Chapter Fourteen
On the first afternoon of play practice, Zach paces outside of the auditorium. He doesn’t want to go in, because he knows absolutely nothing about theater tech. He’s never even been to a school play.
He’s heard a lot of jokes about theater kids being loud and obnoxious, and to Zach the only thing worse than being surrounded by loud and obnoxious people is the idea that other people might perceive him as loud and obnoxious just because he’s standing near the auditorium doors.
He considers not going. He signed up, sure, but people sign up for things and then don’t show up for them all the time. He doesn’t think Isaac, Bea, or Paige would really miss him if he just… bailed. Maybe he could walk home right now. He could leave.
But then a terrifying thought occurs to him: What if they do miss him? And then later, what if they confront him about not showing up and then everyone thinks he’s a flake?
Zach groans, squeezing his arms tight around his stomach. What he wouldn’t give to stop overthinking every little action he takes, just for a single day.
“What are you doing?”
It’s Parker. He skids to a stop as he passes by the auditorium on his way toward the front doors.
Things have been a little weird ever since Parker and Paige left his house.
But maybe weird in a good way? Paige seems happier, and Parker seems less like he’s going to self-destruct at any given moment.
Paige has a different lunch period because of the newspaper, so she doesn’t sit with them, but their lunch table has expanded to include Zach, Parker, Bea, and Isaac.
Zach has friends. A group of friends. A friend group, even.
They do things like eat lunch together and loiter in the hall during passing periods.
Every morning Parker shows up at Zach’s locker, squintyeyed and sleepy, with a hood over his damp hair.
And sometimes he’s in, like, the worst mood. But most of the time he seems… okay.
Zach clutches at the front of his sweatshirt nervously. “I signed up to do theater tech.”
Parker frowns. He shifts his weight from side-to-side. “Why?”
“I—I don’t know,” Zach says. “Bea and Isaac are doing it, and so is Paige, you know, so I just…” He exhales shakily. “I signed up.”
Parker steps toward him, lifting one hand to tuck his own hair behind his ears. “And you’re standing out here because…?”
Zach wheezes out a slightly hysterical laugh. “Because I’m—I’m really bad with, like, people and doing things, and I’m having trouble, like… breathing.” He takes a moment, looking at Parker. “Um, if Paige is in there, then are you still…?”
“Yeah, I have to wait for her to drive me home,” Parker says dully. “My parents promised to give me some of my freedom back, but that doesn’t un-total my car.”
“Oh,” Zach says.
“I crashed it into a tree over the summer,” Parker says, picking at the cracked nail polish on his ring finger.
“On… on purpose?” Zach asks.
Parker shrugs. “Kind of.” He glances between Zach and the auditorium doors, then heaves a sigh. “Well, come on, then.”
Parker hooks one arm around Zach’s shoulder and wheels them both around.
Zach fits almost perfectly under Parker’s arm.
Like they’re two puzzle pieces. The weight of Parker’s arm across the back of his shoulders is grounding.
Zach breathes out, leaning his weight against Parker a little before his nerves get the better of him.
This close, he can smell Parker’s shampoo.
It’s kind of floral. Zach’s face flushes for reasons he can’t pinpoint.
Parker reaches forward, opening one of the heavy doors, and ushers them into the cool, red-carpeted auditorium.
It’s not particularly large, but the aisle leading down to the stage seems miles long to Zach.
There’s a group of students in the first few rows, the rising din of their voices and laughter echoing around the otherwise empty theater.
Paige is right in the front row with Bea and Isaac, so Parker shoos Zach down the middle aisle and all the way to the seats near the stage. Zach drops beside Isaac, hunkering low in his seat, still clinging to his backpack.
“What are you doing here?” Paige asks her brother, leaning forward to look down the line of seats at him. Her frown deepens as he settles into the seat on Zach’s other side.
“I’m joining tech crew,” Parker says. “It’s good for my college transcripts.”
“Parker,” Paige sighs, exasperated. “Please don’t screw this up for me.”
“Scouts fuckin’ honor,” Parker says, raising two fingers, before slouching all the way in his seat. The scouts honor salute is three fingers, but Zach has a feeling that Parker doesn’t know that. He can’t imagine him in Boy Scouts.
The first practice isn’t so bad. Mr. West, one of the theater teachers, spends the majority of the time wrangling the student actors into their first read-through of the script.
After that, he gathers the students who signed up for the tech crew, and they go up onto the stage.
It’s open and echoey, even when Zach steps as carefully as he can.
There are old sets and backdrops tucked away in the back of the auditorium from last year’s play, which they’ll repurpose for A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The rest of the crew is made up of two freshman girls, a few juniors, and two other seniors that Zach thinks are named Josh and Jacob, but he isn’t entirely sure.
“See?” Parker says, after five o’clock rolls around and they file from the auditorium. “You lived.”
“Barely,” Zach says, tugging uselessly at the collar of his sweatshirt.
Despite his reservations, tech crew becomes a normal part of Zach’s week. Parker and Paige miss every Thursday, because that’s when they have family therapy after school. Zach can’t really tell if it’s helping, but Parker and Paige go, dedicated, every Thursday.
Bea’s worked really hard every year to be appointed stage manager, and this year is no different.
She has a lot of know-how, and Zach is a little in awe of her ability to boss people around without sounding like she’s bossing them around.
Issac spends most of his time at practice in the booth near the back of the auditorium, learning how to program the lights from Josh or Jacob.
Zach likes painting the backdrops. It’s easy and mindless, the kind of repetitive task that puts his brain on autopilot and lets him not think too hard about anything at all.
Paige paints with him, which is nice, and they get to sit in silence together, painting two coats of white over the old canvases so that they can make new ones.
Parker shows up to every practice, though Zach isn’t entirely sure why.
Bea tries to assign him a few roles, but he weasels out of them when she stops looking.
Instead, he spends most of his time lying on the floor backstage and reading one of the scripts that he stole.
In the end, this arrangement becomes perfectly agreeable to everyone involved, because Parker is quiet and not causing problems.
Zach still thinks about the suicide pact.
He mostly wonders whether or not Parker is still thinking about it.
Zach doesn’t know what holding off is supposed to mean, and his initial relief at the suggestion has been replaced by a buzzing anxiety.
The secret, the lie that has been the foundation of their friendship—and they are friends now; they have to be—is still there, hovering over him.
Zach can’t stop thinking of Paige in his bathroom, small, brow furrowed, saying: No more secrets.
Parker doesn’t bring it up, so neither does Zach.
As the practices go on, the set-building becomes more intricate, the painting more detailed.
One of the shop teachers stops by during practice to show them how to build set pieces with leftover wood, dug out deep from backstage.
Zach is very bad with his hands, so he avoids any actual construction.
Instead, he focuses on painting weeping willows on the backdrops, zoning out as he renders each careful, individual leaf.
One Friday, deep into October, Parker catches Zach outside of the auditorium before he can go in. Zach’s been thinking about adding mushrooms to the tree trunks all day—he’d even brought one of his foraging books for reference.
“Skip with me,” Parker says.
Zach hesitates, glancing toward the auditorium, then back to Parker. “Are we going to get in trouble?” he asks, tugging nervously at his backpack strap.
Parker rolls his eyes. “Who cares?”
“I care,” Zach points out. “Very much.”
Parker grabs his arm and pivots him, giving him a push toward the front doors.
“Okay, well, stop caring,” Parker suggests. Zach goes, helplessly pulled into Parker’s orbit.
Zach starts to ask where Parker wants them to go, but then he catches sight of Parker’s face: He looks twitchy and tired, with deep purple grooves under his eyes. His skin is ashy and he looks almost sick. Zach swallows his protests.
They exit the school, and Zach follows Parker’s long, impulsive strides away from the building, across the senior parking lot, toward some quiet side streets.
They seem like they’re going nowhere, really.
Just walking, breathing in the cool, sharp air.
Zach’s nerves are burning. He feels like his fingers are going numb even though it’s not that cold outside.
They’re quiet together, which is usually Zach’s favorite way to spend time with anyone, but now it feels like the silence is stealing all the oxygen between them.