by Emma Scott
“I’m behaving myself, Marty,” I said. “I swear. I care about her a lot.”
Understatement of the goddamn century.
Now it was Brenda’s turn to wipe her eyes. She got up from her seat, reached to hold my cheeks and smacked a kiss in the middle of my forehead.
“I’m proud of you,” Martin said. “And shocked. You and Willow. I never saw it coming.”
“There’s some straight-up bullshit,” I said into my water glass.
“Language,” Martin said laughing. “And I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. I was going to make a smart-ass comment about his meddling and matchmaking, but I was too damn grateful.
Martin laced his fingers behind his neck, looking supremely proud of himself. “You and Willow. Sweet lovers love the spring…That’s As You Like It…” He slapped his hand on the table. “As You Like It.” He looked at his wife. “I’ve always wanted to do that one. Can you not see them? Willow and Isaac as Rosalind and Orlando?”
I rolled my eyes and forked a bite of okra, unable to stop smiling myself. “Too soon, Marty.”
“Well, since you’re sticking around…” He grinned and shot me a wink. “But you’ll have to audition first, of course.”
That night, at dress rehearsal, I felt fucking invincible. The pieces of my broken life were falling into place. The only dark spot was my dad. I prayed to any god that was listening to watch over him, make sure he was okay until I could take care of him. I’d see him on Sunday to deliver the week’s money, and I vowed to talk to him. Tell him everything was going to be okay. The silence of my shitty childhood and his abuse was fading. Because of Willow, I was learning to trust my own voice. Because she hadn’t demanded that I be anything more than what I was.
And I love her for it.
The thought slugged me hard. I sat staring into space, flinching when Frank, the stage manager, knocked on the dressing room door.
“Three minutes,” he said. “Three minutes to warm-ups.”
“Hear that, thespians?” Len said, giving his fake white beard another dab of spirit gum. “Three minutes and this dress rehearsal is a go.”
I looked in the mirror, darkening my own light beard and forcing my concentration through my pre-show process. I scrolled through Hamlet’s evolution, mentally mapping his journey through every Act.
“Are you ready, Hamlet the Dane?” Len said. He clapped me on the shoulder, then cringed. “Sorry. You’re doing your mental thing. I respect that.”
I smiled a little. “You respect it, Len, but you never remember.”
He laughed heartily. “I don’t know what kind of happy pills you’ve been taking, mi amigo, but keep’em coming.”
Little by little, everyone cleared out of the dressing room, leaving only Justin Baker and me.
“I know you think you’re hot shit,” he said, straightening his vest in the mirror. “But you’re just the son of the village idiot. And don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing with Willow.” His lip curled. “Happy pills, my ass.”
Which was bullshit. If he knew something concrete, he would’ve spilled it. I stood up, towering over him by a good three inches and holding his gaze. Then I offered him my hand. “Break a leg.”
“Fuck off, Pearce.”
I shrugged and walked out. He wasn’t worth my time. I was fucking flying on a pre-show high, or maybe it was just the exhilaration of making a plan for the future that wasn’t based on desperation and regret.
Martin called us altogether on stage in a circle, and my eyes sought Willow.
She stood across from me, stunningly gorgeous in a simple white dress, square cut across her chest to reveal the swells of her breasts. Her hair was tied in a loose braid, tendrils escaping a gold circlet on her forehead. She was perfectly Ophelia, and I was perfectly Hamlet, and onstage, we were going to destroy each other.
But offstage, our story won’t be a tragedy.
She flashed me a small smile, then looked away, her cheeks coloring.
My blood stirred. Now that I had my plan to be with her, I wanted all of her, all at once. My hands itched to touch her, to hold her, have her beneath me…
Calm the fuck down, I told myself, grateful the material of my costume trousers was thick.
Marty, in his Polonius costume of a purple robe with gold trim, gave us his usual pep talk, then led us through vocal warm-ups and breathing exercises. The tech crew had been in over the weekend loading lights and filters, the sound crew testing levels. The set was done but looked deliberately unfinished. Marty never used elaborate sets for his classic plays. He claimed he preferred keeping things simple and letting the words do the work. I knew his visions were thwarted by lack of funds. Ticket sales and concessions all went to handle rent and back taxes.
I’m going to fix that too, Marty.
An artist friend of his had painted a beautiful watercolor backdrop of Elsinore Castle. A local antique dealer donated a pair of elaborate, throne-like chairs. Everything else was easily brought off and on by a single crewmember in black, and props were minimal.
Including the love letter Hamlet wrote to Ophelia.
The props team designed the piece of parchment, tied with a red ribbon and affixed with a wax seal. Martin, always wanting things as organic as possible, had me write the words myself:
Doubt thou the stars are fire,
Doubt that the sun doth move,
Doubt truth to be a liar,
But never doubt I love.
The words were ours now. Mine and Willow’s.
“Never doubt,” I told her, always leaving out the rest of the line. My heart crashed against my chest again because that was something left to tell her too. How I would come back and live here with her, if that’s what she wanted.
Frank called places. I waited backstage, watching the two armed guards take their places on the apron. Willow was somewhere in the dark of the opposite wing.
I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath. I didn’t push away thoughts of Willow, or Justin, or my father, or anything else. I let it all in. Let my life’s experiences meld with Shakespeare’s words so I could give them life with my life.
The play began.
My scenes with Willow were exactly as Marty had envisioned: layered with pain beneath the mocking jokes and wordplay Hamlet used to confuse and outsmart everyone around him.
The love was there first…
Willow was astounding, but it was her scene toward the end of Act Four that blew the house down. When Laertes came back from Paris, ranting about avenging Polonius’s death, only to find Ophelia unraveled by madness.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
Her hair, out of its braid, was wild and unkempt, hanging in her face. Her dress was gone, leaving her in a white slip smudged with dirt and grime.
Like the night in the cemetery when she told me her story.
This night, she told her story through Ophelia.
My heart raced, my eyes nearly squinting at the talent radiating out of her. The second she was offstage, I raced around behind the set, nearly tripping on a coil rope to get to her, following her white shadow into the women’s dressing room.
My blood was on fire, my hands clenching an unclenching because they were empty of her. I was thirsty and hungry for her. Watching her onstage had ignited an entirely different kind of lust. One that had nothing to do with my need and everything to do with giving her whatever she wanted.
I threw open the door to the dressing room a few seconds after she’d stepped inside. She was alone.
Thank fuck…
Willow whirled around, pressed herself back against the dressing table. Her eyes widened and her lips parted as I shut the door behind me and locked it. We only had one other female cast member—Lorraine—and she was going to be tied up for at least five pages. I had eight or more pages before my cue.
Plenty of time.
“Can I help you?” she asked, pretendin
g calm amusement, though her breathy voice gave her away.
I strode to her, kissed her once. Twice. And then we fell into each other desperately, kissing as if we were each other’s food and water, and the air we needed to breathe.
“We shouldn’t, not here…” she moaned, even as her hands tugged at me as if she couldn’t get me close enough to her body.
“I want you,” I said, backing her against the small dressing table. “God, I want you so fucking bad…”
Desire was in her every touch and kiss, twined with an edge of nervousness. I could feel it in her ragged breath.
“Not that,” I whispered. “I just want you to feel good.” I ran my mouth along her neck, biting the delicate skin there. “I want you to come. Hard…”
Her body loosened like water in my arms.
“Christ, Willow, you were incredible. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I lifted her and set her on the dressing table, stood between her knees to kiss her again, long and deep. My hands plunged in the tangle of her long hair, messy curls spilling over her shoulders and down her back. The eyes staring up at me were wide and dilated.
“What about the show?”
“We have time. I want to kiss you everywhere,” I said against her neck, then raised my head to look at her. “Can I?”
Her lips parted and she sucked in a little breath. Her head bobbed. “Okay,” she said. “I…okay. But hurry.”
My eyes locked on hers, watching for any sign it was too much for her, I slowly slid my hands under her dress, up her thighs that felt like warm silk, and found her underwear.
“Isaac,” she whispered, leaning forward to kiss me wetly. “Please…”
Slowly I slid her underwear down and pulled it off of her legs. I kissed her again slowly this time and then down her neck. Her pulse pounded against my lips. Down, over the tops of her breasts that were pushing out of her dress. Slowly working my way down until I knelt between her legs. My hand slid up her thighs again, pushing up her dress.
“You tell me to stop and I stop,” I said. “Okay?”
She nodded.
“Say the word, baby.”
“Yes.” She held my gaze for a moment and the liquid blue of her eyes was full of trust. “Yes, Isaac,” she said.
And again.
Yes, she said and I was at her knee.
Yes, she breathed and my lips trailed up the inside of her thigh.
Yes, she cried as I found the center of her.
Only yes until she had to bite the word back to keep from screaming as I tasted her for the first time. She gasped and her hips bucked beneath me. I slipped my arms underneath each of her legs, my hands on her hips, her legs over my elbows. Holding her open to delve deeper, taste her, suck and lick and bring her as much pleasure as she could handle.
Her hands made painful fists in my hair and my erection strained against my pants. I concentrated on her, even as the urge to take myself in hand coursed through me.
The climax was rising in her.
“Oh, my God, please let me…”
“Now, baby,” I said against her flesh, and delved a final time, sucking the sweetness out of her.
She bit back a cry and arched her back. I stayed with her, kept my mouth on her with long slow strokes until she collapsed down, shuddering.
“My God,” she panted. “Oh my God, Isaac.”
I kissed a trail back along her thigh on the opposite leg this time and pulled her skirts down. Above me, she was so fucking beautiful, her face flushed, and the current of ecstasy only slowly draining from her.
“Come here,” she breathed.
She grabbed me by the front of my doublet and kissed me hard. Her hand slipped down to my erection, feeling the size and shape of me through the material. “This isn’t fair to you.”
“It’s plenty fair,” I said, and quickly adjusted myself. “And I think I’m about out of time.” I kissed her a final time and moved toward the door. “You’re going to kill them on opening night. Fucking dead.”
“Isaac.”
I stopped at the door. “Yeah, baby?”
“I…” She swallowed and I saw tears glittering in her eyes. “Nothing. You should go. You’ll miss your cue.”
I rushed back to her, took her face in my hands. “Whatever you see happening between us, Willow, I see it too.”
A little breathy gasp escaped her. “Really?”
I could’ve fucking cried at how happy she was. I kissed her quick, not trusting my own voice, and hurried out of the dressing room and straight into Justin Baker. He shook his head at me in the dark.
“You think a guy like you is going to keep a girl like that? The way her dad is?” He snorted. “Yeah, good luck with that.”
I moved to him, loomed over him. “She doesn’t like you, Baker,” I said with detached casualness. “No matter what you do, or say, she’ll never choose you.”
He scoffed at me but had nothing more to say. I went to the edge of the backstage to get ready for my cue, and made it with one line to spare, my voice loud and booming now. I didn’t fear Justin. Or Willow’s dad. I feared nothing.
Until.
Willow
When I walked into school Monday morning, I picked up a strange energy. The halls seemed to buzz as I passed, clumps of students standing together, talking intently. Some stopped when they saw me, and the girls formerly known as the Plastics outright stared as I walked past. A sliver of fear slid down my back that Isaac and I had been found out.
Get over yourself, I thought. All this talk can’t be for me.
But why were so many people staring at me?
When I arrived at English class, the entire room swiveled to look at me. Justin ceased his conversation with Jessica Royce, and they both gave me a strange look. Justin’s was quietly smug. Jessica’s softer, as if she were ashamed and not hiding it well.
I found Angie’s face in the crowd and hurried to sit beside her.
“What the hell is going on?”
“Is your phone on? I tried to text you, like, a thousand times this morning.”
“It’s in my bag,” I said, reaching around to grab it. “I can’t text and ride my bike.”
Angie was waving her hands and shaking her head. She motioned me close and held my hand in hers. “I just found out this morning. Everyone did.”
“Found out what?” A cold dread slipped down my back.
“Yesterday, there was an explosion at the Pearce Wexx station on Calhern.”
I froze up. Tentacles of ice spread outward from my chest so I could hardly breathe.
“When?”
“Sometime in the afternoon. They say the whole thing blew. Huge fireball. Charles Pearce was gravely injured. Burns all over his body. They said—”
“What about Isaac?” I asked, gripping her hand until she winced. “He was there on Sunday. That’s the day he goes to give his dad money… Oh my God. I’m going to be sick.”
I pulled my phone from my bag and called up my text messages. Eight from Angie. None from Isaac.
“Oh God,” I whispered.
“Now hold on,” Angie said, swallowing hard. “No one said anything about a second person being there.”
My mind immediately offered the worst possible scenario.
Because nothing was left of him. Huge fireball. They haven’t found the body.
With shaking hands, I texted Isaac.
I just heard. Where RU? Are U OK?
No reply. The message read ‘delivered’ but not ‘read.’ I couldn’t sit here, watching and waiting.
“Which hospital?” I asked Angie, grabbing my bag, my voice rising. Classmates turned in their seats. “Where did they take Mr. Pearce?”
“Braxton Medical.” Now Angie was grabbing her things. “Hold on, I’ll drive you.”
We ran out of class, Mr. Paulson calling after. Which meant my parents would soon know that I ditched school. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Isaac.
“Ca
ll the hospital,” Angie said, as we climbed into her Toyota. “Ask them how many patients were brought in from the explosion on Calhern.” She glanced at my pale face and shaking hands. “Or maybe not. Honey, try not to panic, okay? The chances that he was there—”
“Are really high,” I finished. “They’re really high, Angie.”
I looked up the phone number for Braxton Medical Center. It felt like an eternity to get someone on the phone. When I did, they told me only one person had been brought in so far, and that was all they could tell me.
“No help,” I said, jabbing the end call button. “He might be okay. Right? Or he might not.”
“You got to stop thinking like that,” Angie said, as she navigated the quiet two-lane highway north toward Braxton. “What about your director? Isaac lives with him, right?”
“Shit yes, Martin.” Panic was turning me stupid. I called up Martin from my contacts, but he didn’t answer. I left a message asking him to call me and then sent him a text as well.
Is Isaac with you? Please tell me he is.
I clutched the phone in my hand, watching the scenery go by outside. The grass and corn had come back for spring. Everything was new and bright and green, while inside, the fear was turning me numb and cold. I was racing toward some terrible unknown future. One with Isaac, or without him.
Just as Angie pulled her car in the parking lot, my phone chimed a text from Martin.
He’s w/me. We’re at the hospital in Braxton. His father was badly burned.
The small sound that burst out of me was half sob, half sigh of relief.
Isaac is OK?
He’s okay, sweetheart.
“He’s okay,” I told Angie, my voice bubbling up with tears. “I’m going to kill him, but right now he’s okay.”
We hurried inside and were directed to the third floor, the burn unit. The waiting area was set far away from the rooms to prevent infection. In a row of chairs, Isaac sat with elbows on knees, head in his hands, flanked by Brenda and Martin Ford on either side of him.
I crossed the waiting room to stand in front of him, my hands clenched to my sides. Wanting to touch him and make sure he was real, while floodgates of emotion I didn’t know I had were pouring out of me.