by Daryl Banner
“See it like one of your songs,” I tell her, fighting through the fear of what irreversible damage I’ve done to my career in the past hour. I’m so angry, I could punch him again until I do draw blood—and it’d be blood from his face, not my knuckles. “See it like a song at the Throng where you own that microphone and that audience is captivated by you. You have this story you need to tell, so tell it.”
Somewhere in that last sentence, my phone shakes in my pocket. When I pull it out, my stomach falls through the floor.
DOC THWAITE
I need to see you
as soon as possible.
Can you drop by my office
within the hour?
Well, I should’ve known it was coming. I can’t tell if I’m wet from the rain or if there’s an instant pool of sweat under my arms. I feel a chill race up my back, but I don’t know if it’s from fear or anger. I could fold that fucker in half right now.
Dessie taps my thigh, then signs: You okay?
The last thing I want to do is draw her into my problems. “I need to head back to the theater,” I say and sign to her. “Maybe we can meet up at my place after rehearsal? I may … I may be occupied … with …”
“The lighting,” she finishes for me, nodding with understanding. “I need some time alone to rehearse before Sam’s back from class,” she says and signs, using the sign for “restaurant” in place of “rehearse”.
And really, I’d much rather be at a restaurant kicking back with her than returning to that theater, where I’m quite sure I’ll not be allowed to step foot into another rehearsal ever again.
Needing it suddenly, I push my face forcefully into hers. Our mouths interlock as if they were starved for one another. Her hand grips my arm instinctively, as if bracing herself for my sudden impact, and my hand grips her thigh hungrily.
I could do so much more to her right now. I want to slide that hand up between her legs and make her moan.
Then, I feel her moan.
Oops.
With my hand tucked between her legs with more aggression than I’d planned, my mouth moves down her neck, nibbling as I go. I feel her trembling against me, her fingers clawing into my arm.
When my mouth reaches her breast, suddenly I stop. All the breath falls out of me and I feel myself seize up with anger.
I can’t even enjoy this.
I feel the vibration of words in her chest. My face pressed against her, I growl with frustration. I don’t know whether to hit someone, break something, or scream out and cry.
Instead, I calmly lift my face to hers. “I gotta go.”
She studies my eyes uncertainly, her lips parted.
I take a breath. “Doctor Thwaite. He texted me, called to his office for a … for a meeting.”
Dessie’s eyes widen. “Doctor Thwaite?” she says. “He actually texts you? You get text messages from the Director of the School of Theatre himself?”
I interrupt her with a kiss, causing her to swallow the last word or two. “Being deaf and being the head lighting guy has its perks,” I mutter.
Head lighting guy—not for long.
I rise off the bed. Before I leave the room, I glance back at her and say, “Tonight? My place, after rehearsal?”
Her eyes small, she simply nods.
Dessie, you know how to break my heart and put it back together with just one simple nod.
I let the door close softly behind me.
The West Hall falls at my back. What was once a light drizzle has grown into a torrential downpour. I feel the thunder at my feet as I plod through puddles in the road. The tunnel under the Art building provides a short reprieve before the courtyard between the Music and Theatre buildings thrusts me back into the unforgiving rain. Edging by the windows under a lip of canopy, I move unhurriedly toward the glass doors.
Twice my wet hand slips on the handle before the damn thing lets me inside. Then, once my feet meet the tiled entrance, I nearly slip, catching myself on the trunk of a fake plant near the door. I don’t bother glancing at the lobby to see if anyone witnessed; I just rush ahead, pushing through a crowd of freshmen who look like they’re waiting out the storm before heading to their next class.
I make a quick trip to the restroom, using some paper towels to dry off my hair and shirt as best as I can. It doesn’t matter how I present myself. I know the outcome of this meeting is going to be the same no matter which way my hair’s falling.
I fight an urge to punch the reflection in the mirror. My knuckle’s bled enough today.
The office is eerily empty. I see Dr. Thwaite’s door is open, so I let myself in. He sits at his desk, an older woman in a chair by his side laughing. When the pair of them look up, the laughter ceases.
I’m ready.
Dr. Thwaite gestures toward a free chair in front of his desk. I take my seat and stare at him. Then, as he begins to speak, the woman at his side moves her hands. Oh, she’s the interpreter.
I’m back in high school again, meeting with the principal because of another not-so-innocent kid I beat up, an interpreter seated by the desk, and my sad, irritated parents sitting across from them.
But there are no parents here. Just me, the Doc, and some woman I’ve never met, an interpreter who is not about to get banged in a supply closet after this meeting’s over.
The woman signs his words: Thanks for dropping by on such short notice. We’ve had a situation arise. Kellen has had an emergency. He let me know through an apologetic email, and he’s returning to New York at once.
I swallow hard, my eyes reeled in on the woman’s long, wrinkled hands with the intensity of a hawk.
The woman goes on: I know the lighting work is mostly finished, but there are still details to iron out before opening night. You are the most intimate with Kellen’s design. Is it possible for you to finish it on your own, because of Kellen’s untimely and sudden departure?
I feel sweat all over my forehead. My breath is so heavy, every effort at filling my lungs is exhausting. The room spins around me. Am I the butt of some joke right now? Is Kellen fucking with my head?
The woman prompts me again: Clayton? Are you able to? If it is too much work, Dick can easily do it on his own. I simply wanted to extend the opportunity to you.
“Yes,” I finally say, out of breath. “Yes. Thank you for the chance,” I say to the woman’s hands without being able to look Doctor Thwaite in the eyes. I feel like if he saw them, he’d somehow know the truth.
The woman smiles. Good, she signs.
I stagger out of the office twenty minutes later after he covers all the details, which basically adds about six to eight more hours this week of work at the theater, which I am more than willing to do, considering I thought, after the incident, that I’d be spending exactly zero more hours at the theater.
I take some time to calm down by the side door where the smokers live in a permanent cloud of smoke around that Arnie dude who always seems to be out here. It’s on a bench outside that side door that I stare at my hands and try to make sense out of what happened.
Did Kellen literally just pack up his things and go?
Did I scare him so badly, he opted to hightail it back home instead of confront me again?
Did his guilt over what he did to Dessie outweigh the arrogance he displayed to me?
Maybe that’s it. Maybe he couldn’t risk me—and maybe also Dessie—exposing what he’d done, ruining his reputation with Dessie’s dad and/or Thwaite.
But that doesn’t quite add up either. He could simply have played a her-word-against-his sort of thing. I’ve seen guys like that before, guys who push their weight around, who wear their importance or their family name like armor, invincible to anything that comes their way.
Though, his soft face and those fuck-off designer glasses didn’t prove so invincible to my fist.
Rehearsal glues me to Dick and to the lighting instruments more than it does to the stage, which is regrettable since I wanted to watch Dessie and
give her some words of encouragement when I see her later. Every action seems surreal now with Kellen gone, likely with the bruise I left on his cheek still smarting, and having had not only no consequence served to me, but being given a reward instead. Dick is far calmer, far more fun, and arguably even more educational to work with. We become a team and end up finishing Monday’s work in half the time than we’d expected. Because part of Kellen’s work for the funeral in act three wasn’t finished, I even get to implement that idea I had, if I were able to design the show myself. Dick goes along with it, happy to just have the work done. “What the hell was Kellen doing with you that took him so damn long?” Dick jokes to me, if I got his words right. I tell him it would take anyone longer to hang and focus lights with a stick up their ass, and Dick laughs a bit too hard at that.
When it’s nearly eleven and the stars are trying to poke through the pitch-nothing of the sky, Dessie finds me waiting for her on a bench. Her hair is messy and tangled, which gives her this feral sexiness that gets me going the moment I see her. When I bend in for a kiss, though, she seems distracted, her eyes lost in the distance somewhere. “What’s wrong?” I ask her, but all she signs back is: I’m tired.
When we make it to the apartment, Brant and Dmitri are gone. Normally that means Dessie and I can let loose and have a little fun, but there’s tension in her eyes and no smile touches her face. When she sets down her things, she goes straight to my bed and lies down without another word. I watch her through the bedroom door for a moment, confused. Was something said to her at rehearsal? Is Victoria being a bitch again? Victoria attends some of the rehearsals now, sent alternatingly with some of the other costume crew members to tend to meticulous costume adjustments.
For some reason, I’m not too sure that she wants me over there to comfort her. I feel so much distance suddenly, and can’t separate my misgivings about Kellen’s sudden departure with Dessie’s coldness to me. Some dark, piteous part of me feels like I deserve this.
But then why did she agree to come over?
Brant’s door opens suddenly and he peeks his head out, his eyes finding mine.
I guess we aren’t as alone as I thought we were.
Since Dessie’s eyes are closed and she’s cuddled up with one of my pillows, I let her rest, closing the door softly, then draw up to the kitchen counter where Brant’s perched himself on a stool, snacking straight out of a cereal box. He asks me if things are okay—I assume he means between Dessie and I, according to the nod of his head at my room. I shrug, pushing palms into my eyes and sighing deeply.
Brant taps me on the arm and puts a screen in my face, causing my eyes to squint:
Shes not mad at u
bout the Chloe thing,
is she??
I read his text several times. Then, I put two-and-two together, and a whole new wave of anger finds its way up my neck, reddening my face. “What the fuck did you do to Chloe?” I ask, turning on him.
“Dude, it wasn’t serious to begin with,” he tells me, raising his hands in defense, “and she got all clingy, and then she said she loved me, and—”
“You have hundreds of girls on this campus to choose from,” I throw back at him, my temper set off in an instant, “and you pick one of Dessie’s friends?”
“I didn’t pick her. She picked me.”
“The fuck you did,” I retort, shoving a hand into his chest. Brant falls against the wall, and whatever trace of humor was in his face is now gone. “I taught you how to even talk to girls. Remember, bitch? You seem to forget that fact, you scared piece of shit. Back then, you couldn’t even approach one without pissing your little pants.”
Angry, he tries to throw some signs at me, saying that I’m the scared piece of shit—but, for the word “scared”, he just wiggles his hands in the air, and how can Brant ever forget his favorite sign “poop”?
“I taught you how to talk to girls to give you confidence,” I say over his dumb signing. “Not to turn you into the fuckin’ philanderer you’ve become. If the girls you meet were smart, they’d stay the fuck away.”
He says something to me, but I’m not in the mood to read lips; it’s his turn to read mine.
“And respect?” I push on. “Where the fuck’s your respect, Brant? You can pull it out all you want, put your mark on every tree you pass, but you keep that dick away from my girl and away from her friends. It’s called fucking respect.”
He lifts his chin and starts shouting at me. I don’t have a clue what he’s saying.
“Real smart,” I say through all his shouting. “Keep it up, Brant. Keep screaming and yelling at your deaf friend. Scream a little louder, help your buddy out, I can’t hear you yet.”
He shoves his hands into my chest, still yelling. I hardly budge.
“That all you got, you fuckin’ slut?”
He shoves me again. I put a hand on his chest and give him my own version of a shove, and that puts him flat against the wall once again. I see the stunned look in his eye as his hat flips off his head from the impact, dropping to the floor.
I come up to Brant, nose-to-nose, and pin him to the wall with my mere presence. With a growl that’s summoned from somewhere dark and deadly, I say, “You’re not worth any decent woman’s time.”
His eyes meet mine. I expected him to knock me really good in the face for that one. Maybe I want him to. Maybe I need to be knocked the fuck out so I can quit feeling all this rage inside me that has nowhere to go. This rage has lived in me for so long, the rage of being submitted to a silent world, of being thrust off the pedestal I didn’t realize I was standing on at the smart and tender age of twelve. It makes it so much easier to be alone. It makes it so much easier to hate people. The rage has been my friend since day one, protecting me from the assholes who tried to fuck with me.
All the fury seems to drain from Brant’s eyes. This close, I see that anger slowly replaced with hurt.
I swallow hard. I don’t know whether to regret the words, apologize, or punch a hole through the wall by his head.
Then his eyes shift. I turn around. Dessie’s standing in the hallway.
How much of this did she hear?
She signs: Is this the “you” that you’ve been hiding? You have an anger problem? Her signs are all wrong, but I get the gist, and the gist sucks.
My fists are so balled up, I could draw blood from my own palms.
“I don’t have an anger problem,” I growl through the stinging silence, then sarcastically add, “I have a deaf problem.”
He texted me, she returns with her hands, and then she spells out his name: K-E-L-L-E-N.
My fist breaking his glasses in half replays ten times in my head. I feel my teeth clattering together.
“He told me to beware of you,” she says and signs. Instead of “beware”, she signs “scared”, which I guess is just as accurate. I watch her lips, each word causing its due damage. “He didn’t tell me why, but I know he left early. Eric told me at rehearsal. What happened? Did he leave because of you?”
All I can do is stare at her. What would be the easiest thing to say? I punched him because of what he said about her, making me sound like some possessive jerk? Or, had I not stopped, I would’ve thrown fists into him until there was nothing left of his pompous fucking face?
Why does it feel like I lose no matter what I say?
“He just … He just had to go.” My words ride on the last wisp of breath in my lungs.
Her bag’s hanging at her side. I just now notice it. She pulls it over a shoulder, telling me she has to go.
“Dessie,” I plead.
Then I follow, calling after her. Only once she’s outside the door does she finally glance back. It isn’t her leaving that hurts me the most.
It’s the look of fear in those eyes.
The rain hasn’t stopped all week. They’re saying if it keeps it up this badly, our turnout for the weekend may suffer.
To that, I say, let it suffer.
I couldn
’t dream of a better outcome than to perform in front of an audience of three.
Or two.
Or none.
I listen to the spattering of rain against my dorm window, not wanting to go to sleep just yet, because that means it’ll be Friday, and with Friday comes the dreaded opening night.
I breathe deeply, willing myself to calm down.
I’ve spent days trying to reconcile how I feel about Clayton, about Chloe and Victoria and their judging eyes, about Kellen and his cryptic warning—or Clayton and his cryptic explanation of said warning. The enraged look in his eyes when he’d finished yelling at Brant keeps resurfacing, scaring me anew.
I know what it’s like to get close to someone, only to have them turn into someone else entirely. I know how far a man’s willing to go to convince a woman he’s the best thing under the sun, while actually being as unreliable as the moon, its phase changing each night.
And I’m so scared to experience that again.
No matter how good his arms feel around me.
Or his tongue.
Or his …
I run a hand down my body, squeezing shut my eyes and trying to envision his sexy face from the first time he stared at me with that hunger in his eyes. My hand is cool as ice as it makes its way between my legs. I gasp as a finger teases me below. Clayton Watts.
He’s bad news, Des.
I huff, annoyed at the invading voices. I try to recapture his face, my finger searching for pleasure. I moan, finding it again. I breathe deeply.
All the new students want him. Stay away.
He’s bad, bad news.
No one goes near the Watts boy.
I huff again, pushing away all the stupid warnings from my stupid friends.
Their thorns will prick you just the same. It’s in their nature.
I touch myself. I feel my heart picking up pace. I lick my lips and run my fingers up and down my other lips. My legs squeeze together instinctively, then open up, desperate for him.