Chapter 15
EMMA
It’s close to the end of the spring semester, and I’m weeks away from being done dealing with Professor A-hole.
His Shakespearean acting class has been enlightening, and after several months, it’s obvious why this class is paired with the writing one.
While reading the Bard’s works is gratifying, they were meant to be performed, and I often find that the cadence of reading it aloud helps me work out the meaning when I’m having difficulty with a particular passage.
Our final assignment for the semester requires us to act out pivotal scenes with a partner.
When I enter the classroom, my acting partner Jeremy is noticeably absent.
I slink down into a desk, hoping to remain invisible for the rest of class.
There’s not much I can do if Jeremy isn’t here, so I pull out my script and look over my lines.
“Miss Black, why aren’t you rehearsing?” Professor A-hole stops right in front of me. I can feel everyone’s eyes on me as I shrink in my seat.
“My scene partner isn’t here.” I try to keep the snark out of my tone, but there’s just something about this man that gets under my skin. I want to slap him in the face, but he’s also so attractive that I want to kiss him at the same time, and I’m not sure how I feel about all of that.
“Get up.” Several more heads turn our way at his command.
“What—”
“I’m going to fill in for your scene partner.” He gestures toward the small stage in the corner of the classroom. The layout of this room is much different from the lecture hall last semester, far more intimate. Most of the class has taken up spots around the room and in the hallway to rehearse.
“But I only have my copy of the script,” I protest, desperate for a reason why this shouldn’t happen.
“Don’t need it. I know that scene by heart. Played Benedick in college,” he volleys back, stepping up on the stage.
“That must have been decades ago,” I mutter. Holy frick! Why did I just say that out loud? I never talk back to teachers. I grimace, looking up at him to gauge his reaction. There’s a hint of a smirk on his face, but he schools his features quickly, his standard scowl back in place.
“Can we go out in the hall? Or maybe your office or another classroom?” Suddenly I’m full of nervous energy at the thought of my peers watching me perform this scene with my hot professor.
“Actually,” he starts in a voice that is way too loud to just be addressing me, “I think this is a great learning opportunity for the class.”
Kill me now.
“But you don’t know our blocking, and I only have one script,” I repeat, desperate to get out of this.
“Honestly, you should be off book by now, Miss Black,” he retorts, and my cheeks burn with embarrassment.
“I am… mostly.”
“And I’ll follow your lead on the blocking.” He crosses his arms tilting his chin up at me.
Gripping my script tightly in my hands, I can feel the paper crumple as I slowly inhale through my nose, nodding at him once I take my mark and begin.
“Lady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?”
I turn my back to him. “Yea, and I will weep a while longer.”
He takes a step closer to me, and I swear I can feel the warmth of his body. “I will not desire that.” His voice is rough, and I swear I can hear desire in it. This is nothing like how Jeremy acts the scene with me, and it throws me off guard.
“You have no reason. I do it freely.” I’m so used to playing this bit with humor, and I awkwardly wait for laughs that don’t come.
“Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.”
“Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her!” Our dynamic is off. I feel like a petulant child acting next to him.
“Is there any way to show such friendship?” He steps closer, my back to his front. The desire to lean back against him is strong and confusing. But there’s only one person’s touch that I crave, and it is not this man’s.
“A very even way, but no such friend.”
“May a man do it?” He grabs my hand.
Blood rushes to my face as I try to hide the shock I feel at his touch.
There’s something exciting yet also comforting about the caress of his hand against mine.
It took weeks of rehearsals and dozens of different excuses before I could get this far with Jeremy.
Is it because I find him attractive? Or is it because I don’t see him as a threat since there’s no way he would ever date me?
Before I can analyze it too much, I pull my hand from his, putting myself back in Beatrice’s shoes. “It’s a man’s office, but not yours.”
“I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?” He clears his throat as I look down at my script. “Alright, let’s stop there for a minute.”
I breathe a sigh of relief. Why didn’t we pick a scene from the beginning of the play when Benedick and Beatrice hated each other? Or why couldn’t my scene partner have just shown up for class?
He crosses upstage of me. “I need more emotion from you, Miss Black. Make me believe you want this man, that you love him. And that only he can help you with your…problem.”
“These two are infuriating. Even when they’re confessing their love for each other, they still bicker back and forth,” a guy in the back of the room laughs, and my cheeks pinken.
Professor A-hole nods at the guy. “You’re not wrong.” He turns, looking me directly in the eye.
“What do you want in this scene? What is Beatrice’s motivation?”
I can feel everyone’s eyes on me as I squirm under his scrutiny while he paces in front of me. “She wants Benedick to kill Claudio for ruining her cousin Hero’s name, for leaving her at the altar. For breaking her heart.”
“But she doesn’t really want him to kill Claudio, does she?”
“No, she’s just angry and protective of Hero. She wants vengeance. And maybe she’s testing Benedick’s love for her?”
“Is that a question?”
“No, sir.” His head whips to mine, and I can’t decipher the look on his face. He swallows thickly and I track the way his Adam’s apple bobs in his throat. “Before I can believe a word you speak, you need to fully understand this character and live that on stage. Continue, Miss Black.”
“As strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you, but believe me not, and yet I lie not; I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.”
He takes a step in front of me, crowding my space. “By my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me!”
“Do not swear and eat it.” My words come out sharper than I intend.
His features soften as he looks down at me. “I will swear by it that you love me, and I will make him eat it that says I love not you.”
“Will you not eat your word?”
“With no sauce that can be devised to it.” He cups my cheek. “I protest I love thee.”
The air leaves my lungs at his touch. “Why then, God forgive me.” My words are a whisper.
“Louder. You won’t be mic’d,” he chastises before continuing. “What offense, sweet Beatrice?”
“You have stayed me in a happy hour. I was about to protest I loved you.”
He smiles down at me, swiping his thumb across my cheek. My heart skips a beat, and I can feel my face heat. “And do it with all thy heart.”
“I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.”
“Come, bid me do anything for thee.” He’s looking at me so intensely. His eyes flick to my lips. It almost looks like he wants to kiss me.
He’s just acting. We’re just acting.
“Kill Claudio,” I say weakly.
Instantly he drops his hand, crossing his arms across his chest. “I don’t believe you, Miss Black. Make me believe you. Make me feel it here.” He points to his chest. “Make me question if you’re just acting.”
“Kill Claudio,” I repeat louder. Frustrated. Embarrassed.
“No!” he shouts. I rear back, startled by his outburst. “You’re not giving me enough; that’s the worst thing you can do as an actor. I can always pull you back if you go too far, too over-the-top, but I can’t make you give more to the scene.”
“I don’t know what you want me to do. I’m not an actor. Sure, I’ve been in plays before, but this isn’t what I want to do with my life. I just have to take this class for my major,” I snap.
“That’s it, get angry at me. Use that anger. Channel it. Beatrice is mad. You’re mad and you want vengeance. You’re so mad you make an extreme request of Benedick. Think back to a time in your life when you wanted vengeance. When you were so mad you wanted to fight back. Try it again.”
I close my eyes and try to picture a time in my life when I was that mad, that emotional. “Kill Claudio,” I say with more force, as sweat trickles down the back of my neck.
“Again!”
“This is ridiculous, I’m not actually going to act the scene this way.”
“I don’t care how hard you’re going to act it later; I want to see you take direction. If I tell you to go harder, you do it. Again.”
“Kill Claudio,” I shout.
“More! I know you’ve got it in you.”
Something inside me snaps, and I drop my script as I turn to face him.
“Kill him. Kill Claudio,” I shout, my emotions boiling over as I drop to my knees.
I’m not just talking about a fictional man who wronged my cousin.
An image flashes in my mind, but I can’t make sense of it as I squeeze my eyes closed, willing it away.
It felt real. Whatever I just tapped into, felt so real, I’m having a hard time composing myself as I pant for breath.
His dark figure looms over me, threatening, menacing. Like he’s going to pounce at any minute. He hurt me. No, he hurt my mom.