Chapter 3
Dafne
After a brief stare down with Theodore outside the table read, I’m walking down the corridor to my History of Theatre class that starts in twenty minutes, taking my phone out to type in my notes some thoughts I didn’t have time to annotate during the table read, when I feel a pair of hands on my eyes.
“Guess who–” I hear, and before they can say anything else I turn around and launch myself at the person in question. “Ollie, you absolute dick,” I squeal in the crook of his neck. “You should have told us you were coming back today, you just missed the table read.” I’m sure it comes out very muffled, but it doesn’t matter because one of my favourite people in the world is here.
Ollie and I are platonic soulmates. Our mothers have been friends for most of their lives, and so have we. I’m an only child, but he’s never made me miss a sibling.
“I told you I would be making an entrance,” I feel rather than see him smirk as he squeezes me for a few short seconds before I detangle my arms.
“I also couldn’t smack my taxi driver into going faster, but I wasn’t even supposed to get here until tomorrow, so,” he shrugs.
“Oh, wait,” he adds as his smile drops and my stomach immediately churns with worry.
“Do I need to book an appointment to speak to you now, Miss Capulet? I hear you’re very busy these days, between making out with your boyfriend and chugging poison vials,” he mock inquires, and my shoulders immediately release the tension they’d gathered at the mere possibility of bad news.
I flick him lightly on the chest and he scowls.
“Says you, Mercutio. ” He makes a noncommittal sound, as if it were nothing.
“It seems it’s our year,” Ollie gestures for me to go ahead and we resume the walk down the busy corridor. “All that talking you and Phoebe did about–main character energy, was it? It seems to be paying off,” he says, and maybe she and I did spend too much time on Pinterest for our own good last summer, but if that helped in the slightest to make the Universe pay attention, I’ll scroll through endless more aesthetic posts.
“So,” Ollie drawls, shoving his hands in his pockets, “I know about Price. That I have to play his best friend is bad enough, but … is he going to be a problem?”
He’s not looking at me, and I can tell there’s a tinge of worry in his tone. When Theodore decided he didn’t like me, with no explanation as to why, Ollie swore he would confront him about being a jackarse, but I begged him to let it go. That doesn’t mean it never stung.
“Aside from the snarky comments nobody asked for, you mean? He hasn’t pushed me down the stairs yet, so that’s comforting.” I joke, trying to keep any bitterness I might feel out of my voice. Before Ollie can comment on that, I take a sharp turn to the left, nearly making us both topple on the marbled floors. “Daf–” he starts, but I’m quick to interrupt him.
“Don’t think you can pretend you haven’t been away for two whole weeks, sir, I want to know everything about the–” I look around, making sure no one’s being a busybody and listening to our conversation, “clinic,” I whisper. “In fact, why are you even here instead of being in your room, resting, as I’m sure your doctor has recommended several times– ”
Ollie pins me with the look. The look that says, ‘I see right through you, Dafne’ and ‘You are avoiding the topic, Dafne.’ I can’t really blame him, as we have been video chatting every other day while he was away, and I likely know more about his medical records than his own doctor does.
“Right. I suppose we can talk about that later,” I mumble, and as we come to a stop, I realise we’ve reached my class.
“I’ll go find Mr. Hackle since I’m already excused for the day, then I’ll stop by your dorm before dinner so I cancatch up with Phoebe too. Sounds good?” Ollie offers with a small smile, and I feel something tugging at my heart.
Beneath the blinding yellow light that hangs next to every classroom’s door, the bags under his eyes are more evident than I’d ever seen them, his tawny skin not as clear as it usually is, and I wish I could wrap him in a blanket and protect him from all evil. No matter that he’s almost six-foot-two and I would need an unthinkable amount of fabric to cover even half of his massive body. Ever since his epilepsy was diagnosed in our senior year in college, I have always made sure he was dutiful with taking his medication before he was allowed to stop taking it at some point last year. A few weeks ago, his ridiculously rich–but amazing–parents managed to get him a spot in one of Europe’s best (or most expensive) neurology clinics in Zurich; not being able to go to class and perform, in addition to the incessant tests they’d run on him for two weeks, has clearly taken a toll. But I know he can take care of himself.
“Okay,” I concede, and step inside my next class.