by Michelle Ray
He left, and I was quite relieved to have escaped such embarrassment.
The next day, Horatio drove Hamlet and me to school, much to my concern. We rode together every day, and saying no would have been an even bigger clue that I’d total y lost it. But in the car, I couldn’t talk or join in the conversation. I sat in the back tel ing myself to stop thinking of Hamlet. Obviously, it didn’t work.
Wordlessly, I got out and waved over my shoulder to them, slipping into a circle of my friends, resisting the urge to watch him walk to his locker. Lauren asked how France was, and I answered in as few words as I could, and then Sebastian brought up a party they’d al attended in my absence. I breathed for the first time in over twenty-four hours.
First period was history, and Ms. Stone was delivering a heartfelt lecture on the importance of due process when Hamlet opened the classroom door and said I was needed in the office. As often happened when Hamlet spoke to the female teachers, her eyes glazed over in acquiescence. I never knew if it was his good looks or his celebrity that got them, or a combination of both. Leaving my stuff behind and wondering why I could be needed, I hurried out of the room and into the hal . Hamlet closed the door for me and fol owed.
When we were on the stairs, I stopped. “I know where the office is, Hamlet.”
“They didn’t actual y cal for you.”
I hesitated and started to get mad. “I have to go back to class,” I said. I had never gotten in trouble and didn’t want to start.
He caught me by the arm and said, “Ophelia, we should talk.”
I didn’t walk away, but I didn’t speak.
“I…” he began. “I never thought much about you in that way. You’re adorable and have a great body and—” He stopped when I crossed my arms around my middle. “This is coming out wrong. You’re younger and we’ve always just been friends, you know?” I did. And though I knew he would be right to say things shouldn’t change, I braced myself because it was gonna suck having him tel me anyway.
“But,” he said. A magical word. “I… Oh, hel .” He stepped forward and pul ed me close. My legs went weak as his tongue slipped into my mouth and he wove his fingers into my hair.
I stepped back. “This is such a bad idea,” I said, barely able to stand. “We are friends, and this could be a disaster.” He seemed as dazed as I felt, so I had the chance to continue. “When was the last time you dated someone for more than a month?” The question snapped him to alertness. “Wel —” he began, looking like he had evidence to the contrary, and then started to laugh when he realized he didn’t. “Ophelia, most girls are interested in dating a ‘prince’ and are not especial y interested in me, which gets old fast, or they’re classmates who might see the difference, but once I spend more than a few minutes alone with them, I realize they’re real y dul .” I smiled. He had complained about this problem before.
“But you…” he said. “I know you don’t want me because of what I am—”
“I don’t?” I asked, batting my eyelashes.
His smile matched mine. “And I know you’re not dul .” We stood in silence. “I’m going away in less than a year, and who knows what wil happen then?
But after I kissed you the other night, it was weird because, wel , I suddenly couldn’t think of spending the rest of my time home without you. And not the way things were before, but like this.” He stepped close again and planted a kiss on me that was so intense that neither of us noticed Mr. Johnson, the assistant principal, walk up behind us.
He cleared his throat. “Hamlet, this is not—” I leaped back in shock, and he said, “Oh. Ophelia. I didn’t realize—” Unexpectedly, he looked embarrassed. Then he went back to stern professionalism. “Why are you both not in class?” Red-faced, I looked down and mumbled that I was just going. Hamlet ambled a few paces behind me and when I reached for the door to Ms. Stone’s room, he said quietly, “We’re not making a mistake. Don’t you see we were meant for each other? How can this bring us anything but happiness?” I knew it was naive. I just didn’t realize how complicated it would become.
Almost two years later, when I was waiting for Hamlet to leave the reception of his father’s funeral, the memory was oddly comforting and sweetly distracting. I shivered, and Horatio threw an arm around me, making me glad that kiss between us had been so mutual y unappealing, because Horatio was the best friend I ever had.
Hamlet came banging through the stairwel door, ripping at his tie. “Get this thing off of me,” he cal ed out, then ran toward us and threw the tie over the edge.
“Hamlet!” I cried out.
“Someone can sel it on eBay.” He shook hands with Horatio, and we al moved to the patio furniture by the roses.
“How bad was it?” I asked as we settled on a pair of lounge chairs. Lying next to him, I felt warmer already.
“Hel . Al those people talking to me like I could help their futures. And most of them didn’t know my father at al . Just met him during handshaking photo ops.” Horatio and I nodded. I shivered, and Hamlet put his arms tighter around me. “Actual y,” he said to me, “your dad was the coolest.” “Coolest” and my dad were never before and never since mentioned in the same sentence, as much as I loved him, so this took me by surprise.
“He told me things about my dad I didn’t even know and gave me a letter my father wrote to me when I was first born.” Hamlet touched his suit pocket reverently, and I heard the paper crinkle. “It’s about my father’s hopes and dreams for me. About how he never expected to l—” His voice broke and he breathed deeply. “Never expected to love anyone as much as he loved me, and h… how it had only been a few days since I’d been born, and how he couldn’t im… imagine how he could grow to love me more as I got older, but that he knew he would. Pretty amazing stuff.” He looked away, and I held his hand tighter, wil ing myself not to think about the box of my mother’s journals that I had hidden under my bed, journals that said the same kinds of things about me.
Horatio got a text and, after he shoved his phone back into his pocket, Hamlet asked, “Kim?” Horatio nodded and told me she was a girl he met at school. Hamlet said he liked her but didn’t sound too enthusiastic.
“What’s your problem with her?” Horatio asked. “Kim’s pretty.”
“True,” Hamlet agreed.
“And she’s an amazing writer.”
“Also true.”
“She’s fun.”
Hamlet remained silent.
“Life isn’t always about acting like an idiot,” Horatio said, his voice rising.
“Maybe not, but I know fun, and fun she is not.”
“Screw you. I like her.” Horatio turned onto his back and looked at the starless sky.
“Cut it out, Hamlet,” I said. For a cute guy, Horatio had been alone for a long time, and I thought it was nice he had someone. “Tel me about her, Horatio.”
He told me how smart she was, that they spent their time together reading and studying. I hoped they did more than that, though I didn’t say so.
I said he should bring her to the castle, to which he replied, “She doesn’t know I live here.” I was shocked.
“It’s easier. I want her to like me for me.”
“Yeah, but that’s a hel of a secret,” I said.
“I’m good with secrets. Who knows if she is?” He shrugged. “This is separate from school.”
“I wish it was for me,” Hamlet interjected.
We nodded sympathetical y.
“Funny thing is, I don’t even want to be king.”
“You don’t?” asked Horatio, as if it were the first time Hamlet had mentioned it. Maybe it was. I couldn’t remember it ever coming up. We’d thought his father would live for a lot longer, and Hamlet was rarely serious enough to bother talking about something so important.
“So don’t,” I countered.
“Oh, that’s rich. Your father tel s you not to cal me, and you don’t. But you want me to stand up to everyone? Say no to this position?”
I stayed quiet, knowing he was right.
“Hamlet, you have to do it,” Horatio said. “It’s expected. Your family’s been in power for generations. You’re next in line.”
“I know, but there’s no way. I’m not ready to lead anyone.”
“That is true,” Horatio agreed with a smile.
“Shut up,” said Hamlet, starting to laugh.
Horatio continued, “You can’t even decide what dining hal you want to eat in each day. How are you going to decide on matters of state?” Hamlet took off his shoe and threw it at Horatio, who caught it and threw it back.
As Hamlet put his shoe back on, he said, “You know I’l be a figurehead as much as anything. Parliament makes al the real decisions. Even so, I’m not sure I want to…”
I asked, “Without thinking, what would you do if you could do anything with your life?” A satisfied smile crept onto his lips. “I’d play my guitar.”
We al laughed.
Horatio teased, “You’d starve. You real y suck at it.”
“I do not. Ophelia?” he asked, trying to get me to agree with him.
“Wel …” I hesitated, trying to imagine Hamlet on a street corner with an open guitar case at his feet, hoping for spare change.
“Okay, you two, enough kicking a guy while he’s down. Have a drink.” We passed the wine around.
“Hamlet, what about someone else doing the job until you’re older? At least until you finish col ege,” I suggested.
He shook his head. “I don’t know how that would work. Maybe.”
Horatio looked perplexed. “Didn’t anyone mention a plan to you? They must have rules or contingencies for these sorts of things.” Hamlet turned to me and said, “Your father started talking about it yesterday, but my mother stopped him. Said it wasn’t necessary to bother me with it in my grief.”
Horatio pressed on. “But you have to deal with it soon, right? I mean, the public wants to know—”
“The public?” said Hamlet. “Whose side are you on?”
Horatio took his iPod out of his jacket and focused on untangling the wires, knowing better than to keep arguing.
“Talk to my dad tomorrow,” I suggested.
“Can’t wait.” Hamlet sulked and drank more wine.
The next morning we were al in Hamlet’s room. Horatio was texting Kim, Hamlet was strumming his guitar, and when I wasn’t sketching Hamlet, I was staring at him. I admit it was pathetic, but I fel to pieces watching him play the guitar, no matter how good or bad the sound. Classic girl crap, I know. The hair fal ing over the face, the furrowed brow as he tried to get the chord right, the guitar resting on his knee just so. Sigh and sigh. I dug it. What can I say?
Anyhow, we were al doing our thing when Gertrude stumbled in, and she did not look pleased to find Hamlet with company. She was stil in her shiny sea-foam bathrobe; her hair was matted and she had not taken off her mascara from the night before. My guess is someone had given her something to help her sleep, because it was eleven, and by that point in the day she had usual y done her Pilates, showered, dressed, and answered selected pieces of fan mail. She clutched her bathrobe around her and asked if Hamlet would fol ow her out. Horatio and I exchanged glances, and he went back to Kim.
I was cold, so I walked to Hamlet’s dresser and took out a long-sleeved shirt. Before I pul ed it over my head, I stopped a second to smel the col ar. I knew it was clean because, at the castle at least, his stuff was taken care of. But I loved the combination of his scent and the detergent the laundry staff used.
Horatio caught me. “That’s just sad,” he said.
I covered my face. “I know. I don’t get to have these creepy moments when you guys are gone. Having you back is a bonus.” He lifted his eyebrows in mock disapproval. “The king’s death is a bonus? Nice.”
“You know that’s not what I mean,” I said, throwing the shirt at him.
Hamlet walked in to find us having fun, and his dark mood sobered us immediately. He looked like someone had touched his jutting cheekbones with pink finger paint. He crossed the room quickly and sat on the floor facing away from us.
“What’s wrong?” Horatio asked.
Hamlet wouldn’t answer but picked up his guitar and closed his eyes. I saw him wipe away a tear, so I sat on the bed behind him and kissed the top of his head. He strummed with his eyes closed and tried to calm himself.
“She wants me to go back to school tomorrow,” he said final y.
“You’re kidding,” I sputtered. “Tomorrow’s pretty fast.” I wasn’t sure if I was disagreeing with Gertrude because she was wrong to push him or if I just expected him around for a while more.
“Did she say why?” asked Horatio.
He stopped playing and said angrily, “She said that while she would prefer I stayed by her side, I should get on with my life. We would sort out al the being-king stuff later. God, it’s been one day since the funeral! Get on with my life?” He shook his head and banged on the strings, making a discordant howl, then sat quietly staring out the window.
Horatio tucked his phone into his back pocket and asked, “You think you’l come back with me?” Hamlet shrugged. “Maybe.”
“It might help you keep your mind off of things,” I suggested, not real y wanting to encourage it but remembering how busy I kept myself after my mother’s death. Busy to distraction. Busy to exhaustion.
He went back to strumming, but mid-song he threw his guitar across the room, cracking the neck. “No. Forget it. I’m not going. I can’t be in class right now. Who cares about macroeconomics or protozoa? My dad is dead. What am I gonna do, party, for God’s sake?” Horatio went to pick up the broken guitar and I slid off the bed to sit next to Hamlet. “She’l understand,” I said.
“Who cares?” Hamlet grumbled.
I rushed home from school each day for the next week, declining invitations to hang out with my friends, skipping swim practice and time in the art studio to be with him. I tried to keep Hamlet from grieving. More than a minute or two of silence or stil ness, and he would retreat into a depression, and it would take hours to pul him out of it.
My friends, my coach, and my art teacher were pissed, which seemed unfair because I’d lost someone, too (though not an actual parent, so I guess everyone else saw it differently), and if I’d been taking any tough classes, my grades would have slipped. It did occur to me that it was probably a good thing that I wouldn’t be going to Wittenberg with him. My father, I begrudgingly admitted, might have been right about that after al .
Given my efforts to help Hamlet, I was slightly disappointed when we were swinging on the hammock on my balcony and he announced, “Being around the castle is too depressing. I’ve decided to go back to school.”
“I thought…” I began. “I thought we were doing al right.”
He ran his fingers along my thigh. “It’s not you. It’s my mother and my uncle. One of them is always hassling me about going back to school or wanting to discuss my future. I’m sick of it. And when my mom isn’t crying, she shuts herself behind closed doors. Most of the time, she acts like she doesn’t want me around.”
Well, that’s a change, I thought. I couldn’t remember a single time when she hadn’t begged him to join her for a meal, tried to separate him from me, or otherwise sought him out. It didn’t make sense.
I asked, “Then who’s she turning to for comfort?”
“Claudius. She says he understands her… that he feels the same pain. But I don’t know what she’s talking about. His brother died, and I’ve never seen him cry or even look more than a little sad. And that’s only when someone else mentions what a loss it’s been. My uncle and I have never been close, but I’ve never wanted to be around anyone less.”
“Leaving’s probably best then,” I conceded, then snuggled tighter against his body, trying to soak in the last moments I thought we’d have together for a while.
Barnardo: Did you try to talk Hamlet out of being king?
Ophelia: Why
would you even ask that?
Barnardo: Just wondering.
Francisco: You get into his head… make him doubt that it’s the right thing to do.
Barnardo: Hamlet hesitates, so Claudius takes over, driving Hamlet over the edge.
Ophelia: That’s not why Hamlet was pissed.
Francisco: Come on, all that power in the wrong hands.
Ophelia: Hamlet didn’t care about power.
Barnardo: What did he care about?
Ophelia: (pause) Me.
Barnardo: And look where that got him.
Ophelia: Does the DDI give lessons on cruelty or does it just come naturally to you?
8
“So, one minute we’re all mourning the death of the king, the next we’re hearing about a relationship between Gertrude and Claudius. When did you become aware of it?”
Ophelia smiles elusively. “Around the same time as everyone else.”
Watching two people kiss is about the most annoying thing ever, unless it’s in a movie. Somehow if it’s on-screen you can put yourself in the place of those beautiful people, and you can imagine the leading man running his fingers through your own hair, stroking your own face. You are suddenly gorgeous and the object of his desire, not sitting alone in sweatpants with racing stripes that you hope make your legs look thinner. But when a real couple is actual y in front of you kissing, al you can think is, I’m right here! Take your big ol’ tongue out of her mouth.
Happening upon two people kissing who don’t want you to see them kissing is not only gross but real y, real y awkward. Such was the case when I walked into Gertrude’s sitting room and found her lip-locked with Claudius. I’m not sure who was less happy about it. She had asked me to come see her, so the fact was, she was expecting me. Why she wasn’t more careful if she didn’t want to get caught, I just don’t understand. Of course, I haven’t always been as careful in my life as I should be, so maybe it was a mistake. Does it even matter? I froze in my tracks and then left the room as fast as I could, al the while considering Hamlet’s reaction to this stunning turn of events. I couldn’t decide if he’d be more devastated or furious when he found out. I knew I was more disgusted than anything.