The Score (Off-Campus #3)(106)
Fuck it. I don’t care if it’s inappropriate. Dakota is bawling in earnest now, and she needs comfort.
I wrap one arm around her and hug her tightly. And then, as my heart throbs uncontrollably, I spend the next twenty minutes reassuring a sad little girl that my boyfriend doesn’t hate her.
*
My father’s gruff voice plays on a loop in my head during the drive back to Dean’s house.
I know men like him. They aren’t equipped to handle the big stuff. The life-changing setbacks. The game-changers.
He’d fall apart like a cheap tent.
I’m terrified that my dad is right. But he can’t be. Dean is just in pain. He’s mourning the loss of a friend.
He lives a perfect life.
He pays other people to clean up his messes.
A chill flies up my spine as something occurs to me. Fuck. Is that what I’m doing right now? Cleaning up Dean’s mess by trying to ensure that his position at the middle school is secure? By begging a ten-year-old to forgive him for deserting her?
God, I’m so tired. These past three weeks, I’ve been focused solely on Dean. Trying to make him feel better, trying to get him through this. I’m slacking on my schoolwork. I show up to rehearsals bleary-eyed and exhausted because I spend all my time tending to my drunken boyfriend. Dress rehearsals start tomorrow, damn it. Opening night is in five days. I should be concentrating on the performance, but I can barely remember what this goddamn play is about.
My frustration only intensifies when I walk through the door fifteen minutes later and am greeted by a blast of deafening music—Nirvana’s “Drain You” is blaring through the house. Wonderful.
I find Dean on the living room couch, holding a beer bottle in one hand and air-drumming with the other. He’s shirtless, but not even the sight of his spectacular chest can soothe my jagged nerves.
“Dean!” I shout over the music.
He pays me no attention.
I grab the remote from the coffee table and stop the music. Silence falls over the room, and his blond head jerks over in surprise. “Hey, babe. I didn’t see you there.”
“Hey.”
I sit on the edge of the couch and gently pry the bottle out of his hand. To my surprise, he doesn’t protest. And I think he’s more buzzed than drunk right now, because he doesn’t slur his words when he says, “You got rehearsal tonight?”
I shake my head. “No, but dress rehearsals start tomorrow.”
“Shit. Already?”
“Opening night is on Friday,” I remind him.
“Oh. Right.”
He acts as if he’d known that, but I’m pretty sure my play hasn’t crossed his mind in weeks. He hasn’t shown any interest in what I’m doing. In what anyone is doing. It’s like he’s frozen in place, stuck in that harrowing moment when he found out Beau was dead.
Everyone else is continuing to live their lives. Including Beau’s family. Joanna is still performing on Broadway. We’ve been emailing since the memorial, and she told me both her parents went back to work last week.
Dean is the only one refusing to move forward.
“Baby…” My throat squeezes, worry and fear forming a knot in my windpipe. “You’ll be there on opening night, right?”
His green eyes flare. “Why would you even ask me that?”
Because you weren’t there for Beau’s memorial.
I bite back the accusation and draw a deep breath. “I’m just making sure, that’s all.”
“Of course I’ll be there.” For the first time in weeks, I glimpse genuine emotion in his eyes. Honest-to-god warmth. “Where else would I be?”
*
He’s not here.
Widow opens to a packed auditorium and closes to a standing ovation. The tears swimming in my eyes when Mallory and I take our bows have nothing to do with the overwhelming response we received from the audience.
The spotlight makes it difficult to see a single face beyond the first three rows, but the second row is all I need to see, because that’s where my friends are sitting. Well, standing, because they’re on their feet applauding along with everyone else.
Hannah. Garrett. Megan. Stella. Justin. Grace. Logan.
Hysterical laughter threatens to spill out as I scan the familiar faces and experience a Wizard of Oz moment. And you were there and you were there and you were there—and you know who wasn’t f*cking there? The man I love. The man who promised he’d be here.
Backstage, I dutifully accept hugs and accolades from everyone who was involved in the production. Steven. The student producers. Our faculty advisor. The art students who created the sets. The lighting crew. The senior who played my dead husband lifts me off my feet and spins me around. Mallory hugs me tight enough to steal the breath from my lungs, then spends five minutes apologizing profusely for being such a flake at the beginning of the project.
I barely hear a word she says. Tears stain my cheeks, but I think everyone assumes they’re happy tears.
Everyone assumes wrong.
There’s an after party for the cast, crew and friends at Steven’s off-campus apartment tonight, and I assure my director that I’ll be there. But I won’t. At least not right away. I have somewhere else I need to be first, and when Hannah texts to find out if we’re meeting outside the auditorium or in the parking lot, I’m already behind the wheel of Dean’s BMW, my shaky foot pressing down on the gas pedal.