The Hate Between Us, page 14
Ms. Holloway released another one of her loud sighs. “Closer, Jason. She isn’t contagious.”
All eyes were on us. Some amused, some curious to see what would unfold.
He stepped closer, and his warmth washed over me. My insides stirred. He was so tall, so strong and powerful compared to me. The contrast was distracting.
“Good. Now hold hands until we start the rehearsal.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jason said. Lucas chuckled. A few people shared wide-eyed looks.
“Come on. While we’re still young.”
I wet my lips and offered Jason my hand. His brows knitted together as he looked at it.
“It won’t bite, you know,” I told him.
“This is bullshit,” he said quietly, but he reached for my hand and enveloped it into his much larger one.
Our fingers entwined as if it was the most natural thing in the world. My lips parted with an indrawn breath as his gaze dropped to our linked hands, and his frown deepened. He met my gaze for a long second before he abruptly looked away, muttering something under his breath.
My heart thudded constantly as we held hands, and I could barely stay focused on what Ms. Holloway and the others were saying as they covered character details and more blocking. I didn’t dare move my fingers an inch, holding my breath every time his hand moved even slightly against mine. I could breathe normally only when Ms. Holloway announced we were beginning and Jason and I separated.
The second act had a lot more physical contact, and as much as I’d tried to psych myself up for that, my stomach was in knots. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to pull off those scenes.
In the first few scenes, we barely touched, so there were no hiccups, but then we reached the scene in which Nathan proclaimed his love for Chloe in her room after they found out about her cancer. That moment was angsty, desperate, and heavy with physical contact that led to their first kiss, but every time we reached the part when Jason was supposed to pull me into a tight embrace on Chloe’s bed and whisper his lines against my neck, Ms. Holloway stopped us and told us to do it again.
“Katie, you’re not supposed to move your hands when he hugs you at first. Wait it out ten seconds and then slowly hug him back. Jason, you have to lean your head against hers and say the words against her neck.”
And then later: “Katie, you’re too stiff. Chloe’s reluctance should come from the fact that she’s trying hard to fight her feelings for Nathan. Jason, you have to hold her tight. We need to see, feel his despair.”
Ten minutes later, our performances weren’t getting any better, and it was even more difficult with so many keen eyes directed at us. To make it worse, Ms. Holloway refused to leave this scene for another day. She told us to stay after the rehearsal and go through that scene again alone.
“I’m going to leave for fifteen minutes,” Ms. Holloway said with a stern, uncompromising expression once only the three of us remained in the theater. “You practice while I’m gone. Or resolve whatever is holding you back. When I come back, I want you to perform that scene for me.”
She didn’t wait for our answer. She strode briskly across the stage and out of the room, leaving us alone in deafening silence.
I swallowed thickly as I looked out over the vast auditorium. There was something imposing about this place. Something that amplified the acting experience. Being here alone with Jason was all the more intimate because of it.
Jason jumped up from the huge equipment box we were sitting on and crossed to the edge of the stage. “Why do you have to keep messing up?”
“I keep messing up? What about you? You’re so tired it’s making you even moodier than usual. I can’t relax when you look like you might strangle me at any moment.”
“I wouldn’t want to strangle you if you’d put more effort into your performance.”
“I am putting more effort into my performance!”
“It’s not enough.”
“Yeah, because nothing can satisfy the big, perfect Jason Adams, right? You wrote me off from the start, and no matter what I do, it won’t be good enough for you.”
He opened his mouth to retort, but he stopped himself. He ran his hand down his face and exhaled a deep breath. “We keep going around in circles. We can’t function this way.”
I angled my head to the side. “You think?”
He flashed his glare at me.
“Of course we can’t when you can’t let go of your personal feelings. I’m trying my best here, but I can only do so much.” I tucked my hair behind my ears. “We should do our best to make this”—I motioned between us with my finger—“work. It’s not just good for us but also for the whole cast.”
He ran his hand through his hair and marched over to the chair across from the box I was sitting on. He dropped on it with a loud sigh, positioning his legs wide open.
“It’s not easy,” he said.
“Obviously.”
He cut another glare at me. “And you’re obviously not making it any easier.”
“Do you want me to beg you to treat me well? Sorry if you expect me to drop down on my knees because, you know—” I motioned with my head at my legs, my smile bitter.
“Will you just—” He closed his eyes, hissing. “Fuck!” He stood up and kicked the chair next to him. “You’re always so infuriating!”
“Tell me something I don’t know!” I looked away, wishing my hair could conceal me. Like a movie reel, all the moments of his undeserving anger and insults unfurled in front of my eyes, and it was too much. I was tired. I was tired of not being able to find common ground with him. Of the hate between us.
Why do you have to hate me so much?
I was on the verge of tears, but the concentration exercises I’d done on Saturday must’ve paid off, because I was quick to put a stop to them before he saw them. He remained quiet, and I chanced a look at him once I was sure my tears were held at bay.
His gaze had never left me. It was intense, dark, and unreadable. It slowly slid down my body and lingered on my legs, making me feel vulnerable, exposed, and most of all, ensnared, because I couldn’t hide from him.
A strange emotion passed over his face, but he hid it before I could process what it was, turning his back on me. He took a few steps away. His back muscles bunched under his tight-fitting T-shirt.
“We can go on like this forever. It’s just a waste of time.” He seemed to have reached some conclusion when he finally turned to look at me. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Let’s make this work.”
I released a sigh of relief. I didn’t know how long his goodwill would last, but I would take it.
“We need to be more emotional. More intense . . . just more,” he said.
“I agree.”
“Don’t take the edge off Chloe. Go full-on.”
“Alright.”
I inhaled a long breath and closed my eyes, taking a few moments to get into Chloe’s mind. As I thought about her suffering, the burning love she felt, her fear, pressure built in my chest, and her pain took me over, replacing mine.
Something changed the moment we started the scene, and this time, with no prying eyes to watch us, we could delve deeper into the moment and express our characters’ emotions with no restrictions. Both of us were tuned in to each other, moving fluidly as if we’d done this many times before.
He gripped his hair with his hands. “Don’t chase me away, Chloe.”
“Don’t you get it? I don’t want you to waste your life. Just leave.”
He crossed the distance between us and sank to his knees in front of me. “It would only be a waste if I’m not by your side.” His eyes were glistening, so at contrast with the anger they had held just a few minutes before. His talent only motivated me to tap further into Chloe’s emotions and match his expression with one of my own.
I shook my head adamantly. “Don’t be an idiot.”
He placed his hands on my knees, the expression on his face so passionate, so raw, I felt a deep tug in my chest—I almost felt that touch on my knees. Like a phantom feeling that grew stronger the longer he looked at me like that. “Chloe, I won’t let you deal with this on your own. I won’t let you push me away. You’re not alone.”
“Don’t. Just leave.” I tried to pry his hands away from me, but he wouldn’t budge, his eyes burning hotly.
“Do you know what you did for me? You taught me how to fight. You taught me to never give up. Now I’m asking you to do the same. Don’t give up on yourself—on us. Please. I’m begging you.” His voice cracked at the end under a load of emotion, and something cracked in me as well.
The first tear fell down my cheek, and for a quick moment, surprise registered across his face. This wasn’t in the script. But then he went a step further. He raised his hand and wiped away that tear. And then the next. And the next. And the tenderness of it almost made me break character.
But I didn’t. I leaned against the hand that rested on my face and closed my eyes, my heart hammering as I continued to wing it. I tugged at his hand as a silent urging for him to come closer to me, and he picked up on it right away, sliding up to sit next to me.
“I’m afraid,” I whispered.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I know, Chloe.” He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear—another improvisation. “I’m afraid, too.”
Seconds passed as we just looked at each other—I’d been dreading this moment so much before today because I’d thought it would be awkward, but right now, in this very moment, I felt like he was my whole world. Everything aligned.
We reached for each other at the same time, me completely dismissing Ms. Holloway’s instruction not to hug him back immediately, and wrapped our arms around each other like we were each other’s lifeline. Fresh tears poured from my eyes. I held him more tightly, lost in Chloe’s love for Nathan.
“Okay.”
He drew away. His eyes were filled with fragile hope and powerful longing. “Really?”
I nodded.
He buried his face into my neck. “Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
His breath fanned across the overly sensitive skin of my neck as he spoke, and I tightened my fingers in his shirt, heat pooling in the pit of my stomach. The sensation only grew stronger with each moment he held me this way, my body starving for the touch and intimacy that wasn’t meant for me but soaking in it anyway.
“Promise you won’t give up on me,” I let out on a quick breath.
He pulled away to look at me, but his hands remained on my waist. “How could I give up on you when I love you?” The words weren’t meant for me, but my heart swelled, even more so when a look of deep adoration took over his features. “Yes, I love you, Chloe. I have for a while, actually.”
A strange feeling unfolded from my depths. I love you. Those words sounded so sensual, so good on his lips.
I raised my hand to cup his cheek. “Why me? Look at me. I’m sick and—”
He gripped my hand with his, leaning his cheek into my touch. “You’re perfect. You’re beautiful, sweet, and you give my life sense. Everything makes sense when you’re around. You make everything better.”
For a moment, through the darkness of my apathy flickered the wish to find someone too who could love me the way I was. Who wouldn’t see my wheelchair as an obstacle. Who would make me happy no matter what and always be there for me. Who would look at me with pure love, exactly the way Jason was looking at me now.
Something squeezed my heart hard, and more moisture collected in my eyes.
I smiled a trembling smile. “And you really don’t care that I always steal the last piece of chocolate?” This sentence was Chloe’s way of saying she accepted Nathan’s love—that she trusted him to always stay by her side. It was supposed to break the tension of the moment and make them erupt in laughter.
But neither Jason nor I laughed.
His eyes were soft. “You stole my heart and I didn’t mind. Just stay by my side. Just like you promised.”
This was the moment that Chloe and Nathan had their first kiss. Jason shifted toward me, and I went completely still, thinking he would actually kiss me, but his lips changed their trajectory to just a few inches away from mine, ending on my cheek. My heart swelled, and I inhaled his scent greedily as his lips lingered on my skin.
He pulled away slowly. The scene was over but neither of us moved, studying each other like we were seeing each other for the first time.
Someone clapped. Jason and I snapped our heads to the source of the sound, jerking away from each other. Ms. Holloway was wearing a smile that could melt any glacier, approval shining brightly in her eyes.
“Now that’s more like it.” She stopped beside us and made the okay sign. “Perfect chemistry.”
My cheeks warmed. I glanced at Jason, who looked everywhere but at me, discomfort tightly knitting his brows together.
“I don’t know what you did while I was gone, but it obviously worked in your favor. So, keep working together like that and you’ll be just fine.”
Despite what she’d said earlier, she didn’t ask us to perform the scene again and let us go home. Jason was the first to leave, not looking at me even once, his steps brisk as if he couldn’t leave quickly enough. Ms. Holloway accompanied me out of the theater, and then I was left alone to my thoughts.
To the thoughts of me finally doing it right, managing to bring a performance that stood out after all.
And to the thoughts of Jason’s lips on my cheek, the desire he’d provoked in me, and the connection that, as much as I wanted to deny it, we’d shared for at least a little while on that empty stage.
The Weeknd blasted from Dylan’s car radio, almost completely drowning out my words.
“Will you turn it down for a sec?” I asked. I could never understand how she could listen to loud music so early in the morning. “I can’t even hear myself over the music.”
“Sure.” She turned it down just enough for my words to barely be heard.
I sighed. I guessed I’d take what I could get.
“So, you were saying about you and Jason . . .?”
“We shared a moment yesterday. Actually, I don’t know if I could call that a moment.” I told her how things had gone down once we were alone in the theater. “It was like we weren’t us, and at the same time, we were so in sync. Everything fit together perfectly. Even Ms. Holloway thought so. She said we had perfect chemistry.”
She gave me a look over the rims of her glasses. “You and Jason? Huh. Seeing is believing.” She tapped her fingers on her steering wheel. The corner of her lips turned up.
“What?”
“Imagine this—what if he fell for you?”
My eyes widened. “Are you crazy? Why would you even think that?”
She shrugged. “Dunno. Just tossing ideas around. Like, karma would be such a bitch if he did after how he’s treated you so far.”
“I think you’re being overly dramatic.”
“Maybe. How do you feel about him?”
I kept my eyes fixed on the scenery outside my window. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you used to have a crush on him, and now you’re like lovers in that play. Are you sure you still can’t stand him?”
“Oh, there’s no doubt about that—I can’t.”
“I sense a but in there.”
“There’s no but.”
She groaned. “Come on. I know you, Kat.”
I huffed. “Fine. There’s . . . something. I don’t know what it is, but I’m not totally immune to him. Like, I’m super aware of him, and his touch . . . it feels too good, Dee. It’s like my body is starved for any form of attention so it mistakes his acting for something else.”
“I think that’s normal. You haven’t experienced that before, so it’s normal that your body wants it.”
“But this is Jason we’re talking about. My body should take a hint.”
Dylan chuckled. “Don’t you think you’re just confusing your roles for the real thing?”
“It’s not that. Believe me, I can’t forget for a second who he is.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. “Seriously, though, be careful.”
“Of Jason? I know—”
“No, of you falling for him again. I’d hate for you to get hurt, and any feelings you develop for him are leading straight to that.”
“I know, Dee. I’m not stupid.”
Though, that didn’t stop me from thinking a little too much about the sensations he’d made me feel when we were alone. About his lips on my cheek. About how intimate it had all felt. About what it would feel like to experience it all again.
Which was exactly what was going through my head as I entered the library to meet him the next day. I came a few minutes early so I could look for more books on acting I could study over the weekend. Just as I selected a third one, I spotted Jason. He was chatting with three girls in a far corner, an area that was mostly hidden from the rest of the library. He was sitting at a table, while the girls sat on it, their legs swinging up and down. They were wearing short skirts that rose too high up on their thighs, risking revealing their underwear. The smile he had directed at them was blinding.
Once more it struck me how different he was with any other girl but me. It easily reminded me of the days when I hoped I’d get noticed, experiencing a stampede of butterflies in my belly every time I passed him, but his sights had always been set on girls who were tens out of ten.
These girls were also tens out of ten, all of them either giggling or wearing gigantic smiles that said “fuck me.” I didn’t doubt one of them would be lucky enough to get her wish granted.
My heart pumped harder as I approached them, heat creeping up my neck. For a moment, I thought he would be too busy to even look in my direction, but as if he’d sensed me close to him, he turned his head and his eyes zoned in on me.
Everything slowed down, and the rest of the library stopped existing as his unblinking eyes watched me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking because his face settled into the usual blank mask he wore in front of me, but the way he didn’t let go of my gaze sent a bolt of awareness through me, warming my blood.
All eyes were on us. Some amused, some curious to see what would unfold.
He stepped closer, and his warmth washed over me. My insides stirred. He was so tall, so strong and powerful compared to me. The contrast was distracting.
“Good. Now hold hands until we start the rehearsal.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Jason said. Lucas chuckled. A few people shared wide-eyed looks.
“Come on. While we’re still young.”
I wet my lips and offered Jason my hand. His brows knitted together as he looked at it.
“It won’t bite, you know,” I told him.
“This is bullshit,” he said quietly, but he reached for my hand and enveloped it into his much larger one.
Our fingers entwined as if it was the most natural thing in the world. My lips parted with an indrawn breath as his gaze dropped to our linked hands, and his frown deepened. He met my gaze for a long second before he abruptly looked away, muttering something under his breath.
My heart thudded constantly as we held hands, and I could barely stay focused on what Ms. Holloway and the others were saying as they covered character details and more blocking. I didn’t dare move my fingers an inch, holding my breath every time his hand moved even slightly against mine. I could breathe normally only when Ms. Holloway announced we were beginning and Jason and I separated.
The second act had a lot more physical contact, and as much as I’d tried to psych myself up for that, my stomach was in knots. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to pull off those scenes.
In the first few scenes, we barely touched, so there were no hiccups, but then we reached the scene in which Nathan proclaimed his love for Chloe in her room after they found out about her cancer. That moment was angsty, desperate, and heavy with physical contact that led to their first kiss, but every time we reached the part when Jason was supposed to pull me into a tight embrace on Chloe’s bed and whisper his lines against my neck, Ms. Holloway stopped us and told us to do it again.
“Katie, you’re not supposed to move your hands when he hugs you at first. Wait it out ten seconds and then slowly hug him back. Jason, you have to lean your head against hers and say the words against her neck.”
And then later: “Katie, you’re too stiff. Chloe’s reluctance should come from the fact that she’s trying hard to fight her feelings for Nathan. Jason, you have to hold her tight. We need to see, feel his despair.”
Ten minutes later, our performances weren’t getting any better, and it was even more difficult with so many keen eyes directed at us. To make it worse, Ms. Holloway refused to leave this scene for another day. She told us to stay after the rehearsal and go through that scene again alone.
“I’m going to leave for fifteen minutes,” Ms. Holloway said with a stern, uncompromising expression once only the three of us remained in the theater. “You practice while I’m gone. Or resolve whatever is holding you back. When I come back, I want you to perform that scene for me.”
She didn’t wait for our answer. She strode briskly across the stage and out of the room, leaving us alone in deafening silence.
I swallowed thickly as I looked out over the vast auditorium. There was something imposing about this place. Something that amplified the acting experience. Being here alone with Jason was all the more intimate because of it.
Jason jumped up from the huge equipment box we were sitting on and crossed to the edge of the stage. “Why do you have to keep messing up?”
“I keep messing up? What about you? You’re so tired it’s making you even moodier than usual. I can’t relax when you look like you might strangle me at any moment.”
“I wouldn’t want to strangle you if you’d put more effort into your performance.”
“I am putting more effort into my performance!”
“It’s not enough.”
“Yeah, because nothing can satisfy the big, perfect Jason Adams, right? You wrote me off from the start, and no matter what I do, it won’t be good enough for you.”
He opened his mouth to retort, but he stopped himself. He ran his hand down his face and exhaled a deep breath. “We keep going around in circles. We can’t function this way.”
I angled my head to the side. “You think?”
He flashed his glare at me.
“Of course we can’t when you can’t let go of your personal feelings. I’m trying my best here, but I can only do so much.” I tucked my hair behind my ears. “We should do our best to make this”—I motioned between us with my finger—“work. It’s not just good for us but also for the whole cast.”
He ran his hand through his hair and marched over to the chair across from the box I was sitting on. He dropped on it with a loud sigh, positioning his legs wide open.
“It’s not easy,” he said.
“Obviously.”
He cut another glare at me. “And you’re obviously not making it any easier.”
“Do you want me to beg you to treat me well? Sorry if you expect me to drop down on my knees because, you know—” I motioned with my head at my legs, my smile bitter.
“Will you just—” He closed his eyes, hissing. “Fuck!” He stood up and kicked the chair next to him. “You’re always so infuriating!”
“Tell me something I don’t know!” I looked away, wishing my hair could conceal me. Like a movie reel, all the moments of his undeserving anger and insults unfurled in front of my eyes, and it was too much. I was tired. I was tired of not being able to find common ground with him. Of the hate between us.
Why do you have to hate me so much?
I was on the verge of tears, but the concentration exercises I’d done on Saturday must’ve paid off, because I was quick to put a stop to them before he saw them. He remained quiet, and I chanced a look at him once I was sure my tears were held at bay.
His gaze had never left me. It was intense, dark, and unreadable. It slowly slid down my body and lingered on my legs, making me feel vulnerable, exposed, and most of all, ensnared, because I couldn’t hide from him.
A strange emotion passed over his face, but he hid it before I could process what it was, turning his back on me. He took a few steps away. His back muscles bunched under his tight-fitting T-shirt.
“We can go on like this forever. It’s just a waste of time.” He seemed to have reached some conclusion when he finally turned to look at me. “Fine.”
“Fine?”
“Let’s make this work.”
I released a sigh of relief. I didn’t know how long his goodwill would last, but I would take it.
“We need to be more emotional. More intense . . . just more,” he said.
“I agree.”
“Don’t take the edge off Chloe. Go full-on.”
“Alright.”
I inhaled a long breath and closed my eyes, taking a few moments to get into Chloe’s mind. As I thought about her suffering, the burning love she felt, her fear, pressure built in my chest, and her pain took me over, replacing mine.
Something changed the moment we started the scene, and this time, with no prying eyes to watch us, we could delve deeper into the moment and express our characters’ emotions with no restrictions. Both of us were tuned in to each other, moving fluidly as if we’d done this many times before.
He gripped his hair with his hands. “Don’t chase me away, Chloe.”
“Don’t you get it? I don’t want you to waste your life. Just leave.”
He crossed the distance between us and sank to his knees in front of me. “It would only be a waste if I’m not by your side.” His eyes were glistening, so at contrast with the anger they had held just a few minutes before. His talent only motivated me to tap further into Chloe’s emotions and match his expression with one of my own.
I shook my head adamantly. “Don’t be an idiot.”
He placed his hands on my knees, the expression on his face so passionate, so raw, I felt a deep tug in my chest—I almost felt that touch on my knees. Like a phantom feeling that grew stronger the longer he looked at me like that. “Chloe, I won’t let you deal with this on your own. I won’t let you push me away. You’re not alone.”
“Don’t. Just leave.” I tried to pry his hands away from me, but he wouldn’t budge, his eyes burning hotly.
“Do you know what you did for me? You taught me how to fight. You taught me to never give up. Now I’m asking you to do the same. Don’t give up on yourself—on us. Please. I’m begging you.” His voice cracked at the end under a load of emotion, and something cracked in me as well.
The first tear fell down my cheek, and for a quick moment, surprise registered across his face. This wasn’t in the script. But then he went a step further. He raised his hand and wiped away that tear. And then the next. And the next. And the tenderness of it almost made me break character.
But I didn’t. I leaned against the hand that rested on my face and closed my eyes, my heart hammering as I continued to wing it. I tugged at his hand as a silent urging for him to come closer to me, and he picked up on it right away, sliding up to sit next to me.
“I’m afraid,” I whispered.
His throat bobbed as he swallowed. “I know, Chloe.” He tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear—another improvisation. “I’m afraid, too.”
Seconds passed as we just looked at each other—I’d been dreading this moment so much before today because I’d thought it would be awkward, but right now, in this very moment, I felt like he was my whole world. Everything aligned.
We reached for each other at the same time, me completely dismissing Ms. Holloway’s instruction not to hug him back immediately, and wrapped our arms around each other like we were each other’s lifeline. Fresh tears poured from my eyes. I held him more tightly, lost in Chloe’s love for Nathan.
“Okay.”
He drew away. His eyes were filled with fragile hope and powerful longing. “Really?”
I nodded.
He buried his face into my neck. “Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
His breath fanned across the overly sensitive skin of my neck as he spoke, and I tightened my fingers in his shirt, heat pooling in the pit of my stomach. The sensation only grew stronger with each moment he held me this way, my body starving for the touch and intimacy that wasn’t meant for me but soaking in it anyway.
“Promise you won’t give up on me,” I let out on a quick breath.
He pulled away to look at me, but his hands remained on my waist. “How could I give up on you when I love you?” The words weren’t meant for me, but my heart swelled, even more so when a look of deep adoration took over his features. “Yes, I love you, Chloe. I have for a while, actually.”
A strange feeling unfolded from my depths. I love you. Those words sounded so sensual, so good on his lips.
I raised my hand to cup his cheek. “Why me? Look at me. I’m sick and—”
He gripped my hand with his, leaning his cheek into my touch. “You’re perfect. You’re beautiful, sweet, and you give my life sense. Everything makes sense when you’re around. You make everything better.”
For a moment, through the darkness of my apathy flickered the wish to find someone too who could love me the way I was. Who wouldn’t see my wheelchair as an obstacle. Who would make me happy no matter what and always be there for me. Who would look at me with pure love, exactly the way Jason was looking at me now.
Something squeezed my heart hard, and more moisture collected in my eyes.
I smiled a trembling smile. “And you really don’t care that I always steal the last piece of chocolate?” This sentence was Chloe’s way of saying she accepted Nathan’s love—that she trusted him to always stay by her side. It was supposed to break the tension of the moment and make them erupt in laughter.
But neither Jason nor I laughed.
His eyes were soft. “You stole my heart and I didn’t mind. Just stay by my side. Just like you promised.”
This was the moment that Chloe and Nathan had their first kiss. Jason shifted toward me, and I went completely still, thinking he would actually kiss me, but his lips changed their trajectory to just a few inches away from mine, ending on my cheek. My heart swelled, and I inhaled his scent greedily as his lips lingered on my skin.
He pulled away slowly. The scene was over but neither of us moved, studying each other like we were seeing each other for the first time.
Someone clapped. Jason and I snapped our heads to the source of the sound, jerking away from each other. Ms. Holloway was wearing a smile that could melt any glacier, approval shining brightly in her eyes.
“Now that’s more like it.” She stopped beside us and made the okay sign. “Perfect chemistry.”
My cheeks warmed. I glanced at Jason, who looked everywhere but at me, discomfort tightly knitting his brows together.
“I don’t know what you did while I was gone, but it obviously worked in your favor. So, keep working together like that and you’ll be just fine.”
Despite what she’d said earlier, she didn’t ask us to perform the scene again and let us go home. Jason was the first to leave, not looking at me even once, his steps brisk as if he couldn’t leave quickly enough. Ms. Holloway accompanied me out of the theater, and then I was left alone to my thoughts.
To the thoughts of me finally doing it right, managing to bring a performance that stood out after all.
And to the thoughts of Jason’s lips on my cheek, the desire he’d provoked in me, and the connection that, as much as I wanted to deny it, we’d shared for at least a little while on that empty stage.
The Weeknd blasted from Dylan’s car radio, almost completely drowning out my words.
“Will you turn it down for a sec?” I asked. I could never understand how she could listen to loud music so early in the morning. “I can’t even hear myself over the music.”
“Sure.” She turned it down just enough for my words to barely be heard.
I sighed. I guessed I’d take what I could get.
“So, you were saying about you and Jason . . .?”
“We shared a moment yesterday. Actually, I don’t know if I could call that a moment.” I told her how things had gone down once we were alone in the theater. “It was like we weren’t us, and at the same time, we were so in sync. Everything fit together perfectly. Even Ms. Holloway thought so. She said we had perfect chemistry.”
She gave me a look over the rims of her glasses. “You and Jason? Huh. Seeing is believing.” She tapped her fingers on her steering wheel. The corner of her lips turned up.
“What?”
“Imagine this—what if he fell for you?”
My eyes widened. “Are you crazy? Why would you even think that?”
She shrugged. “Dunno. Just tossing ideas around. Like, karma would be such a bitch if he did after how he’s treated you so far.”
“I think you’re being overly dramatic.”
“Maybe. How do you feel about him?”
I kept my eyes fixed on the scenery outside my window. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you used to have a crush on him, and now you’re like lovers in that play. Are you sure you still can’t stand him?”
“Oh, there’s no doubt about that—I can’t.”
“I sense a but in there.”
“There’s no but.”
She groaned. “Come on. I know you, Kat.”
I huffed. “Fine. There’s . . . something. I don’t know what it is, but I’m not totally immune to him. Like, I’m super aware of him, and his touch . . . it feels too good, Dee. It’s like my body is starved for any form of attention so it mistakes his acting for something else.”
“I think that’s normal. You haven’t experienced that before, so it’s normal that your body wants it.”
“But this is Jason we’re talking about. My body should take a hint.”
Dylan chuckled. “Don’t you think you’re just confusing your roles for the real thing?”
“It’s not that. Believe me, I can’t forget for a second who he is.”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. “Seriously, though, be careful.”
“Of Jason? I know—”
“No, of you falling for him again. I’d hate for you to get hurt, and any feelings you develop for him are leading straight to that.”
“I know, Dee. I’m not stupid.”
Though, that didn’t stop me from thinking a little too much about the sensations he’d made me feel when we were alone. About his lips on my cheek. About how intimate it had all felt. About what it would feel like to experience it all again.
Which was exactly what was going through my head as I entered the library to meet him the next day. I came a few minutes early so I could look for more books on acting I could study over the weekend. Just as I selected a third one, I spotted Jason. He was chatting with three girls in a far corner, an area that was mostly hidden from the rest of the library. He was sitting at a table, while the girls sat on it, their legs swinging up and down. They were wearing short skirts that rose too high up on their thighs, risking revealing their underwear. The smile he had directed at them was blinding.
Once more it struck me how different he was with any other girl but me. It easily reminded me of the days when I hoped I’d get noticed, experiencing a stampede of butterflies in my belly every time I passed him, but his sights had always been set on girls who were tens out of ten.
These girls were also tens out of ten, all of them either giggling or wearing gigantic smiles that said “fuck me.” I didn’t doubt one of them would be lucky enough to get her wish granted.
My heart pumped harder as I approached them, heat creeping up my neck. For a moment, I thought he would be too busy to even look in my direction, but as if he’d sensed me close to him, he turned his head and his eyes zoned in on me.
Everything slowed down, and the rest of the library stopped existing as his unblinking eyes watched me. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking because his face settled into the usual blank mask he wore in front of me, but the way he didn’t let go of my gaze sent a bolt of awareness through me, warming my blood.
