by TE Carter
But then, seeing it makes me think about what it will really be like. I know what will start to run through my head as the show approaches. I’ll be asleep one night—a month or a week or a day before—and I’ll wake up and I won’t have the air anymore. I’ll see the costume I was assigned, and I’ll feel the dread creep in. I’ll realize I can’t wear it and I can’t explain this feeling to anyone, because they’ll all think I’m overreacting. They’ll tell me to get over it. I’ll try to talk myself down through it all, but then the other voices will start screaming. They’ll drown out logic and reason, and they’ll remind me. They’ll show me what I really am—and then opening night will come, and I won’t even tell anyone I’m not going. I just won’t show up and everyone will hate me and I’ll hate me and I’ll lie in bed, crying, knowing it’s never going to get better. And then the following week, when anyone asks, I’ll just laugh and pretend I’m too good for it all and they’ll assume I’m an asshole and that will be that.
I see this entire timeline gaping ahead of me, but I can’t say any of it. Because I know how it sounds, and everyone always tries to understand, but they can’t. Even if they’re nice about it, they still think it’s fixable.
I look over and Lauren smiles, offering me a stick of gum. “C’mon, Lexi. What’s the worst that can happen? It’s just one audition.”
“You’re right,” I say, even though I know exactly what the worst is, and I know I can’t stop it.
I guess I kind of do understand how she feels about acting. I hate how I hope all the time that it will be different. I hate that I can’t stop trying to belong anyway, can’t stop allowing people in, can’t keep my mouth shut and my head down when that’s all I need to do. But I can’t. Because as much as I hate it, I like sitting here with Lauren, having her think I’m okay, and I like feeling like someone will care if I don’t audition.
So while the worst unveils itself in front of me and the voices echo inside my head, I pretend I don’t know. I pretend I see things the same way Lauren does. We sit on the bench, talking about drama and nervousness and school. We talk like real people talk. Real friends. And, knowing how bad the hurt will be, I continue anyway, because I’m so sick of being lonely.
Chapter Nine
I get cast as Elaine, who’s not actually in the play Shakespeare wrote. She was added as one of the Capulet servants so more people could be involved, and I have three lines. The good news is that if I do end up flaking on everyone, no one will miss Elaine, since she’s made up. Kind of like Lexi Lawlor. It’s fitting.
Lauren got Lady Capulet. Apparently, I’m the first person she tells. She runs down the hall at me between classes, catching me off guard.
“I’m so excited! All our scenes are together!” she says, grabbing my hand.
“Yay.” It doesn’t come across as authentic, but she doesn’t notice.
“And Chloe is starring as Person Not Appearing in the Play, so admit you’re a little happy about that.”
“Kind of,” I admit. “Although she’s probably going to be really mad I have a part and she doesn’t.”
“Eh.” She shrugs. They’re all friends, but at least she’s not pretending Chloe’s nicer than she is. “You’re coming tomorrow night, right?” She swings my hand, and I feel like we should be skipping or something. It’s kind of ridiculous.
“What’s tomorrow night?”
“We always do this thing after the cast lists are announced. The whole cast and crew go out to dinner and we bond, because it’s, like, family, you know? And it’s a new family for each show.”
“Oh. I mean, I’ll have to ask.”
She keeps talking, but I mainly just watch her mouth move. It’s all too easy and I hate it. I try to tell myself maybe it can be different this year, that maybe this group of people is different, but I know better. People are all the same, when you get right down to it.
We walk together to lunch, and I spend the twenty-seven minutes we’re given to eat staring at the people around me. Wondering. What it would’ve been like if I’d always been Lexi Lawlor and if this had been my life. Rory talks about something someone said in her history class that upset her, and I try to listen. I try to make her real, to find the details that make her different from me, that identify why our paths diverged. But there’s nothing. She’s just brown hair and blue eyes and passion about theater and anger about injustice, and I could have been those things, too. But I was born me, and although we look the same on the outside, the inside of me is nothing but rot.
“Hey, you seem upset. What’s up?” Ryan asks as lunch is ending.
“Sorry. Just a lot happening.”
“Don’t take the casting personally. There’s a little nepotism that goes on. I won’t lie.”
“Oh,” I say, realizing he thinks I’m upset about my part, which I completely forgot about as soon as I saw the cast list. “No, it’s not that. I’ll be the most badass Elaine that’s ever graced the stage in a production of Romeo and Juliet.”
He raises an eyebrow. “So you’re not upset?”
“No, really, I don’t care.”
“You’re coming tomorrow, right? Someone told you about the dinner?”
“Yeah, Lauren mentioned it.”
“I hope you’re coming. It’ll be nice to get to know you. I mean, outside school.”
The last time I went on a social outing was last year, unless you count ice cream with Marcus. It was during my two-week love affair with Ben, the guy who was supposed to take me to prom and is the closest I’ve ever had to a boyfriend. During the two weeks before Janey Eaton happened across my file in the office when someone forgot to put it away in the right place. That’s probably a fireable offense, but I guess everyone decided that was less important than focusing on Janey’s tidbit of exciting gossip.
Before Janey, Ben and I had gone roller-skating, which is apparently still a thing in Maine.
“I guess,” I say to Ryan, telling myself he’s not Ben and the world can function without repeating itself into infinity. “I have no plans otherwise.”
“That’s an enthusiastic reply.”
I’m overwhelmed by a series of “almost” moments. Roller-skating in Maine. The homecoming dance at boarding school. Movie night with my friends on the cross-country team. Every time, I thought it was the miracle. A new chance for something. And now I look back on those choices, those moments, as when I screwed up.
“You should come. I want you to,” Ryan says again.
“I want to go. I swear. I do.”
“Good. It will be nice to have you be part of the group for real.”
I smile, but I refuse to let myself imagine it. I’m not going down the path where I picture a life. All that comes from that is remembering it’s nothing but a mirage of what I could have had.
“So does everyone just get dropped off or something?” I ask.
“So, since my parents won’t let me have the car for the night, I’ll probably be chauffeured by my mom in the sexiest move this side of Ryan Gosling.”
“You could always ride your bike.”
“Do people ride bikes anymore?”
I shrug. “No idea. I haven’t had a bike in a while.”
“Well, sadly, I do not have a bike, which means, alas, I will be getting a ride from my mom. But, I mean … my mom could take you, too?”
“Thanks, but I can get there on my own. I’ll save you the humiliation.”
“I will admit I’m relieved,” Ryan says, smiling. “Let’s not discuss this further. We can just imagine I rappelled in from my helicopter.”
“Does your mom fly that, too?” I ask.
“Cold, L. Cold.”
Chapter Ten
The cast dinner is at a local diner. It’s nothing fancy—just a bunch of old tables, a bar with a lot of shiny metal, and a kitchen that looks way too small and way too hot for the number of people back there. The diner is packed full when I enter, and I almost leave to chase my aunt down in the parking lot.
>
“L,” Ryan yells from a table at the back.
I squeeze through the crowds, only to panic when I notice there aren’t any seats at the table where Ryan’s sitting. He pushes deeper into the booth, meaning I have to sit with one leg pressed against him and the other half of my body falling into the aisle. I try not to think about it. Try not to get mad at myself about being late, about not planning where I could sit, about not considering this possibility.
“You made it,” Lauren says from the other side of the table, but it’s hard to hear her over the din. Rory and Chloe are at the table across from us. “Do you know everyone?” I’m with Ryan, Lauren, a girl named Caitlyn I know nothing about, Eric, and the guy who’s playing Romeo, Tom.
I nod, even though I don’t really know all of them, and no one argues. The waitress comes by to get my order. Everyone else has drinks, so I guess they’ve already been through this. I ask for a Coke and a minute to look over the menu. She rolls her eyes and leaves.
“Pancakes,” Ryan says.
“What?”
“Pancakes. It’s their specialty.”
“Pancakes are a specialty?”
“It’s the only thing they have that doesn’t taste like bacon,” Lauren explains. “Well, except the bacon.”
“Wait, the bacon doesn’t taste like bacon?” I ask.
“More like feet.”
“We choose well,” Eric says. “Very high standards here in the Westbrook Drama Club.”
“I can see that. It’s pretty crowded here, for a place where everything tastes like bacon or feet.”
Eric shrugs. “No one ever claimed people make any sense.”
They go back to discussing the show and their set ideas while I consider the menu. I don’t really like pancakes, but I like bacon even less.
I’m thinking about food when I hear people laughing and look up. Two guys are in a booth down the aisle from us. The guy facing my direction is pointing. Directly at me. I swear, it’s directly at me.
Now, this is where a reasonable person would assume they’re misunderstanding the situation. They wouldn’t care what some guy with a buzz cut who spends his Friday nights eating in a diner where the bacon tastes like feet thinks, even if said guy is laughing at them. But reasonable people are not me.
I feel his eyes on me. I hear his laughter through the sounds of the drama kids talking, through the sizzle on the grill in the kitchen, through the constant beeping of the opening and closing diner door. I hear the laughter and it reminds me. I picture him taking out his phone, snapping a photo, making a comment on Instagram. Tweeting about me. I picture all this in the minute or two it takes for the waitress to return.
“Lexi? Hello?” Lauren says, and I blink.
I try to form words. I try to order something, but all I can hear is the guy with the buzz cut laughing. I look at him, and his friend has turned to look at me, too. I want to scream. I want to beg them to stop. I want to ask what they know, but now everyone at my table is quiet and looking at me, too.
“Um,” I say, the menu shaking in my hands.
Ryan takes the menu from me, handing it back to the waitress. “Pancakes. She wants pancakes. Obviously.”
“Obviously,” the waitress replies, annoyed, smacking my shoulder with the menu when she leaves.
“You okay?” Ryan asks. “You disappeared again.”
“Yeah, sorry. I was just zoning out.”
Buzz Cut Guy is still staring. I look down, focusing on the dots in the tabletop. There are so many of them. The conversation picks back up around me, but it’s nervous. Wondering.
I shouldn’t have come. I can’t do this. I wanted so badly to believe it could be different, but I can’t sit here. The voices and the laughter swallow me up, and I try to focus on the dots so I don’t freak out and start crying, but the burning hits the back of my eyes anyway.
“I have to pee,” I announce.
The worst is that the bathroom is behind the guy with the buzz cut. I walk past, trying not to look at him. He says nothing when I pass, and I remind myself he probably wasn’t talking about me, but what if he was? And if not him, when’s it going to happen? When will I be somewhere and someone will remember? How long can this last? I’m under 150 days now, but that’s still nearly half a year.
The bathroom is dingy as hell. It’s the last place I feel like crying.
I stare into the cracked mirror. People wrote their names and thoughts in lipstick and Sharpie and who knows what else, making my face a reflection of time and other people’s memories. It feels appropriate.
There’s something about it all that I can’t shake. I think it’s the shame. Crying doesn’t wash it away. All the therapy in the world doesn’t lessen it. Heath says I need better coping strategies, but how do you cope with shame? Shame is like your closest friend. Always there. Always at your back. Except it’s not a comfort. It strangles you while you try to survive. It rests on me, often just riding along, but at any time, without warning, it comes back. I can’t move forward, because it always pulls me into it.
I didn’t do anything. I can’t feel bad for something I didn’t do, but I feel bad because I couldn’t make it real. I barely knew them. They were just the people next door. I think my mom got a brownie recipe from Mrs. Cabot once, but that was all she was. Someone who said “good morning” on Sundays before she went to church and we went to breakfast. Someone who talked to my dad about flowers in the spring.
“Fuck you,” I say to the guy with the buzz cut. I say it in the bathroom because I can’t say it to him.
“Oh, hey,” I hear, and I swallow the shame again. To choke on later. Rory Winters, in all her perfection, strolls in. “How’s it going?”
“Fine. I was just … I’m heading back out.”
“Yeah, of course. Chloe took your seat, though.”
I sigh. “Really?”
She nods, pulling out eyeliner. “Ryan totally seems into you, so I wouldn’t worry. But be prepared for some drama. It’s her thing.”
“She’s your friend.”
“She is. But you know. She’s complicated. Hey, aren’t we all?”
“I guess.”
“I’m glad you tried out for the show,” Rory says. “It’s always good to have new people. Sucks you’re a senior, though.”
“Well, I can go out in a blaze of glory as Elaine.”
She laughs and turns to face me. “Hey, listen, I’m not clueless. I know something’s up. Something way beyond this show and Chloe and Ryan and whatever. But you’re part of us now. I look out for my people, okay?”
I want to ask if that’s unconditional. If she looks out for people when she knows everything there is to know. But instead I just nod and thank her, leaving her to her eyeliner while I head back to the table. I swear there’s nowhere on earth that’s truly quiet or private.
Rory wasn’t lying. Chloe not only took my seat but also is trying to take Ryan’s by throwing herself across him. She runs her fingers up and down his arm. He looks terrified. When he sees me, he pushes Chloe away, making her fall into the aisle.
“Why don’t you go sit over there?” she asks, pointing to where she was sitting with Rory before. “It doesn’t really matter where you sit, right?”
“The waitress needs to know where to bring my pancakes.”
She sputters, but the waitress arrives with a stack of pancakes at that exact moment. Most of the time the universe hates me, but right now it’s got my back.
“Whatever,” Chloe says, and she pushes past me, going back to her table.
“Thanks,” Ryan whispers.
The pancakes don’t taste like bacon, but they don’t taste like much. I use them to cover the shame that’s still stuck in my throat and manage to survive the rest of the night. Buzz Cut Guy and his friend don’t even look in my direction when they leave.
Chapter Eleven
Being part of something makes the days go faster, and I eventually lose track of how many are left. I don’t k
now when I stop counting, but at some point I do, and it almost feels like it’s all going to turn out okay. I check in with my parents daily; even they seem to think I’m doing better. Almost six glorious weeks have passed, and everything’s normal, and I practically forget that there’s anything to worry about.
It’s late October—nearly Halloween. I don’t know what the trigger is exactly. Maybe it’s the time of year. Seeing the leaves on the ground, and feeling the chill when I walk, and smelling woodsmoke in the air. Maybe it’s the morbid displays around the complex or the decorations in our classrooms. Maybe it’s the play. With all the violence and the fight choreography and now the addition of blood packs.
We’re in the middle of rehearsal when it comes, and it comes with all the force it has in the past.
Mark, the guy playing Tybalt, and Ryan are on stage practicing their fight scene. When Mark attacks Ryan, the blood pack doesn’t just splatter his clothes like it’s supposed to. It bursts, and the rush of red comes through Ryan’s shirt, covering his hands and spilling onto the floor. Under the lights the blood glistens, and it’s all there again.
My kitchen. The way the clothes they’d found were bloody and crumpled, resting in the middle of the table like a Sunday roast. The sounds of sirens and feet on dead, crunching leaves. And the crying. So much crying.
I can’t stand up. I can’t find a bathroom or a place to go, because my legs don’t work anymore. I try, but I fall to the floor between the aisles and I lie back, the cold, hard concrete of the auditorium floor against my skin. It’s painted light blue to make us think it’s not concrete, but it is. And I can feel the ground below it. I don’t want to think about what’s beneath that.
In all my memories, what hurts the most is that mixed with the after, there’s still everything before. Bike rides and comic-store trips. There are the late nights in the summer during thunderstorms when Scott would let me crawl into his bed and we’d make a tent and pretend we were camping and that the thunder and lightning were part of some exciting story, not just a storm outside. There was the time he helped me paint my bedroom, and all our Christmas Eves spent baking cookies.