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And just like that, we snap back into our stiff characters and resume the rest of the scene. Ms. Joy calls time at the end of it, choosing to pick up with scene five at tomorrow’s rehearsal, and we’re dismissed to go home.
Toby catches me by the exit doors, just like he did yesterday. “Hey, V-Vann?”
I face him. “Sup?”
He grips both of his backpack straps like he’s hanging on to a parachute, pulling them towards each other across his chest as he wrestles for the rest of his words. It’s adorable, watching him think. He’s a very expressive thinker. “I was just, uh … thinking …” Obviously. “… that maybe Friday when I get off work, you and I could … could hang out again.”
I try not to smile too much. My heart is jumping around all over the place, making a mess of my insides. “Sure.”
“Sure? Yeah? Alright, great!” A relieved smile spreads over his face. “So I’ll, uh … We can hang out, then! Maybe we could even go over some lines? Like, to get more comfortable with the script? On our own. Without …” He gives a less-than-kind gaze at the seats where the random onlookers sat. “… all of the …”
“Unwelcome attention,” I finish for him. “Sounds good.”
His eyes light up. “Does it?”
“Yep. Also we need to get more comfortable with each other.”
“With … each other?”
“Didn’t Ms. Joy basically imply today we’re terrible actors?”
“I … wouldn’t go that far,” he insists. Then he reconsiders it. “Actually yeah, I guess she did.”
“She did.”
“Okay! So let’s suck less!” he announces proudly. Then his face goes red. “And … And I’ll see you tomorrow, where we pick up with scene six. Or was it five?”
“Five. See ya, Toby.” Before I can give him another chance to be his awkward, bumbling self, I head out of the auditorium, make my way out the doors of the school, and begin my walk home. Of course, thoughts of Toby chase me all the way down Main Street and past every storefront. The evening sun shouts glowing taunts over my back as I stuff my hands into my pockets and wonder why I can’t shake the idea of kissing Toby out of my head. Why didn’t I just set the example onstage right there and plant a big one on him? I could’ve made a moment of it. Everyone would’ve laughed, or let out gasps, or … whatever.
Besides, why am I trying to make some big stupid deal out of it? A kiss is a kiss. There’s no need to build it up the way he is. He should have just given in, done his part, and kissed me. And that night, when I take my pad downstairs and sit at the breakfast table at 11:30 PM, pale moonlight washes over my hands as I draw a new sketch of Kingsley-Demon and Danny. They embrace one another, their lips uniting, demon wings spread, fingers digging into skin and muscle, eyes closed, giving in … It’s just a fricking kiss.
10 | TOBY
I could barely sleep last night.
Friday is already here, and I feel like I’m running on an engine full of sugar, cocaine, and internal screaming. I can’t keep still no matter which desk I’m sitting at. Even Hoyt doesn’t bother putting his feet up on my shoulders in English, giving me suspicious looks the whole class period as I sit there, bouncing agitatedly in place. When the bell sends me barreling over wooden walkways toward chemistry, my heart pounds so hard, it could burst from my chest.
But I do. And he’s already here. And when I sit next to him, he flashes his warm, sinister, breathtaking eyes on me. “Sup,” he says in that casual, doesn’t-give-a-crap-about-anything way of his. And I melt all over the place for half a second before, in a mumble, I say, “Hey, Vann,” in as casual a voice as I can manage.
For some reason, it’s imperative he doesn’t know how crazy he makes me. That sole fact becomes Spruce’s greatest secret that I, alone, must work to keep buried at all costs.
The truth is, I didn’t expect us to have to perform that scene so soon. I thought there would be many more table reads and chats and character workshopping before we even considered kissing each other onstage. When Ms. Joy, instead, plunged right on into scene four—on the second day of rehearsal, first day if you don’t count the obligatory table read—my stomach dropped through the stage floor and landed somewhere in the Earth’s core, swimming among liquid-hot nickel and iron. There was no way I was ready to kiss Vann—and not like that, in front of the world.
Something about cheapening our first kiss feels wrong. I don’t want it to be deduced to a silly moment on a stage, existing solely for the purpose of entertaining giggling girls in an audience. Our first kiss should mean something. It should be special—and ours.
