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“You think writing is a mistake?” I glare.
“I never said that,” he says, that dark sheen returning. “All I think is that she lays it on a little thick. The assignments, the desire to study outside the popular portions of the text. Like she’s trying too hard.”
It’s my turn to shrug.What the hell is he trying to get at here?
“I didn’t come here to argue about the merits of studying a play that came out hundreds of years ago. I just want to write about my soliloquy and call it a day."
“Did you get to the ‘to be or not to be’ bit?” he asks without missing a beat. The man is not going to take a hint.
I raise my elbows onto the take and shake my head. “‘How all occasions do inform against me..thoughts be bloody’,” I intone.
This time he allows a smile to emerge. I have to look away before my thoughts scramble.
“That’s a good one, too. They’re all good,” he says.
I raise an eyebrow at him, noting how his big hands have still remained unmoving.
“Didn't you just say it was a mistake?”
Hunter closes his eyes and shakes his head. It’s a small head-shake, like the effort was enormous, and his skull was made of stone.
“You misunderstand me. The play is a classic, and the words are beautiful. To be or not to be can translate to any generation and their suffering.”
For a moment, his locked gray eyes move away from me. A new gloss is cast over them. Something personal that makes my stomach coil with excitement.
I curl the pages under my fingers as I plunge deeper.
“You can relate to Hamlet’s suffering?” I ask delicately.
Hunter lifts his hand from the table and tilts it in a ‘so-so’ gesture. A smile tickles my lips as he responds.
“It’s a reflection on existence that, like I said, anyone can really relate to. When has anyone who's lived on this planet not wanted to escape their pain?”
Daggers poke at my heart when I think about my own father’s abandonment and the grief that followed. No one tells you how to handle yourself, much less your heartbroken mother, when that kind of thing happens. I was young but had to age overnight in order to keep her going, in ways that a kid shouldn’t ever have to learn about.
People have told me that I am mature for my age. I want to tell them, no, that isn’t maturity. That’s survival. That’s trauma.
A beat between our exchange paints a connection I would have never surmised beforehand. I know very little about Hunter, other than his money and affluent parents and privilege. But now I know that something has hurt him, and it could be buried as deep as my own agony of losing my father.
I run a hand through my hair, then return to curling the pages of the book between my fingers anxiously.
“You’re right. I can see anyone being able to relate to that. The only problem is that I wasn’t assigned that speech, so your point is lost on me.”
Hunter smirks and lets out the tiniest puff of air from his nostrils. Was that a laugh?
“I hope my musings haven’t wasted your time.”
I shake my head. It is impulsive. I don’t want him to go anymore.
8
HUNTER
Wren is like a field mouse caught in a fox's den.
Watching her being swarmed at that party has bloomed something in me. It’s something foreign and strange, like a rose sprouting in a parking lot. The girl clearly doesn’t know what she’s doing here or how to behave in a way that will keep her safe.
She needs me. Or she’ll be eaten alive.
