by Daryl Banner
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.
Chapter 23
Dessie
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.
He didn’t hear your song. Not one note.
He’s deaf.
My eyes flick open. Suddenly, it’s not his sexy face that I see; it’s his half-turned, oblivious face at the Theatre mixer. The first time I ever saw him. I hear myself trying to get his attention again.
Then, I see him walk away like I wasn’t even worth his breath.
I see him after he caught me singing to myself in the auditorium. The menacing twist of his lips into a frown … the tattoo drawn up his neck … his heavy-lidded
eyes as he stares me down.
I don’t have an anger problem.
I have a deaf problem.
For some reason, it strikes me harder now than ever. My fantasy is shattered, and as fast as it’d come, suddenly I’m just a girl on a bed with a hand between my legs.
My eyes pool with tears. I bite on my lip, refusing to let them fall. Then when I turn on my side to sleep, they spill onto my pillow.
I don’t know if I get any sleep. I feel like I blink and then the morning’s come, and magically Sam and her light snoring are back from wherever she was, and the date on my phone is the one Friday in all of time that I’m most dreading.
It’s like I have stage fright and I’m nowhere near the stage.
I want to throw up, but my stomach is so empty and I haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday.
My head spins when I sit up, the morning light touching my face in orange, fiery stripes through the blinds. There isn’t a speck of rain spattering on the window; only golden sunshine and birds chirping.
Fucking great.
After I’m dressed for the day and have a bag packed for tonight with my post-show outfit and stage makeup, I catch Sam sitting on the edge of her bed wearing one of her old shirts and staring forlornly out the window.
“You alright?” I ask, joining her by the window.
She smirks and says, “Well. There’s this guy Tomas. Spelled without an ‘H’. And he wanted to do something with me this weekend.”
“That’s good news! Oh.” I frown. “Do you even like him?”
“That’s the problem. I mean, he’s cute, I guess.” Hearing Sam call a guy “cute” in her monotone voice is probably an experience I’ll never be able to compare to anything, ever. “But, like, he plays the bassoon.”
I lift my eyebrows. “Yeah?”
“I can’t be with someone who plays the bassoon.”
I spot the frat boys playing Frisbee in the courtyard, but today they have their shirts on. I wonder if the rain brought a cool front with it.
“There’ll be some things about the guys we’re into that we think we can’t handle,” I tell her in a wistful tone, watching as one of the guys races across the grass, nearly colliding into the fountain to catch the Frisbee. “Maybe if we tried to hear the bassoon in a new way, we might find that we can … sympathize with the bassoon. Maybe it doesn’t sound as awful as we thought. Maybe it’s even … sort of beautiful.”
Who exactly am I talking about right now?
Sam sighs her words: “You’ve obviously never heard a bassoon.”
I face her. “Why don’t you bring him to my show tonight? I have a pair of comps. I’ll set them aside for you at the box office. It’ll be safe, you’ll get to see a horrible show in which I showcase my abysmal lack of talent, and afterwards, you’ll have the perfect excuse to just come back here if you don’t want to spend any more time with him.”
“Bassoon boy,” she mutters sulkily.
I sit on my bed across from her. My bag lands at my feet with a heavy thud. “I bet you could compose some pretty songs together with your piano and his bassoon.”
“Or a flute. Or an oboe. Or literally anything other than a bassoon.”
“Give him a chance,” I tell her, “but only if you like him. I’m leaving those tickets for you, whether you use them or not.”
She meets my eyes with her big, hazel ones. She gives a short sigh, then says, “I never thanked you for all the … the clothes, and … for my hair, and … and …”
“No thanks needed,” I assure her. “I didn’t do it because there was anything wrong with you, Sam. You should be whatever you want to be, look however you want to look. Wear that old, unspeakable shirt if you want,” I add teasingly. “I … really, I just wanted to show you another world out there. I want you to see other options. I want you to wonder what causes someone to love the bassoon so damn much that he picks it as the instrument to give his music a voice.”
“Insanity, probably,” she reasons.
“Everyone deserves a piece of the world,” I go on, standing on my soapbox in this cramped little half-lit dorm room, “but we aren’t all given equal chances in life, are we? Regardless, it’s important that we do our best with what we have, despite other people’s every effort in keeping us as pressed into the ground as possible. What better way to live than to make those people’s efforts a waste?”
I wonder how many times my mother’s carefree criticism kept me from pursuing a passion of mine. I feel my beautiful sister’s cold eyes as they survey my latest failure, and I wonder how often I’ve let their efforts keep me trapped in this pretty little Lebeau box of expectations of what I ought to be.
To my impassioned speech, Sam lifts her chin and says, “I guess a bassoon can kinda sound like an English horn. Kinda. Not really.”
That’s a start. “You know what, Sam? I’m starved,” I say and realize at the same time. “Want to grab some breakfast with me before class?”
“Yes,” she deadpans, eyes widening.
Breakfast never tasted so good. The nerves leave me alone, granting me an oasis of peace as I enjoy a tasty meal. Sam tells me about her midterms, which consist of three separate compositions, a group project involving composers from the Baroque era, and something about music history. She envies my ability to stand on a stage in front of people, and I tell her to hold off on that envy until after tonight.
My acting class is a merciful reprieve, as I’d already performed my pieces last week and simply have to sit back and watch others today as they are systematically humiliated or praised in front of the class by the long-nosed, cool-eyed Nina. I can’t be bothered to pay attention to their public torture; I have my own to dread.
After class when I make a quick trip to the box office to secure my roommate’s tickets, I’m dismayed to find that the show is nearly sold out already. The best I can get Sam is two tickets on the end of row R, which is not ideal, but it’ll have to do.
When the tickets are paid for and left at will call, Ariel floats up to my side. “Picking up tickets for your family?” she asks in a saccharine tone. “I hope you got front row!”
I shake my head without looking at her. “Roommate,” I mumble.
“Break a leg tonight,” she says almost too quickly, as if she wasn’t really interested in who the hell the tickets are for. “I hear the house is nearly sold out.”
“Just made that discovery myself,” I share. “See you later.” I turn to go, sliding out the glass doors.
She follows. “You know, I think it’s for the best.”
I frown. What the hell is she talking about? “Sorry?”
“You and him. Same thing that happened to me, sweetheart. I did try to warn you. Hey,” she says brightly, “I have someone you should meet. He’s really, really sweet. He’s a friend of mine. When I first met him, I thought he was gay, but he’s actually just super nice and, like, totally not gay. But by the time I found out, I was already engaged to Lance, so …”
She talks so fast, I have to stop. We barely made it out of the courtyard. “What the hell are you going on about?”
Ariel blinks. “I want to introduce you to him, obviously. I mean, not tonight, of course. It can be whenever you like. I mean—”
“I don’t need to meet anyone,” I spit back. Who the fuck does she think she is? “Why the hell would I need to meet your gay friend?”
“No. He’s not gay. That’s the point, Dessie. I’m trying to introduce you to someone nice, now that you and Clayton are over.”
“We’re not over,” I state. I’m so annoyed, I feel my pulse in my ears.
Ariel sighs and shakes her head. “Oh, Dessie. Everyone has eyes, you know. Eric heard it all from Dmitri, and everyone pretty much knows that you two are caput.”
“I think the whole damn department can keep their fucking nose out of my business,” I fire back at her, seething. “We’re not over.”
“Oh, Dessie,” she breathes once more, shaking her head.
I leave her standing there, unable to hear another breathy sigh or whiny offering from that unbearably annoying ex-girlfriend who acts like she knows what’s best for everyone. I never said we were over. And, as far as I know, Clayton hasn’t said anything similarly about us. The last time I saw him, he had a big fight with Brant over me and Chloe and using women and … I had to leave.
Since that day, our relationship has been reduced to worries and wishes that float around in my head. I haven’t sent him a text and he hasn’t sent me one. Although I think I might’ve caught sight of him once in the grid, I could be mistaken, and other than that, I haven’t seen a trace of him. It’s like he’s deliberately avoiding me.
If I’m honest, I think he scared himself as much as he scared me.
And really, Kellen’s a little shit. Whatever Clayton did or didn’t do to him, I’m sure he deserved it. But still …
I stop at a tree just before the tunnel that goes under the School of Art, plopping down in the grass by the side of the pathway and sulking. Nothing lately has been easy. I don’t know how I feel about Clayton and I. I don’t know what I feel about the show I’m about to premiere tonight. Part of me has been wanting to call my parents all week, but I’ve refrained because I’m afraid of what they’ll say, and whether or not their words will work to completely unravel me before I step foot on that stage. Believe it or not, my mother has a wicked talent of making my confidence crumble to dust before my eyes, even when she’s trying to encourage me. And I won’t even try to describe my sister’s so-called brand of motivation.
I pull out my phone and reread through texts that Clayton and I have shared over the past few weeks. A few back-and-forth messages revive the smile on my face, and before I know it, afternoon’s come and all that’s left of my day is a light dinner—provided I can keep myself from un-eating it—and show time.