Always Never Yours(68)

But Owen’s writing about Rosaline. About me. Part of me—all of me—has to know how he sees her.

The sound of Owen’s and Sam’s muffled voices drifts down the hall, and before I know it, I’ve picked up the notebook. The open page is covered mostly in illegible and crossed-out half sentences, but I can make out a few lines jammed in between the others.

It’s a monologue for Rosaline, and she’s . . . a force of nature. She’s fierce and honest, her words passionate and heartbreaking. But she isn’t tragic, not the way Owen writes her.

“I don’t know how far we’re taking this but—” I hear his voice from the doorway. I turn, holding the notebook, and his face goes rigid. He crosses the room in a split second. “That’s nowhere close to ready.” He grabs the notebook from my hands, his voice hard.

“Why? What you’ve written is good,” I protest. It is good. It’s ringing in my ears, everything he’s written about Rosaline.

“It’s not good enough.” He closes the cover and shoves the notebook in a drawer. The subtle shift in his voice weakens my resistance. For the first time, I didn’t mean to make him blush.

“When do you think I’ll get to read it?” I ask, gentler.

He won’t meet my eyes. “I don’t know. I haven’t exactly made a lot of progress.”

“You need more Rosaline insights from the expert?” I want to help him. He’s drifting into the shy version of Owen, one I haven’t seen in a long time. One it hurts to see.

He smiles slightly. “No. You’ve been great.”

“What then? Is Rosaline just not interesting enough?” I thought he’d written a Rosaline worthy of the page, but I’m beginning to wonder if he disagrees. “You can’t say I didn’t warn you,” I continue, an involuntary edge entering my voice. “There’s a reason she never comes on stage.”

“No.” He shakes his head, intensity in his eyes when they return to mine. “There’s not a reason except that this play is Romeo and Juliet’s. Rosaline could be the central character of her own story. Just because Romeo didn’t want her doesn’t mean no one else will.” He gestures to the drawer. “You read what I wrote. Isn’t it obvious how I feel about her?”

There’s a pressing current of passion in his voice, passion I don’t think was solely pulled from defending his play’s premise. I drop my eyes, feeling my neck grow hot. Not wanting to argue with him, to convince him that no, Rosaline is in fact nothing more than the castoff she is in Shakespeare’s pages, I mutter, “It sounds like you know exactly what to write.”

“Maybe I do.” Owen’s answer sounds somehow far away, and when I dare to glance up at him, he has that pensive, concentrated look. The look I now recognize as the same one he wore the very first time I admitted he was cute. I hadn’t thought anything of it at the time.

“You said you had a thousand lines to memorize,” he says suddenly, breaking my reverie, the distance gone from his expression. He bites the corner of his lip in a way that is entirely unfair and holds out a worn copy of Romeo and Juliet.

I nod and take the play from him, careful not to brush his hand. Folding the book back against its spine, I find the right scene. For a moment, the words dance in front of me. Not because I don’t know these lines, but because I can’t get Rosaline out of my head. I need to be Juliet. Just for an hour. Please can’t I be her for just an hour?

Deep breath in, deep breath out. I let my posture soften, then turn to face my Romeo. He’s leaning against his desk, hair falling across his forehead, his hands still ink-stained even after washing the dishes. I offer him my hand, and he stares at it, uncomprehending.

“I believe you are to take my hand, good gentleman,” I say in my best Juliet voice. But it still just sounds like me.

Owen’s fingers find mine, and all my focus narrows in on the pleasant warmth against my palm. “If I profane with my unworthiest hand—” he begins.

“Wait, what?” I interrupt with a brusqueness Juliet never would.

He drops my hand, eyes uncertain. “What? Did I start at the wrong place? I thought we were doing their meeting.”

“No. I mean, yes, we are, but where’s your script?”

“Um, you’re holding it, Megan.” A grin slides across his features.

“You’re telling me you know Romeo’s lines for this scene?” He nods, and I know he’s holding in a laugh. “But you’re not Romeo!” I say because it feels like a fact that’s been forgotten.

“No. I’m not.”

“Then . . . you just happen to have the scene memorized even though it’s one without Friar Lawrence?”

“The scene, the play,” he says with a wave of his hand as if his words are easily dismissed.

“Oh my god,” I groan. “What happened to no time to memorize your lines?”

Owen shrugs. “I ended up reading and rereading it enough times to write my play—and because I love it, honestly. Memorizing everything just kind of . . . happened.”

I do my best to look unimpressed. “You’re such a showoff.”

“Megan, are you maybe procrastinating a little?” Now he isn’t bothering to hold in his laugh.