembling smile over her lips.
“Okay, folks,” Marty said. “Let’s take a break.”
Martin called us around the circle. The intensity of Act V was as palpable as the red marks around my neck and the bruises on Justin’s wrists.
“The beauty of theater is it can be very real,” Martin said. “And despite the battle scars, I consider tonight a tremendous success.”
He had Justin and I shake hands.
“Sorry about your neck,” he said, gripping my hand hard. “Hope it doesn’t hurt too bad.”
I gripped harder and his smug smile fell.
“Watch yourself, Pearce,” he said, leaning in to my ear. “Her dad’s company owns you. Make sure you keep on his good side, eh?”
With the equilibrium restored for everyone else, Marty gave the night’s final announcements.
“My generous deadline for getting off-book has come and gone, my friends,” Martin said after rehearsal. “It’s do or die time. We’re going to be starting run-throughs next week. If you haven’t already done so, get yourself memorized so we can do some real work, okay? It’s really coming together, and you’re all doing a fabulous job. Yes, especially you, Len.”
Len put his hand down and beamed proudly. Everyone laughed and the rehearsal ended on a positive note. The actors filed out, Willow gave me a last, quick glance before leaving with Lorraine, who was her new ride home now, ever since the dance.
Marty and Rebecca retreated to the offices upstairs to do some prep work, and I worked on the stage, stacking chairs and cleaning up.
Willow reappeared at the theatre entrance. I froze for half a second, then kept moving, saying nothing. I’d said fucking plenty.
“I didn’t want to leave without talking a little bit,” she said. “About the other night.”
“You don’t have to,” I said.
“I know I don’t. But don’t you see? That’s what I appreciate so much, Isaac. You’ve never pressured me. Ever. And…well…” She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. “I embarrassed the hell out of myself. Slobbered over how good-looking you are. Then I puked on you.”
“Nah, you missed,” I said.
Her smile broke through. “Look, I know it wasn’t easy for you to hear what I said. I’m sorry I chose you but… But despite all that, I think it helped me.”
“I’m glad,” I said.
Such fucking weak words.
You’re brave. You’re strong. You deserve better than me.
“Anyway, I wanted to thank you for being there. And for—”
“Willow,” I said. “I’m going to leave Harmony.”
She flinched a little, her brows coming together. “I know you are. It’s your dream…”
“It’s more than that. My entire life, I’ve been tossed around. My mother dying, my father turning into an alcoholic asshole. Being poor as shit and struggling every single day. I have to make some money. Some real money. For my dad, and the theater. And I have to make a name for myself that’s not connected to this place.”
“I understand,” she said, looking away. “You have to leave and I want to stay. I know it sounds crazy, but I need this place.” Her voice dropped. “I still can’t sleep in my bed. I still wake up sweating and unable to breathe, reaching for a black pen…” She waved her hands. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t—”
“You should.” I moved a step closer to her, my hands itching to touch her. “You should talk more, Willow. Tell your parents what happened.”
She shook her head. “No, I can’t. I’m not ready and… We should concentrate on the show, right? The casting agents are coming to see you. You need to be ready. No distractions.”
“Right,” I said. “No distractions.”
Her expression looked as heavy as I’d felt, saying those words.
“Okay, so… I should go. Lorraine is waiting for me. Thank you again, for the other night. And for being one of the good guys.”
She walked away. I waited for the relief to hit me that my life was going to get back on track. No more dancing, no more holding hands, no more holding her.
I kept cleaning up the theatre. I found a piece of paper on the floor, near the back. Hamlet’s love letter to Ophelia in Martin’s messy scrawl.
Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
I started to crumple it up and throw it in the trash. Instead, I folded it up and slipped it into my empty wallet.