Always Never Yours(20)

He glances down. “Right.” He looks up, trying not to read from the script. He swallows uncomfortably. “This same should be the voice of Friar John. Welcome”—his eyes flit to the page—“from Mantua,” he finishes.

“That doesn’t count,” I cut in. “You haven’t even started memorizing, have you?”

“I haven’t had a lot of time,” he grumbles, agitatedly bouncing his knee once or twice. “I had a breakthrough on my next play, and I spent the weekend outlining.”

Curious, I set the script down. “Wait, really? Can I see it?”

“No!” he blurts out, then looks uncomfortable. “It’s just, it’s nowhere near ready,” he says, rubbing his neck.

“What’s it about?” I haven’t exactly met very many teenage playwrights, and I guess I want to know what Owen Okita in particular writes about.

Owen turns his deepest-ever shade of red. “I got inspired by the conversation we had last week, actually.”

“Wow.” I put a hand on my chest, jokingly flattered. “I’ve always wanted to be immortalized in drama.”

He smiles slightly. “It’s about Rosaline. From Romeo and Juliet,” he continues. “There’s, like, nothing about her in the play, but in Shakespeare’s Verona, she could have a life and a story of her own. She could be more than an early piece in someone else’s love story.”

His words deflate me. I’m a little more disappointed than I’d like to admit that this is the inspiration Owen drew from me. “Rosaline’s story isn’t as interesting as Juliet’s,” I say softly. “That’s kind of the whole point.”

“It could be interesting.” Owen sounds defensive, and I don’t blame him. I did just diss his play. “But I’ve been having trouble getting into Rosaline’s head.”

“Hence the weekend of not memorizing your lines,” I say.

He shrugs. “There’s just not that much about her in Romeo and Juliet, and it’s hard to get into the mindset of this minor character who’s left in a strange position from the events of the play.” He folds the spine of the script in his lap, his thumb stained dark blue with ink. “I have to find her direction. Is she heartbroken? Or maybe she’s embittered and pleased with Romeo’s death.”

“Or she knows fate won’t give her some star-crossed love, and she’s trying to convince herself it’s a good thing.” The thought leaps to my lips before I know where it comes from. Hoping Owen doesn’t read something more into my comment, I stand up sharply.

He only nods carefully. “That’s really good,” he says, his eyes going distant. He looks like he’s in a different world, or just in his head. It’s the look I saw in the woods and in the restaurant at the cast party—and on his sharp features it’s entirely flattering.

Someone knocks on the green room door, and Owen blinks. I feel an unfamiliar disappointment when that faraway look disappears from his face. I drag myself to the door, hoping it’s not Jody or someone else coming to yell at us—we’re not actually supposed to be in the green room unsupervised.

Instead, I find Madeleine on the other side of the door, fussing with the strings on her Stillmont High sweatshirt and wearing a nervous, giddy smile. “Hey, Madeleine. Everyone doesn’t know we’re back here, right?” I quickly check behind her.

“What?” She looks thrown. “No, Tyler told me you guys were in the auditorium, and I figured you’d be in here . . .” She pauses, visibly uncomfortable. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Yeah.” I open the door wider. “What’s up?”

“Um.” She peers behind me to Owen sitting on the couch. “Just you?”

“Right. Of course,” I say, remembering our talk in the bathroom and realizing exactly what’s on her mind. I step into the wings and shut the green room door behind me. “This wouldn’t have anything to do with the extraordinarily good mood Tyler’s in today, would it?” I ask as Madeleine leads me out of Owen’s earshot.

She turns to me with a tentative smile. “We had sex.”

“You had sex this weekend and waited until the end of the school day to tell me? I demand details in reparations.” I cross my arms with mock-sternness.

She chews her lip. “Really? I’d understand if—”

“Madeleine, stop,” I tell her, dropping my arms to my sides and meeting her eyes. “I’m your best friend. I want to know as much as you want to share.” Her smile returns, tingeing her cheeks light pink. “Was it perfect?” I press.

“He had it all planned out,” she begins hesitantly, her voice wavering with excitement. Her words come more easily as she continues. “He drove us up to the cabin—you know, the one his family owns by the lake. He cooked dinner for the two of us, and he even had a bottle of his parents’ champagne. Then when the sun went down, we went skinny-dipping. It was beautiful, there were stars and everything, like a movie or a postcard or something. And when we went inside . . .” Madeleine leaves the sentence unfinished.

I’m silent for a moment, because what I’m visualizing isn’t a lake and a thousand stars. It’s the couch in Tyler’s basement, the sounds of the Twelfth Night cast party echoing down from upstairs. I enjoyed that experience with Tyler, feeling close to a guy I cared about, and feeling for once like I was important. Like I was the lead in a love story. But neither Tyler nor I imagined it to be this big, life-changing thing. And the décor, the timing—it wasn’t exactly an experience someone would write poetry about.