“I believe you are to take my hand, good gentleman,” I say in my best Juliet voice. But it still just sounds like me.
Owen’s fingers find mine, and all my focus narrows in on the pleasant warmth against my palm. “If I profane with my unworthiest hand—” he begins.
“Wait, what?” I interrupt with a brusqueness Juliet never would.
He drops my hand, eyes uncertain. “What? Did I start at the wrong place? I thought we were doing their meeting.”
“No. I mean, yes, we are, but where’s your script?”
“Um, you’re holding it, Megan.” A grin slides across his features.
“You’re telling me you know Romeo’s lines for this scene?” He nods, and I know he’s holding in a laugh. “But you’re not Romeo!” I say because it feels like a fact that’s been forgotten.
“No. I’m not.”
“Then . . . you just happen to have the scene memorized even though it’s one without Friar Lawrence?”
“The scene, the play,” he says with a wave of his hand as if his words are easily dismissed.
“Oh my god,” I groan. “What happened to no time to memorize your lines?”
Owen shrugs. “I ended up reading and rereading it enough times to write my play—and because I love it, honestly. Memorizing everything just kind of . . . happened.”
I do my best to look unimpressed. “You’re such a showoff.”
“Megan, are you maybe procrastinating a little?” Now he isn’t bothering to hold in his laugh.
“Ugh, fine.” I stick my hand back out, knowing I’ve completely lost any chance I may have had of being Juliet tonight.
Owen clears his throat theatrically and takes my hand. “If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle sin is this: my lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.” He bends over, his lips hovering close to my hand, and he’s about to kiss me—
“I’m sorry, Romeo is ridiculous. I mean, comparing his lips to two blushing pilgrims?” I blurt for some indefensible reason, and Owen blinks and straightens up. And I want to kick myself. It’s just a kiss on the hand. It doesn’t mean anything. But I can’t explain why it makes me nervous like I haven’t felt in I don’t know how long.
“I think Shakespeare deserves a little credit for poetic language,” he says, no hint of nerves in his easy smile.
I consider telling him to run the scene from the top, giving me a second chance at that kiss. But I don’t. I’m kicking myself again when I jump right into my line. “Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much, which mannerly devotion . . .” I say the rest of my lines trying to muster the impatient sarcasm that’s come easily in every rehearsal. But it’s not working, and I know why. It’s because I don’t really want to turn Owen’s advances down, even if they’re scripted.
Which is what has me nervous. If this goes further, I wouldn’t turn him down. But I have to. Because without Will to focus on when I sense my feelings shifting, I’m now forced to confront how much I want to be with Owen.
So much, I know it would destroy me when things collapse between us the way they inevitably would.
Before I’m prepared for it, we’ve reached the line where Owen’s supposed to kiss me. Not on the hand this time. “Then move not while my prayer’s effect I take,” he says, his voice low. He’s not delivering the lines like Tyler, but his speech doesn’t sound tight or hesitant like I would have expected. He sounds like Romeo, and I feel myself closer than ever before to the precipice of becoming Juliet. I feel like I could close my eyes and fall in.
But I don’t close my eyes. I keep them on Owen. Even though I know in the rational part of my brain he’s definitely not going to kiss me just because it’s the stage direction, it . . . kind of looks like he’s leaning in.
“Romeo might have terrible pick-up lines, but I have to give him credit for going for it,” I say abruptly, ending the leaning-in question right there. I walk to the other side of the room, not really having a theatrical explanation for the distance. We recite the lines before their second kiss from opposite ends of the room. When the moment for the kiss comes, I wait for Owen’s eyes to find mine, or his voice to waver, or something. But he does nothing.
“You kiss by th’ book,” I say, and exhale, relieved that’s the final line, wanting this pointless, poorly written, totally not-romantic scene to be over.
“Does that mean Romeo’s a good kisser or a bad kisser?” Owen wonders aloud, clearly not understanding we need to move on to a different scene.
“Bad, definitely bad,” I say. He wanders over to the dresser and leans on it, closing some of the distance between us. “Juliet’s saying his kisses feel studied and boring,” I inform him.
Maybe it’s the way he smiles then, or maybe it’s how much he loves this play—how he’s memorized the entire thing and wants to pull apart its lines and figure out how they work. But I find myself leaning on the dresser too, my nervousness fading.
It’ll destroy me to lose Owen after having him. I know that. But it’ll destroy me now to never have him at all.
“Okay, then,” he says teasingly. “Tell me, kiss expert Megan, what does Juliet think Romeo should do better?”
I pretend to consider, giving in. “It’s a fine line. Too stiff or too repetitive and it feels like you’re not interested. Too enthusiastic and you’re overeager. The key is a lot of passion and a little creativity. You want each brush of lips to feel like the first time, like you don’t know where it could lead—”
He kisses me.
Owen Okita kisses me, drawing my face in with his hands like it’s not enough for only our lips to touch. He hits me with such force that we flatten against the dresser, the script held between us. If I’d ever let myself wonder about kissing Owen, I couldn’t have imagined the way his lips draw the breath from mine or the way he guides my head, tilting me to deepen the kiss. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt. This kiss isn’t just one moment—it holds the possibility of innumerable kisses to come. It’s extraordinary, and precarious.
It feels real.
He pulls back just an inch, his eyes searching mine. “Is this—”
“Yes,” I breathe. I tug his collar to bring us back together. The second kiss—or perhaps it’s the second act in one long kiss—is slower, more measured, like he’s taking the time to savor every touch. His body becomes flush with mine, and the script falls to the floor.
“By the book or not?” he whispers with a faint smile.
“Not by the book. It’s like you’ve never heard of the book. It’s like you’re illiterate.”
Owen’s smile widens. “Well, I’ve thought about doing that for long enough.”
I run a hand down his chest in answer. I know a thing or two about kissing, and when I bring my lips to his, I hold none of it back, walking him to the other end of the room and pressing him to the edge of the desk. I know it works, because he withdraws a moment later, his eyes wide. “Whoa,” he exhales.
I shush him. “Let’s not talk, Owen.”
He complies, instead lowering his hands to my waist and spinning us so I’m the one pinned to the desk. The back of my leg hits a drawer with an unexpected bang, causing us both to break apart and laugh at the interruption.
“What about Sam?” I whisper.
“He’s fine.” Owen pushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “He’s probably playing Minecraft with the volume up.”
He kisses me again, but I pull back a moment later. I don’t know how much time we’ll have before Sam interrupts us, before everything falls apart and Owen changes his mind. I won’t waste a single second. “Should we move to . . . somewhere quieter?” I glance toward the bed.
He swallows, but his eyes say he’s not opposed to the idea. I slide out from in front of the desk and take his hand, leading him to the bed. He wa
tches me recline first onto one elbow, then both on top of the comforter. Without hesitating, he joins me, his body held as if by a thread over mine.
He brings his face to mine, and—he blinks. “What are we doing?” The intensity in his eyes goes distant. He recoils, rolling off me, and onto his knees on the bed. His voice is low with uncertainty.
I sit up. “Hooking up, I thought.” I try to say it lightly, but his expression unnerves me. I can feel whatever I have with Owen—whatever I could have—falling apart already.
“You and Will broke up just this afternoon.” He runs a hand through his hair.
“So?”
“So . . . what is this, your next fling?”
I jerk back, stunned. Studying his face in the silent seconds that follow, I try to work out where this is coming from. How could Owen, who knows me so well, not know this—right now—is like nothing I’ve felt before?
He must notice the way my expression flares with anger, because his face falls. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just, I don’t know what to expect because you tend to move from one relationship to the next pretty quickly.”
I flush with anger and embarrassment, and like that, I’ve found my voice. “Hey, you’re the one who kissed me,” I seethe, “while you supposedly still have a girlfriend.”
He looks stricken, like he’s just remembered her. He hurriedly climbs off the bed, then fixes me with a narrow stare. “Why do you say ‘supposedly’?”
“Because she isn’t a real girlfriend, Owen.” I slide to sit on the edge of the bed.
“Enough with that, Megan,” he snaps. “Now is not the time. Cosima’s not a joke.”
“I’m not joking,” I reply coolly. “I know she’s real. But your relationship’s not. You hardly ever talk to her. I asked you to tell me what she’s like, and you told me where she lives. Your entire relationship is based on one summer camp together. You even forgot about her long enough to hook up with me. I think you’re only with her because it’s easier, or safer or something. You can’t get hurt by someone you don’t really know, someone you keep at a distance of five thousand miles.”
He’s clenching his jaw like he did the other times I’ve seen him really mad, when Tyler insulted me and when Will cheated. “What would you know about my relationship?”
“I watch you, Owen. I watch you delay and hedge and keep your distance with Cosima, and I watch you do the very same with your play.” I gesture to his notebook, stuffed in the drawer. “You’re scared to finish. You’re scared to put yourself out there because the more you do, the worse you might get hurt.”
I half expect him to fall silent, but he doesn’t even glance at the notebook. “Just because I didn’t tell you everything about my girlfriend doesn’t mean I don’t know her,” he shoots back. “She’s not just some placeholder.”
Of course she’s not. I fight to push down tears. Cosima’s not the placeholder. I am. I’m always the placeholder. I shouldn’t have expected anything else, not even with Owen. Owen, who would prefer to be with someone he talks to twice a week than with me.
“Well, if you’re in love with her,” I say, getting off the bed and crossing my arms, “you shouldn’t have kissed me. But whatever. It’s not like this meant much to me either.”
He flinches. “Then you shouldn’t have flirted with me. But I guess that’s just what you do. I should have known you never mean it.”
“You know me, Owen.” My voice is ugly, bitter with resentment. Not only for him, of course. Why did I ever imagine something like this could happen for me, the girl who’s the punch line of a hundred oh-she’s-boy-crazy jokes? I push past Owen to the door, my vision glassy. “I’m going to go.”
“Megan—” I hear the regret in his voice, like he knows he went too far. But I don’t turn back, knowing there’s nothing he could possibly say to fix this—and not wanting him to see the red in my eyes. I slam his front door behind me.
I get into my car and drive up his street. When I know there’s no chance of him following me outside, I pull over and do something I haven’t in years.
I cry. Really cry, not the couple stray tears and sniffles that follow fights or breakups. I press my forehead to the steering wheel, and my shoulders shake for everything I’m worth.
TWENTY-ONE
BENVOLIO: . . . one fire burns out another’s burning;
One pain is lessened by another’s anguish.
Turn giddy, and be helped by backward turning.
One desperate grief cures with another’s languish.
I.ii.47–50
I POINT TO JEREMY HANDLER, BRINGING REHEARSAL to a halt. “Jeremy,” I call out from the front row of the auditorium. He pauses on stage, in front of three girls from the cast sitting on a bench. “You’re telling those noblewomen that if they don’t dance with you, it’s because you think they have blisters on their feet. But because you want them to dance with you, you shouldn’t stand that far from them. You could even try taking one of their hands.”
“Okay.” Jeremy nervously steps closer to Cate Dawson and gently grabs her hand. “Like this?”
“Perfect.” I notice the way Cate’s face has lit up, and she’s sitting a little straighter. “If Lord Capulet is going to be a creepy old man to his guests, he might as well go the extra mile,” I finish.
In the two weeks since my fight with Owen, I’ve had nothing but a small, stilted Thanksgiving with Dad and Rose—and Erin, who threw her cranberry sauce on the floor gleefully—and rehearsal to keep me busy. I didn’t think it possible, but I hate Juliet more than ever before. It’s not getting in the way of my performance. I’m good, to be honest, better than I ever thought I’d be. I never thought I’d say it, but I feel lucky to have Tyler. His loving gazes and passionate delivery smooth over my rougher lines. Which is fortunate, because the Oregon Shakespeare Festival is in a week. We’re driving to Ashland two days early and checking into a cheap hotel—Jody wanted time to rehearse in the performance space.
But none of that has me feeling relieved or excited. I just feel empty.
What keeps me going is the thirty minutes a day Jody allows me to direct Romeo and Juliet. I guess she noticed my mood lately, or maybe she took pity on my general lack of enthusiasm and wanted to give me something to look forward to.
The only scene I passed up directing was one of Friar Lawrence’s. I haven’t talked to Owen since I left his house. Nor Will, not that I would have wanted to if he’d tried. But where Will’s and my breakup feels distant, like someone else’s life, what I lost with Owen—and what I never had—hurts like the day it happened.
It’s a sign of my desperation that I spend a lot of time outside of school at Verona. Verona is Will- and Owen-free, and better, I know it’s where I’ll find Anthony. He and I are both heartbroken, and we spend afternoons and evenings in between his shifts commiserating over old, free pizza. While Madeleine drops by sometimes and tries to join in, it’s not like she has a lot of experience with heartbreak. Or any. And Anthony and I have more to do than mope. With his Juilliard audition coming up, I’ve been helping him narrow down his monologue choices.
I’ve probably watched him deliver a thousand recitations of a dozen different monologues to the men’s bathroom mirror by the time I convince him to choose based on the feedback of a live audience at an open-mic night.
I’m grateful for the distraction. As long as I’m focused on getting Anthony to pick the perfect monologue, I don’t have to replay Owen’s words in my head or remember the way it felt to be in his arms for one crushing moment. He should be easy to move on from. We were only together for minutes. But those minutes were more than months with Tyler and weeks with Will. I don’t know how to move on from something I thought was real.
So I don’t. I stay exactly where I am.
* * *
I walk into Luna’s Coffee Company Thursday evening, and I’m not sur
prised to find the rest of the drama class already there. Even though he’s not as flashy as Tyler, Anthony is looked up to as the undisputed best actor in school. Everyone’s tightly packed into the front room, sitting on wooden tables, burgundy leather couches and the rugs on the floor—every inch of space is taken.
“This seat’s open,” someone says to my left. I spin and find Wyatt Rhodes smirking up at me from one of the built-in benches under the windows. I’m stunned for a moment. I would not have taken Wyatt for an open-mic-night kind of guy. He’s not wearing his golf polo—instead, he has on a millennial-pink button-down, the top three buttons undone. It’s completely over the top and exactly the kind of outfit that would have had me drooling months ago.
Wyatt nods toward the seat beside him. It’s hardly big enough for two, but judging from the look in his eyes, that’s probably the point.
“What are you here for?” I ask. He blinks, obviously thrown by the total lack of flirtatiousness in my response.
“Open-mic night. Reading poems has been known to impress the ladies.” I notice the Neruda collection on his lap and remember Owen telling me about trying to channel Neruda in his lyric writing.
I flinch, pushing the memory away. This is the point where I say something suggestive, ask Wyatt who he’s planning to impress tonight. He’s as gorgeous as ever, and he’s materialized out of thin air right when I’m in need of someone new.
I say nothing.
“What’s up, Megan? I feel like we haven’t hung out in a while,” he says, a flicker of confusion crossing his face.
“Sorry, Wyatt. I can’t,” I tell him. I can’t flirt with you anymore, because I don’t only want flirting. I want everything. I had it for just a moment, and I can’t lie to myself any longer. Flirting was never enough. “Good luck with your poems,” I say instead, and walk away.
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