Austen Box Set

by Hart, Staci

  And so my tears spilled down my cheeks in hot streams as I reached for Greg’s hand, needing something to tether me to the ground. Romeo tried to wake her, lifted her up, and Juliet was a rag doll but still graceful, poised and beautiful, even in death. And the poison slipped past his lips just as she woke. The vision of her hands on his face and hers bent in pain, shining with tears. His body, too heavy to lift. The dagger, too sharp for hesitation. And she crawled back to him, nestled in his chest, held his face once more, pressed a final kiss to his lips, and then she was gone.

  Their parents entered to find them both dead, and I sagged into Greg, my eyes finally closing as I let the wash of emotion win, my hiccuping sobs drowned out by the orchestra. And the curtain closed as the applause rose. We were on our feet in a breath, clapping through the curtain call, clapping until our hands stung and cheeks ached from smiling.

  People began to exit, standing to pack the aisles, but rather than follow them, Greg sat.

  I eyed him curiously. “Don’t like waiting in lines?”

  At that, he smiled. “No, it’s just that I know how you love surprises.”

  My eyes widened with my smile. “What did you do?”

  “You’ll see. Come here and sit for a minute.”

  I did as I’d been told and leaned on the armrest between us. He was beautiful beyond the strong features of his face, beyond the lines of his body, defined brilliantly by the architecture of his suit. His beauty lay in the depths of his eyes where his heart and soul lived, in the joy of his laughter and the way he cared. Because he did care; he cared deeply.

  There had been a moment under the egg tree in the restaurant when I turned my gaze from the wonders of our surroundings and met his eyes. I didn’t know if it was the magic of the moment or something more, something in the air between us, something in his heart or mine. But for that long moment, we stood under the branches and breathed, our eyes connected. We connected. And I thought—wished—he might kiss me.

  But he’d stepped away with a friendly smile, and I was reminded again exactly what he felt and where the boundaries of our relationship lay.

  I reached for his hand and squeezed. “How can I ever thank you for tonight? It’s been a dream. I wouldn’t have wanted to experience it with anyone but you.” Not even Will, I thought to myself, brushing the words away.

  “You don’t have to thank me, Annie.”

  “But I want to, and someday, I’ll make it up to you.”

  Something in his face shifted, a flash of emotion in his eyes I couldn’t catch before it was gone. “Annie, I…”

  He didn’t—couldn’t?—finish, searching my face, as if the words were written on my cheeks and nose and lips.

  “What?” I asked. The word was barely above a whisper. “You can tell me.”

  Greg took a breath, opening his lips as if to speak, but his eyes shifted to look behind me, and in a second’s time, the moment passed.

  “Ah, here we go,” he said as he stood, his eyes behind me. “Come on.”

  He took my hand, and I followed breathlessly as Juliet herself stood at the side entrance of the stage, waving us up.

  “Oh my God, Greg. Oh my God!” I giggled as he towed me up the stairs and to the stage, not stopping until we were standing right in front of her.

  She was even more beautiful up close. Her blonde hair hung down her back in princess waves, her eyes big and blue, her legs ten miles long in her pink chiffon costume.

  “Annie,” he said with the most marvelous smile on his face, “I’d like you to meet Lily Thomas.”

  She extended her hand, her smile wide and friendly. “I’m so glad to finally meet you. Rose told me all about you.”

  A shocked laugh bubbled out of me. “You’re kidding.”

  But she laughed sweetly. “She tells me pretty much everything, and I know enough about Wasted Words that it’s a wonder I don’t work there myself.” She moved to press her cheek to Greg’s. “It’s good to see you.”

  “You too.”

  “I have to say,” I started with a shaky voice, completely starstruck, “that was incredible. I’ve never…I mean, I’ve been to a few shows, but I’ve never seen anything like that. You were incredible. God,” I touched my warm cheek. “That sounds so corny. I’m just speechless.”

  Lily laughed, her cheeks rosy, too. “Thank you, Annie. Really, it’s all music and lights and production. I’m just lucky to be a part of it all. Can I show you guys around?”

  And to my utter and complete joy, she did.

  We followed her backstage. There was a line of mirrors with lights for the dancers, and props and people were scattered around backstage. She walked us to the sewing station, a special spot littered with supplies to sew their shoes. She even showed me how to do it. I got to hold a real-life ballerina shoe with satin ribbons backstage at a theater in the Lincoln Center.

  I was checking off firsts I hadn’t even known I had.

  By the time we were finished, the stage was mostly empty, and the theater had cleared out other than a few people who seemed to belong there.

  Lily left us to speak to a stern man who glanced at me and back at her with a disapproving arch of his brow and a conceding nod.

  My hand was still in Greg’s. I didn’t even notice until he bent and brought his lips to my ear.

  “I have one more surprise for you.”

  When he reappeared in my line of vision, his smile could have powered the sun.

  “Come with me,” Lily said, waving us behind her.

  Down a set of stairs we went and to a doorway, passing through to bring us into the orchestra pit.

  It was a place I’d dreamed of, a place I’d only imagined until tonight. And the vision left me breathless.

  Greg let me go so I could wander around the cluster of chairs arranged in radiating half-circles, my tentative fingers brushing the tops of the chairs and trays of the music stands. I stepped around the director’s podium and looked up to see the stage and theater from this angle. We were surrounded by the building itself, the sunken space the very heart of the theater, the place where the music lived and breathed.

  I turned back to Greg, tears stinging my eyes again, but it was Lily who said, “Keep going.”

  When I looked back, my gaze found the piano.

  I slowly approached it, touched the ebony and ivory, imagined the sound echoing against the balconies, wondering if, someday, I would be so lucky as to play in a place like this.

  Greg was at my elbow. “Go ahead. Have a seat.”

  I whipped my head around to gape at him. “I can’t.”

  Lily nodded around Greg, grinning. “Yes, you sure can.”

  “Are you…are you sure? I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble. I have full and complete permission,” she said with a sweep of her hand.

  “I know it’s not technically onstage,” Greg said gently, “but I thought you might still be able to cross it off your list.”

  “I can’t…I can’t believe…” I muttered and took a wobbly step toward the bench.

  Greg had ahold of me from behind before my foot hit the ground, one hand cupping my elbow and the other on my waist.

  “Annie, are you all right?” The worry in his voice almost broke me into a million pieces.

  “I’m fine. I’m better than fine,” I answered with thanks I couldn’t possibly verbalize.

  My heart threatened to fight its way out of my chest, and I sat, partly to catch my breath. But once I was at those keys, I looked to Lily once more for permission, which she gave in the form of an encouraging nod.

  And so, I played.

  It was Mendelssohn, slow and haunting, crescendo and decrescendo, the sound floating up and into the space above me until each note disappeared, though my fingers kept going, kept making notes to fill the vast expanse of the room. And all of the feeling I had in me, every ounce of hope and love and joy and pain moving through me, through my hands, to the keys and hammer
s, to the strings and away.

  When my fingers stilled, my cheeks wet with tears, I knew that there in that theater, on that bench, I had found the thing I wished for above all.

  To play.

  Lily swiped tears from her face and sighed, a deep and cleansing sound. “That was…God, Annie. That was lovely. Thank you.”

  I shook my head, brushing my cheeks. “Oh, please don’t thank me. Not after the way you danced and not after arranging for me to play here. I should be thanking you.”

  “Consider us even then,” she said ardently. “And I’d do anything for Greg’s girl.”

  I froze. Greg was still as stone.

  Lily kept talking. “When Greg told us he’d finally found someone, we all scrambled to help out. You know,” she said with a laugh, “we’d been trying to find him a worthy girlfriend for years, and it was just never a good match. But you two just look right together, does that make sense? I guess he just needed us to butt out once and for all.” She chuckled, sniffling, and ran her fingers under her eyes again. “God, I’m a mess. Between your playing and tonight’s suicide, I’m all tapped out.”

  She laughed, and we mad a sad attempt to join her to as we followed her out of the pit, but the sound was tight and distracted. Both our minds whirred; I could feel his spinning just as well as I could feel my own.

  My first thought was that it had to be a misunderstanding. She’d misconstrued what he’d said, jumped to conclusions, read into something that wasn’t there.

  My second thought was that Greg had exaggerated the situation so he could secure the surprise for me.

  But when I chanced a look at him, when I saw his face, unmasked and open and full of the truth of his heart, I knew.

  All the times I’d denied it came tumbling through my mind. All the moments between us fell under a spotlight—my hands in his hoodie pocket, the look on his face when I’d played in the park, the pain behind his eyes when he’d told me he didn’t want me, not like that. I’d experienced them all completely in the dark.

  I was stupid, a naive child who felt every bit my age.

  Greg hadn’t said a word.

  We said our thank-yous and good-byes, and we walked out of the theater in silence as thick and heavy as midnight.

  Greg didn’t hate Will just for his sister’s sake; he wanted me for his own.

  He hadn’t tried to give me the tickets to the ballet just to be a friend; he had done it because he couldn’t stand to be with me if he couldn’t have me.

  When I’d thought he wanted to kiss me under the egg tree, it hadn’t been my imagination.

  But despite all that, he’d put his feelings aside, kept them secondary to what I wanted, what I felt, what I needed. He’d indulged every whim, every request, and not because of his regard for my friendship.

  And I didn’t know where that left me.

  After tonight, after the magic and easy joy that always sparked between us, I asked myself the question, Do I have feelings for him?

  And I found the answer was a resounding yes.

  But I had a boyfriend, a boyfriend whom I had feelings for, too.

  My heart was split, the lines of friendship and love too blurred to define. The two men were complete opposites. Will was cavalier and forward with his feelings while Greg stepped back and kept his heart hidden from me. Where one was loud and obvious, the other was quiet and subtle. Where Will seemed to care for my feelings equally to his own, Greg put mine above his.

  But Will was my boyfriend, and Greg was my friend. And I found myself feeling foolish and blind and without direction. Because the truth of the matter was that I’d wanted Greg to kiss me. I wanted Greg to want me. Because I wanted him.

  But I wanted Will too, and I couldn’t comprehend how that was possible.

  It wasn’t until the cab pulled away from the curb that I mustered the courage to speak, not knowing what I’d say. But I had to say something.

  He stared out the window, the strong angles of his face casting shadows on the planes.

  “Greg—”

  “Does Will make you happy?” It was as if he’d been waiting for me to speak, the question on his lips waiting eagerly to escape. Maybe he had been waiting on me to garner courage of his own.

  Either that or he didn’t want to hear what I’d been about to say.

  “I…” I started, my composure teetering. I couldn’t finish because I didn’t know how to answer him honestly. Did he make me happy? Sometimes. Was I happy? No, in that moment, I wasn’t at all.

  But what I did know was the answer I was supposed to give when someone asked me if my boyfriend made me happy. So, I defaulted.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “What about him makes you happy?”

  “Well…” I thought about it for a set of irregular heartbeats, feeling myself unravel like a ball of yarn. “He…he’s…well, he knows poetry and literature. He brings me flowers, knew to take me places he couldn’t have possibly known I wanted to go—”

  “Those are things that he does,” Greg interrupted, his voice short and tight. “What about him? About the man himself? Tell me, Annie, for the love of God, because I need to hear that you’re happy so I can let you go.”

  My heart lurched in my chest, my lungs tightening as a slow ache filled my rib cage.

  But I had no answer to give. Because the man Will was—I realized it in that moment, far too late—was unknown to me. He was a stranger, and it wasn’t him who had made me so happy but the idea of him, the prospect of happiness so much more than the man himself.

  Greg, on the other hand, wasn’t a stranger at all.

  I reached to lay my hand on his forearm, but when he turned, when he pinned me with his gaze, so hurt and heavy with longing, the little bit of air left in my lungs disappeared.

  Those emotions had been there all night, since before that, since always perhaps. But the smooth mask had fractured and crumbled and fallen away like dust, and the truth of his feelings were written in every curve and line of his face.

  “Every day, it’s gotten harder, every day since you met him. I’ve wanted to tell you how I feel, how you make every day brighter, better. How you’re what I look forward to each time I walk through the doors, how you’ve changed the way I see the world. But you want him, and I couldn’t interfere. So, I tried. I tried to stand aside, tried to be your friend. I’ve done everything you asked because it makes me happy to see you happy, but it hurts me, too. Coming here tonight was a mistake. I tried…I tried to give you the ticket. I tried…” Weariness cracked his voice, his Adam’s apple bobbing in the column of his throat. “I thought I could do it, but I can’t. It hurts too much.”

  He looked out the window again, and I stared at his profile.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, not knowing what else to say. Because I couldn’t tell him what I didn’t know. I couldn’t give him answers I didn’t have. I couldn’t tell him I wanted him, and I couldn’t tell him I wanted Will.

  I couldn’t bridle my racing heart.

  He didn’t speak for a long moment, a moment so heavy and thick, I felt like I might drown in it.

  But he finally said, “Don’t be sorry, Annie. You’ve done nothing wrong. I wish you every happiness, and I hope he endeavors to be the man you deserve.” He turned the weight of his gaze on me, stopping my heart for a breath. “But I can’t do this. I can’t torture myself with your company, knowing you think of me like a brother or a friend. I can’t bear it.”

  “We…we can’t be friends?” I said, my voice trembling.

  His throat worked, his jaw tight and eyes deep and dark. “Not now.” He looked away. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come.”

  I wanted to argue. I wanted to tell him no, that the night was perfect, that he was the person I’d wanted to share that night with, who I wanted to share a hundred more nights with. I wanted to tell him I was sorry. I wanted to beg him to change his mind.

  But shock left me speechless.

  The cab pulled
up to the curb, and we sat in silence for a second, then another, and another until it was too much. So, I opened the door and slipped out of the car, standing in the open mouth of the doorway.

  “I’ll see you around, Annie.”

  And then I closed the door, not knowing if I’d responded or what I’d said if I did, not knowing what I wanted or needed, what was right or wrong, what was true or false, as I watched the taxi drive away.

  Welcome to Hell

  Annie

  My alarm beeped piously to wake me, but its efforts were lost. I’d been awake for at least an hour, lying in the dimness of the stormy daylight.

  The colorless morning matched my heart.

  Sleep had eluded me through most of the night; my mind had been consumed with all the things I should have said, should have done, should have known. Crying had given me no relief, no shed of emotion, no fresh perspective.

  The night before resurfaced, the rush of happiness, the familiar comfort of Greg’s company, the feeling of his arm under my palm, the look on his face when I’d played.

  And the moment it’d fallen apart brought that joy down like a wrecking ball.

  I’d lost him. I’d hurt him.

  It didn’t matter that I hadn’t known how he felt; I should have. I should have seen what his kindness meant. I should have seen the truth of his feelings. I should have told him I felt the same.

  But I hadn’t. Mostly because I’d had the obvious truth brought out from under my nose. And partly because I’d felt so much shame in the shadow of my inexperience. I was a fraud, a pretender, a little girl playing dress-up in her mama’s heels, trying to be a grown-up.

  My phone was still in my hand, the alarm turned off without any memory of quieting it. When it buzzed, I glanced at it, surprised. My heart jumped off a bridge when I saw it was Will, hitting the ground with an anxious thud when I read his message.

  Hope your date was nice.

  Nice. One couldn’t ever say nice like that and it mean anything other than a lie.

  I unlocked my phone and opened my messages to answer, wishing I could say nothing at all.

  It was fun—I deleted fun—eventful. I deleted the whole thing and stared at my screen for a second.