Chapter 7
Dafne
The next days of rehearsals pass by relatively quick, and most importantly, with no more incidents on the Theodore front. Our usual back and forth jabs have drastically slowed down too. For the first few days I thought it was nice not to have to be ready to snap back, but I have to admit, I’d been almost missing the comfort of our relationship, however strained it is. I was glad to see things hadn’t really changed today when Taylor, our yoga teacher, paired us up during our collective lesson as a cast; neither of us failed to point out whatever was wrong with our crow poses. It also didn’t help how distracting his arms were, since I had them right in front of me before every bloody downward dog position. Once I saw the thin veins that line his arms, I mentally kicked myself for thinking that they made him look ten times hotter; what can I say, they’re my kryptonite. Not Theodore’s specifically, to be clear. I could swear I saw a hint of a blush when he, regrettably, caught me staring, but a glare took centre stage on his face in no time to compensate .
We’re starting to work on Act Three, and Mr. Hackle has been tougher on us, which means he’s yelling for a misplaced prop on a good day and throwing said prop without looking where it lands on a bad one. We’re used to it by now though–theatre kids have thick skin by necessity. You can’t let your fragilities overwhelm you on stage or on a set. You have to tame them and exploit them when you need to, learn to tuck them away where they can’t get in the way the rest of time. It doesn’t mean emotions should be repressed, but they shouldn’t rule you either.
Mr. Hackle is about to dismiss us, when Ms. Patterson clears her throat politely to his left. He eyes her for a second, then presses his thumb above his eye socket.
“Right, we’re going to see a production of Romeo and Juliet at the Globe on Saturday,” he grunts, which gains him a round of quietly enthusiastic sounds from the cast. “I want to remind you lot of what a serious show looks like.”
Ms. Patterson nods vehemently and hands Isabel, who is nearest to her, a red clipboard with a single lined paper sheet on it. “Sign your name and pass it on, will you Isabel?” she asks with her too-polite smile. Sometimes I think her composure is all for show and she secretly imagines strangling us every time someone snickers at Shakespeare-born words like bawcock.
“Off you go,” Mr. Hackle says once we’ve all signed the sheet, already halfway down the stage’s stepladder. “You look like hell,” Ollie grimaces at me, and I raise one eyebrow at his assessment. Because I am very mature, I also stick out my tongue at him. “It’s not like I’ve been in here like the rest of you since eight in the morning, have I?”
He laughs at that and waves a hand at me. “The shower awaits,” he bows, and I smile in goodbye. I start collecting my things from the front row of chairs, but I’m interrupted by Ms. Patterson, who approaches me and says my name in that this-means-trouble tone.
“I know you’re over for the day, but I need you to do something for me. Well, mostly for you.” I internally sigh and nod, the promising idea of filling my grumbling stomach sooner rather than later disappearing just out of reach.
I’ve been tasked with sorting through some boxes filled to the brim with various pieces of fabric in the props room; I need to look for a specific handkerchief Ms. Patterson swears is vital Juliet carries with her at all times. I don’t see why it couldn’t wait until morning, but I’m not in the position to refuse such a simple demand. It occurs to me that Mr. Hackle never says a word about these requests of hers–not that she doesn’t know what she’s doing, but I wonder if there’s a reason for that other than the fact that he’d rather keep the tiniest possibility of discussion at arm’s length.
“These all look the same to me,” I mutter, before hearing the door creak open and footsteps shuffling in. I freeze for a second, because nobody else is supposed to be here. I drop the box in a haste and rush towards the door–
“No... No, no, no ,” I groan, slamming my hands on the door that just groaned shut.
“Why are you here?” Theodore asks, scratching his forehead.
“Why did you let the door close, damn it?” I yell, not bothering to answer his question. “Did you think someone put that bucket in front of it to make an architectural statement?” I gesture frantically behind us. “Didn’t you hear what the caretaker said this morning, the lock’s defective , oh my God –”
Theodore steps towards me and looks like he’s about to touch me, but the expression on my face is enough to make him retreat.
“Calm down, Wright,” he says, and I really wish I could, but isn’t it common knowledge telling someone to calm down doesn’t ever work?
“We are stuck in here, Theodore.” I articulate for him, my pulse thrumming. Apparently, the point is not getting through.
“I’ll call Devon, he’ll go to the caretaker’s st–” he closes his eyes in resignation as he extracts his phone from his pocket and the screen lights up. He curses under his breath.
“Yeah. No reception, Sherlock.” The only silver lining, I think to myself, is that I texted Phoebe I’d be in the theatre for longer than expected, and not to wait up for me–at least she’ll likely be asleep by nine and won’t start printing missing person’s posters.
“You should have been more careful,” he says then, pinching the bridge of his nose, and I turn towards him as slowly as humanly possible, my heart beating furiously in my chest.
“You’re joking,” I say, my hands itching to grab the first pointy object available and engage in a duel. “ You had no business being here. You let the door close.” I fume, poking at his chest with a finger instead of a saber. Why do we keep finding ourselves at barely two inches from each other? He furrows his brows, slowly lowering my hand from where it’s digging a hole in his shirt by cupping his own over it. It’s only for a second, but I’m painfully aware of the moment we’re not touching anymore, and it’s probably the fact that it’s freezing in here and so is my entire body, while his is definitely not. It’s still annoying.
Without taking his gaze off mine, something like indecisiveness flashes in his expression.
“You’re impossible,” he declares, and storms towards the small sofa in the corner of the room, which is also the only proper sitting space in sight. Fine. I take a deep breath and decide on going back to my handkerchief quest instead, if only not to give him the satisfaction of forcing me to lie down in defeat like Julius Caesar after getting stabbed. It hasn’t been more than ten minutes of bitterly rummaging through endless squares of fabric, when I see Theodore approaching from the corner of my eye. I tell myself I will not be starting another argument, when an extended hand lands in front of my face. I raise an eyebrow and look up at him, only to find a soft expression on his mouth, and it’s such an appalling contrast to the usual tightness of features he displays in front of me that I blink rapidly a few times to make sure it’s really there. Apparently, this small change alone is enough to suppress the ever-present instinct to fight him back.
“Look, if we’re going to be here for the rest of the night, we might as well acknowledge each other’s presence, call it a truce if you want,” he sighs. I eye his hand, then him, and before I can convince myself this is some sort of trap, I curl my fingers around his. His palm is still warm, just like the other times I’ve held it–for acting purposes, that is–and he lifts me from my crouching place with no strain. “What do you propose?” I ask as I lift an invisible piece of lint from my cream-coloured sweater.
“We could eat something, for starters,” he says, a corner of his mouth kicking up. “I’ve some mixed berries in my bag. It’s not a roast, but at least–” He doesn’t ma-nage to finish the sentence, because I’ve snorted so loudly the caretaker might have heard and come rescue us after all. I slap my hand over my mouth, my eyes wide with amusement.
“Is something funny?” he asks, genuine surprise in his tone.
“I’m sorry–” my lips twitch, trying my hardest not to burst out laughing. “Sorry. Nothing funny at all about you carrying around mixed berries,” I say, my tone thick with mirth, to which Theodore glares.
“They’re packed with Vitamin A. They’re good for your cardiovascular system and–” he stops his perfectly plausible explanation short, because I’m nodding with exaggerated interest and can’t help but mouth a tell me more as I quickly cross the room and land on the sofa. I fold my legs under me, and pretend to annotate with a pen and notebook made of air. My improv teacher would be so proud of me.
“Never mind, more for me.” He huffs as he plops next to me, and I can tell he’s reigning in a smile.
He slowly extracts a small food container from his abandoned rucksack, and when the lid pops off, my eye catches on the glistening black and rich red of the berries. It occurs to me this is the only dinner I might get.
“Alright, you win, I’ll taste one,” I say, reaching out to grab the closest piece of fruit, when he catches my hand in his.
“I thought mixed berries were hilarious,” he drawls, and my mouth opens and closes like a damn goldfish. He licks his lips, and of their own bloody accord, my eyes fall to the gesture. I’m not sure how long we stay like that, because the next thing I know, Theodore is turning my palm and pushing lightly on my knuckles so that it cups, and he pours a bunch of berries in my hand.
“Is it really genetics?” he asks pensively, his gaze cast down at my hands.
“Oh,” I breathe when I realise what he’s referring to. “Yep. From my dad’s side, apparently–thank you,” I mumble as he drops the last berry in my palm, and I lean back into my side of the sofa cradling the fruit as if it were made of crystal. I can practically hear Phoebe’s voice in my head shouting Snap out of it, babes . This is a truce, not the end of the war.
We munch quietly for a minute, until Theodore clears his throat and begins to say something I don’t catch as I open my mouth to voice the question I should’ve asked when he came into the prop room earlier. Our eyes meet, and he moves his hand as if to say you first .
“Why did come in here past rehearsal time? I thought you’d left with everyone else,” I ask, popping another juicy blueberry in my mouth.
“I was told there was a spare sword in here and I wanted to practice my sword work,” he says, looking at his lap. “I’ve never had this many fight sequences before and they need to be, well, perfect.”
I nod, and a few minutes of silence pass. I’m shocked to notice it’s not uncomfortable.
“My grandmother grows these,” he adds then, surprising me for the second–third?–time tonight. There’s a mellow quality to his voice now, which I assume can only be attributed to the mention of his grandmother. I’ve never known anything about his family though, so I’m a bit startled by the information he’s freely giving me.
“Her garden is lovely. Not big, but the care she puts into it…” he looks over at me, and I allow a small smile to show.
He nods once and looks away, that flicker of emotion already gone from his eyes. It’s too bad–I thought it made him look more human, and less perfect robot-actor. I wonder if he’s aware of being a walking contradiction. I consider whether I should share something in return, but I don’t want to break this careful balance we’ve now wordlessly established.
I could just be glad we’re not bickering and leave it alone; but being who I am and craving closure, the itch I’ve been wanting to scratch for quite literally years now is possibly within reach to be scratched, and I doubt we’ll ever be locked in a room with no possibility of escape again anytime soon.
“Are you ever going to tell me what I ever did for you to hate me so much?” I ask in a single breath, staring straight ahead. Theodore is quiet for a long moment, and from the corner of my eye, I can see his hands have stilled where they were drumming softly on the plastic container balanced on his knees.
I wonder if he’s going to say anything at all or get up and pretend like he didn’t hear me or change the subject altogether–
“It’s not–I don’t hate you,” he sighs, and my lips thin into a humourless smile .
“See, that’s hard to believe when I’m the only person in our entire course you ever treated the way you do,” I say, my words laced with bitterness.
He could just admit whatever the reason for starting this stupid feud with me was, and I’d accept it. I don’t believe in judging people on instinct alone, and I can’t recall a single time he said or did something that didn’t scream I don’t like you .
“You think you’ve got all the facts straight, but you don’t,” he says, his jaw clenched.
I hold onto the curve of his elbow as he gets up, and he looks down at me, a pleading look in his eyes.
“Then tell me.” I say slowly, letting go. He looks almost angry, but at who, I’m not sure.
“Why does it matter now ?” he sounds genuinely confused. I search for the right words in my brain.
“It matters to me. Because I’d like to know if we’ve spent three years making each other’s lives that much more difficult for a valid reason or not.”
He swallows hard, shakes his head lightly, and just as he’s started walking away, I say, “I thought you were a lot of things, Price, but not a coward.”
He stops then, his expression one of disbelief.
“Is this an attempt on … revenge, for that interview?
I’ve tried to apologise. I’ve left you alone. You don’t get to judge me, Dafne.”
I immediately know I’m in the wrong, but my stubbornness prevents me from doing anything about it. So I let him walk to the other side of the room without another word.
I’m tired, the full day of rehearsal suddenly weighs on me like a boulder, and I turn around with my back to him, curling up on the sofa to rest for a few minutes.
The distinct feeling of falling wakes me with a jolt, making me sit up straight in the pitch darkness.
I pass a hand over my face, and when I try to stand, I feel a jeans jacket slip off me.
“Price?” I croak, lowering myself to the floor instead and groping around for my bag.
Nothing. I wouldn’t put it past him to somehow have forced the door open and left me here. I get up, my sense of direction completely twisted, until my forehead painfully collides with something.
“Can you watch where you’re going?” Theodore groans, and his face is lit up by the torch on his phone.
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m not an owl,” I snap, rubbing the point where my forehead collided with his stupidly toned chest. “I can’t see in the bloody dark.” I snatch his phone from him so I can light up my surroundings until I see my bag. Right next to where I was sitting.
Of course. When I turn around to give him the phone back, my eyes fall to the lock screen; it’s a photo of what I assume is a baby Theodore and a middle-aged couple, holding him in their arms, smiling from ear to ear. “ Arethese your parents?” I ask as the single lightbulb on the ceiling lights up, and Theodore rushes toward me from the wall where he’d just turned the switch on.
“Grandparents,” he says apathetically, snatching the phone from my hand.
Before I can wonder what that was or how warm the hug in that picture looked, or how cute baby Theodore was in his navy jumper, he tells me that it’s nearly seven and the caretaker should be here any minute. I nod absently, the clinging haze of sleep making it hard to process the bits of information I’ve just been handed, and the ones I’m missing. Did he get any sleep? If yes, did he sleep on the floor? At what point did he blanket me in his jacket, which by the way, smelled amaz–
The door opens as a whistling Mr. Davies, the caretaker, gasps in surprise at finding the room occupied. “What are you two doing in here?”
Theodore
Dafne starts explaining what happened to Mr. Davies, and I gratefully accept the opportunity to flee.
“I’ll see you at rehearsals,” I say gruffly as I grab my jacket and slip my rucksack on my shoulder, stiff from sleeping in a sitting position, and make my way past the both of them before either can stop me.
I know that the image of her face when she asked me why I hate her is going to haunt me. I thought she didn’t care, that she was fine with it, even. Because that’s the way it’s always been between us, that’s how it bloody works. And what the hell was I thinking, telling her anything about Grandma? I need ten hours of sleep. Or Two days.
Once I get to my room, much to my shock, I find that Devon is wide awake and reading on his bed. The second I close the door behind me, he drops his book and launches himself to his feet. “Where were you?” he yells. “I was about to call the police, you goddamn idi–”
I raise both hands in a placating gesture. “Turn the volume down, would you? My eardrums are begging for mercy.”
Devon’s jaw goes slack. “Did you spend the night getting drunk without me? I swear, Theo–”
I throw my rucksack into his hands and that startles him enough to stop talking. “Believe me, I would have loved the sweet oblivion of alcohol,” I say before launchingmyself stomach-down on my bed, “but alas, the only available company was Dafne’s.”
To which I almost opened up about personal things I don’t ever speak about , I don’t say. My voice is muffled by the pillow, but Devon hears anyway, because the next thing I know is I’m being rolled onto my back and my head thuds against the wall. “Ouch,” I groan, but he’s al- ready asking too many questions. Why is it the one time I–unwillingly–spend the night out, when I come back he’s not snoring like a harvester, but looks like he’s had a triple espresso at barely eight in the morning? The interrogation leaves no time for me to articulate proper answers, so I let him go through it on his own.
“You mean our Dafne? Juliet-Dafne? The same girl I’ve been trying to get through that thick skull of yours to notice the mad chemistry you have?! You actually ended up sleeping with her, I–”
I abruptly sit straight.
“No, no, no, get your mind out of the gutter, man. We got locked in the prop room. There was no reception and breaking the door open wasn’t really an option, so…” I sigh and glance at him. He’s still hanging onto my rucksack as if it were a stuffed animal, his mouth try-ing to work out words that aren’t coming. I think I’ve broken him. After a minute, he finally manages a, “Your luck is almost as frustrating as your stubbornness,” and lets himself fall on his bed with a grunt.
“In what world is being stuck in a room with Dafne with no possibility to escape, called luck?” I ask.
I think I’ve got a massive headache coming.
“In the oblivious world, of which you are the supreme leader,” he laughs, and I scrunch up my nose.
“Have you ever considered, and I know this is a wild thought, that sometimes people just don’t get along, and that’s that? ”
“I’m sure you believe that, but hey,” he turns his head towards me slowly. “Why don’t we bet on it?” he asks, already sounding too self-satisfied with whatever idea’s popped up in his head.
“The last bet cost me a man made of paper taking permanent residence in our room,” I say, pointing at the smiling Tom in his usual corner. “I’m not betting with you ever again.”
“Just this once, and I promise–no paper hotties in -volved this time,” he pleads.
I roll my eyes. I’m going to regret this, but last night’s awful sleep on the freezing floor of the prop room doesn’t grant me the strength to fight him. I gesture vaguely as to give him permission to speak, and he rises from the bed impressively quick.
“Grand,” he wrings his hands, my rucksack long forgotten, the excitement in his voice meaning trouble. “I’ll make it a double. I bet that I can pair Dafne up with someone,” he says, and the awful-night-induced mist in my brain dissipates instantly. I snap my head towards him as he raises a hand. “I also bet you’ll get jealous and kiss her out of rehearsals before opening night. Because deep down you like her, but you’re too fixated on the whole tormented actor thing to ever admit it.” He smirks, crossing his arms with a pleased nod.
You’d think he’s the one who got barely any sleep, coming up with these insane ideas.
“First of all, there is no tormented actor thing,” I say, quite offended. “Second, and most importantly, how do we determine that? If you find someone who’ll go out with her, and in the nonexistent scenario in which I’ll care and kiss her, I would never tell you. How would you know?”
“Despite your best intentions, you’re not that hard to read, Montague. You’re also the most upright person I know.”
“I doubt an upright person would make bets at all,” I scoff.
“Come on, now. What do you have to lose if you’re so sure you’re right?” He offers his hand for me to shake, and I eye it, unconvinced. He wants to make Dafne like someone else to prove the point that I allegedly like her? “Sorry, I don’t get it,” I say, propping myself on one el-bow. “If you think I secretly like her–which, again, I don’t–what’s the point in putting this farce together? Ifyou have someone lead her on she’ll end up heartbroken and that could jeopardise the play,” I explain.
Devon’s smirk falls immediately. “Is that your concern? That she won’t perform as well if she goes on a few dates? For all you know she could have a string of suitors waiting for her to accept their invitations.”
“She doesn’t,” I retort, stifling a yawn.
“How do you know?”
“I just do.” I do not.
Devon snorts. “Maybe you’re right,” he adds a moment later. “If you really liked her, you’d give her more credit.”
He drops his hand and starts walking towards the bathroom. Something unpleasant stirs in me, because I know accepting this is a potential recipe for disaster, but I also know that I just lied, because any fool could take one look at Dafne Wright and know she cannot be stopped.
I guess that, on top of the fact I’m still mad at her for calling me a coward, is what possesses me to blurt out my next words.
“Alright, you’ve got it. The bet is on.”