You in Five Acts(71)

“How so?”

“Well, I was hoping not to have to tell you this, but one of my actors . . .” I swallowed, feigning nervousness so that I could draw it out and enjoy the schadenfreude. “. . . has a drug problem,” I finished.

That finally made Ms. Hagen sit down.

“That’s a very serious allegation,” she said, raising her eyebrows and folding her hands on her wide mahogany desk. “Are you certain you want to make it, now of all times?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” she said, enunciating each word in her low, lilting German-accented English, “that we have a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to drugs at Janus Academy. Once a report has been made, the student in question is subject to a search, and if any illegal substances are found, the student in question is subject to suspension, with the possibility of expulsion. That suspension is immediate, which means that if you report this to me today, and your actor is found in possession of illegal drugs, then your play cannot go on.” She blinked and smiled tightly. “However, if you report this to me on Monday morning, after the play . . .” She raised her hands in a what-can-I do? gesture, letting the rest of the sentence float unsaid in the air between us. “I just wouldn’t want you to lose your spot at Tisch over someone else’s poor judgment,” she added.

I was way ahead of her; I knew that if I sabotaged Showcase entirely, I would just be committing a different type of suicide. I didn’t want to blow everything to smithereens. I just wanted to take out two specific targets.

“Believe me, I don’t, either,” I said. “But she’s barely lucid. I can’t put her onstage. I don’t think I have a choice.”

Ms. Hagen took a deep breath. “She. All right. So I assume we’re talking about Olivia.”

I nodded, as if it pained me to give you up. (It did pain me to give you up, by the way. Letting go of the image I had of you, of the pedestal I’d built brick by brick for you, and the hope I had for us, was agony.)

“I’ll need you to write and sign a statement detailing exactly what you know or suspect,” she said. “Tomorrow I’ll meet with the dean, and assuming he wants to proceed, security guards will search her locker, and then we’ll detain her and search her person pending the results of the locker.” She reached under her desk and pulled out a legal pad, which she pushed across to me along with a heavy fountain pen. “I should tell you,” Ms. Hagen added, “She’s entitled to know who reported her. This isn’t anonymous.”

“That’s OK,” I said. “I don’t care if she hates me. I just want her to get help.” The first part was a given—you already hated me, I’d made sure of that. The second part was sort of true. I did want you to get help, but only after everyone at school knew why you needed it.

“If evidence of drug abuse is uncovered, we do work with families on finding treatment centers.”

“Great,” I said. I was already writing.

“You know—” She put a hand on mine, halting me mid-word; the pen scratched across the paper in a jagged line. “It occurs to me that this doesn’t have to end your play. Couldn’t you find an understudy?”

“Everyone else is already cast in something,” I said. “Besides, there’s no way anyone could learn so much dialogue and blocking in two days.” I paused, preparing to deliver the masterstroke. “But there is another play I wrote. It’s a black box–style monologue, really easy to set up. And I know it by heart.”

Ms. Hagen frowned. “I’d have to vet it before approving it,” she said.

“Of course.”

“And that’s bad news for David Roth. He won’t graduate either without the credit.”

I shrugged, finished my statement, pushed it across the desk, and went back into the empty theater. The house lights were still on, and my bridge to nowhere filled the stage, looking more fake than I’d ever noticed before. Just like you, I remember thinking.

It was all so stupid. I know that now, OK? But at the time, there didn’t seem like anything worse. I had basically forgotten about the drugs at that point. Substances could kill your body, but they couldn’t break your heart. What you’d done to me was the depths of human misery as far as I was concerned. All I wanted was to hurt you back.

I didn’t mean to set the final act in motion. I didn’t mean to get anyone killed.





Act Five


   Diego





Chapter Twenty-Seven


    May 10

3 days left


I’VE FELT THE WORLD slow down three times. One was the first day I stepped on a stage. For me, ballet was athletic, just another sport with less padding, same as what I did on the courts every weekend with the guys from my neighborhood, even if they gave me never-ending shit for the tights—which, I mean, come on. Dancers wore tights and lifted up beautiful girls, eye-to-crotch level, and that was “gay.” Wrestlers wore tights and pressed their faces in one another’s nuts, but that was legit. Okay.

Anyway, most of the time dancing felt like hard work, all coiled muscles and springing steps and torque and sweat and effort, but once my feet left the ground? Man, it was like I was flying. Everything got still and soft for a second, just a second, but it was enough to hook me. It was a breath before I came back down to Earth. It was the only time the clock stopped. The second thing that made it happen was kissing you.