by Ali Novak
“‘O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art as glorious to this night.’” It was Danny, and he was reading from a script I knew by heart. “‘Being o’er my head as is a winged messenger of heaven…’” He trailed off, leaving his line unfinished as he pulled his hair in frustration. From the way he spoke, I knew that he had every word memorized, so it must have been his line delivery that was upsetting him.
“‘O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou, Romeo?’” I called down Juliet’s next line, hoping to inspire him. Danny’s head snapped in my direction, and he stared at me as I made my way down to the front of the stage. “‘Deny thy father and refuse thy name. Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love. And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.’”
“‘Shall I hear more,’” Danny whispered Romeo’s response, “‘or shall I speak at this?’” He sounded breathless—my sudden appearance was clearly a surprise.
I clapped my hands, a huge smile on my face. “Romeo and Juliet, huh?”
“Yeah, it’s this year’s spring play. I didn’t know anyone else was in here with me.”
He looked away from me, and I took the opportunity to study his face. He had all of the beautiful Walter facial features, but in more of a rugged way with the usual scruff covering his face. He was just as good-looking as Cole, but it was subtle—something I had to study to notice. It was a silent, softer beauty.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt,” I told him as he shuffled his feet. “I was trying to find the computer lab.”
“That’s on the other side of the building.”
“Figures,” I said with a sigh. “So you’re the male lead? That’s pretty cool.”
Danny shook his head. “Not yet. Callbacks are next week.”
“Oh, I’m sure you’ll get the part,” I told him, as I pulled myself up onto the platform. I sat on the edge and let my feet dangle over the side. “It sounds like you have everything down.”
“I don’t know,” he said, sounding agonized. “Something is off. I’m having a hard time getting into character and this part…” He sighed. “This is the most important play I’ve ever auditioned for.”
“Is it your favorite or something?”
“No, but our drama teacher told us that one of his friends is coming here to watch it. She’s a talent scout.”
“Maybe you just need someone to read lines with,” I said, trying to look casual. This was by far the longest conversation I’d had with Danny since moving in with the Walters, and I wanted to see how far I could take it. “I can help if you want.”
Danny looked unsure, as if he thought I would rather give myself a paper cut. “You’d do that?” he asked.
“Well, Romeo and Juliet isn’t my favorite Shakespeare play,” I said, giving him a hard time. “But I suppose I could spare some time.”
It took Danny some time to warm up to me. At first, when he spoke, his lines were clumsy. But after one run-through of the famous balcony scene, he forgot I was standing there with him. He transformed into Romeo and I was Juliet.
The bell rang, signaling the end of lunch period, and Danny shook his head as if waking from a daydream. I could see why he was the president of the drama club. Danny didn’t just act out a role; he submerged himself in it until he believed he was the character.
“That went well, don’t you think?” I asked, hopping off the stage.
Danny followed me down and walked me to the auditorium door. “It did. You’re pretty good. Ever considered acting?”
“Heck no,” I laughed. “I get way too nervous in front of crowds. I don’t understand how you do it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know…” I said, unsure of how to verbalize what I was thinking. “You’re just so—”
“Shy?” he said bluntly.
“Yeah, that.”
“Most people think I’m unfriendly,” Danny explained, shoving his hands in his jean pockets, “but I just have a hard time talking to people I don’t know.”
“Me too,” I told him.
Danny gave me a look. “That’s not true. You talk to everyone.”
“It’s not like I have much of a choice. I don’t know anyone here,” I said. There was a distinct note of grief in my voice, so I quickly changed the subject back to Danny. “If you have such a hard time talking to people, how do you stand up there in front of so many of them?”
“That’s different.”
“How?”
“For starters, I don’t have to interact with them,” he told me. “But also, there’s something about playing a character, slipping into a different skin, that gives me this rush of confidence. It’s like I know that the crowd can’t judge who I am because I’m just performing. The person I’m pretending to be isn’t really me.”
“That makes sense,” I said, “but why do you care what people think?” He made it sound like everyone would hate him if they got to know the real him.
Danny raised an eyebrow. “What about you?”
“Me?” I asked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Yes, I liked to make sure I looked presentable and I was a little uptight about my grades, but those were both key ingredients in becoming a successful person. It wasn’t like I avoided talking to people.
For a moment, Danny held my gaze, staring at me as if he was trying to figure something out. “Nothing,” he finally said and looked away. He pushed the auditorium door open a crack, and a beam of light poured into the dark room like molten gold. “Anyway, thanks for helping me out today. It was super cool, but I should probably get to class.”
“Right,” I said, confused. Why was he suddenly clamping down?
“See you at home,” Danny said. He slipped out into the hall, the door swinging shut behind him, and then I was alone.
Chapter 10
It was Saturday morning, and I was finally starting to feel the effects of my punishment.
“What do you mean I can’t go?” Cole shouted.
Nathan and I had just gotten back from our morning run and were stretching out on the front lawn. A moment ago, Cole came storming out of the house to find his dad loading the truck with supplies: tents, sleeping bags, a box filled with pots and pans made for cooking over a fire, and other outdoorsy things.
“I didn’t say you couldn’t come,” George replied, looking up from his work.
Danny and Isaac, who were busy strapping a canoe to the top of Katherine’s van, glanced at Cole and snickered.
“Dad, I can’t miss the camping trip,” Cole said, his tone unyielding. “We always go—as a family.”
If he thought playing the sentimental card would work, Cole was mistaken.
George snorted. “Cole, if you want to come, then come. I’m giving you a choice, so I don’t see what the problem is.”
The problem was that Cole didn’t like either choice.
When I got home from school Friday afternoon, I found out that Alex hadn’t ditched me at lunch. He went home sick with some kind of stomach flu, although he still wasn’t talking to me. The Walters were going on their annual camping trip, but since Alex was ill, Katherine wanted someone to stay home with him. If we chose not to go on the camping trip and took care of Alex, we would be released from our grounding after the weekend. On the other hand, if we decided to go on the trip, our grounding would stay the same—two more weeks of solitude.
For me, the choice was easy. I hated the outdoors and the thought of sleeping outside with bugs and the cold made me cringe. Staying home was a win-win. Cole, however, was pissed. His and Danny’s birthday was in two weeks and he wasn’t willing to give up his social life, family camping trip or not.
“This blows,” he complained as we watched his family back out of the driveway, both cars packed full.
“Sorry,” I said.
“No, you’re not,” he sn
apped, looking away from the window. “You didn’t even want to go.”
I knew he was only taking his frustration out on me, but it still made me flinch. “It’s not like this is my fault.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t been so drunk…” he whispered under his breath.
“Don’t you dare blame this on me,” I hissed. “You were planning on skipping school whether or not I came.”
“Whatever,” he said, storming out of the room. When I heard the front door bang, I knew he was heading out to work on his car. For the rest of the day, we all avoided each other. Alex stayed in his room playing GoG, while Cole stayed shut up in the garage. I tried to work on some homework, but I couldn’t concentrate. Instead, I camped out on the couch watching reruns of a soap opera that my mom had been addicted to. I tried to find Danny’s crime show, but it must have only been on at night.
Later, Cole came in to make himself dinner. After his frozen pizza was done cooking, he plopped down on the cushion next to me.
“Sorry I blamed you before,” he said. “I was pissed at my dad.” Then he shoved half a slice of pizza into his mouth. A few hours of cranking on his car must have cleared his mind. That didn’t mean I wanted to forgive him, though. Cole had a bad habit of taking his anger out on me, and I didn’t like it. I stayed silent. He finished chewing and set down his plate with a sigh. “I was a jerk, Jackie. What else do you want me to say?”
I thought for a moment. “Give me a slice of that pepperoni. Then we’re good.”
After eating, we decided to watch a movie. While Cole turned on the TV, Alex wandered into the kitchen in search of dinner. He glanced at the last piece of pizza longingly before opening the pantry.
“Hey, Alex,” Cole said as he sat back down on the couch. “Wanna watch a movie with us?”
I glanced up, eager to hear his response, but when Alex caught me looking, he scowled. “I’m kind of busy getting eaten by scorpion trolls at the moment, but thanks.” Grabbing a bag of potato chips, he disappeared back upstairs.
Cole shrugged when we heard a door slam. “His loss. This is a great movie.”
His idea of a great movie was a slasher film called Crazy Jack, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep later. I tried to tell him nonchalantly that horror movies weren’t really my thing, but he called me a chicken until I reluctantly agreed. And that was how I ended up stuck on the couch with my face buried in Cole Walter’s shoulder on a Saturday night, as I tried not to scream my head off. He laughed at the gore and kept hinting who was going to die next, and I tried my best to hide behind a blanket. It didn’t help that a full-on thunderstorm was assaulting the house.
I peeked over the edge of the fabric. “Don’t go outside!” I yelled at the stupid girl who was slowly opening the front door.
“Is Jackie scared?” Cole asked, poking me in the side.
“No,” I told him, but my voice was shaky and I knew it sounded unconvincing. The rain was pounding on the window behind us.
“Yeah, you are,” Cole said and chuckled. He turned his attention back to the screen just in time to see the stupid girl step outside into the dark night. Then the TV and lights flickered out.
“Oh my God! He’s coming for us,” I screamed and buried my face into the closest available shoulder, which happened to be Cole’s.
“Not scared, huh?” he asked.
“Um, maybe a little?”
“Don’t worry.” He stood up from the couch and in the process pulled my protection—the flimsy blanket I had been hiding under—away from me. “The power always cuts out during big storms. Dad’s been trying to fix it for years.”
“Guys?” I heard Alex call out. He appeared in the kitchen, using the light of his phone to guide himself through the dark house.
“Alex, over here,” Cole said. “I’m going to go see if I can get the backup generator working. Can you go find some candles in case I can’t?”
“All right,” Alex said and turned back around as Cole made his way to the back door.
“Wait, guys,” I cried, shooting out of my seat. “Don’t leave me alone.”
Alex paused and glanced over his shoulder, which I took as a sign to follow him. When I caught up, he headed for the basement door. A bad feeling formed in my stomach.
“Alex?” I asked, trying not to sound nervous.
“Yeah?”
“The candles aren’t in the basement, are they?”
“Yup.”
“I think I’ll go with Cole.”
“That’s fine,” Alex said. “But just so you know, the backup generator is in a shed outside.”
“Basement it is,” I mumbled as we headed toward our doom.
***
“We’re going to end up like the girl in the movie Cole made me watch,” I told Alex as we descended into the basement.
“Did she die?” Alex asked, continuing down the steps.
“Well, not yet,” I said, “but I know she will.”
“So?”
“That’s my point. We are so going to end up dead.”
Alex stopped on the stairs. “Jackie, it’s just the basement. Do you think we keep monsters down here?”
“No, it’s just that…” I trailed off.
“You’re afraid of the dark?” Alex finished for me.
I sighed. “Yeah, I guess so.” I didn’t used to be, but since the nightmares—I just couldn’t handle the dark anymore.
“Once we get the candles it won’t be as dark, okay?”
“Okay,” I mumbled, not really feeling better.
When we reached the bottom, Alex grabbed my hand and pulled me to the left. I followed behind him in astonishment. This was the first real conversation we’d had since our fight, which was why his sudden contact was all the more surprising. We fought our way through a maze of cardboard boxes, and when Alex suddenly stopped, I ran straight into him.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“This is my dad’s workroom,” he said in response, holding his phone up so I could see. There was an outline of an open door, and then nothing. “There are always candles in here.”
Alex went in, and I hesitated outside for a moment, but only until I heard an awful banging noise from somewhere else in the basement.
“Hey, Jackie, just make sure you don’t—”
“Oh my God, what was that?” I burst out, before dashing inside and slamming the door behind me.
“—shut the door,” Alex finished.
“What?” I squeaked.
“Don’t shut the door,” he repeated with a sigh. He rattled the handle, but the door wouldn’t budge.
“Are we locked in?” I asked, horrified.
“It looks like it,” he said. “It’s been broken for as long as I can remember.”
“What are we going to do?” I asked.
“Hold on a sec,” he said.
He shuffled around the room, opening and closing cabinets until I heard him strike a match. A candle came to life, filling the room with light.
“Much better,” Alex said.
“Now what?”
“Texting Cole to come get us out,” he said, walking around the small room while holding up his phone. “Crap. I can’t find any service.” He snapped it shut and shoved it back in his pocket.
“I left mine upstairs,” I said, feeling guilty.
“It’s okay. You didn’t know.”
“So what are we going to do?” I asked.
“We’ll have to wait until Cole finds us, but in the meantime…”
He grabbed a wooden barrel and placed it in the middle of the room. The candle was put in the center, and he pulled two chairs up, making a table for us to sit at. Then he went over to one of the cabinets and started searching through the shelves.
“Now what are you doing?” I asked him, carefully sitti
ng down on the rickety folding chair.
“Looking for these!” he said, grinning like he’d won the lottery. In his hands was a beat-up deck of cards. He came back over to the table, pulling them out of the flimsy cardboard box as he walked. “I use to sit in here and watch my dad fix things when I was a little kid. When he got frustrated with something he couldn’t fix, he would pull these out and teach me to play different card games.”
“So your dad fixes stuff but never thought to repair the lock on the door?”
“He’s tried.” Alex sat down, and the candlelight made shadows flicker across the angles of his face. “I never said he was good at it, and the man’s way too stubborn to replace the handle, so more often than not, we just ended up playing cards.”
“That’s nice,” I said, cocking my head so I could see the image on the back of the cards. It looked familiar, and sure enough, when Alex held them up for me to examine, the New York skyline was plastered there. The reminder of home was so unexpected that my chest went tight. “I wish my dad could have taught me stuff like that when I was little.”
“Why didn’t he?” Alex asked. He was shuffling now, his hands moving back and forth as he blended the deck together.
I gripped the edge of the barrel, trying to think of the best way to answer. In all honesty, my dad didn’t have much time when I was growing up. Sebastian Howard was a busy man with lots of work, and whenever he came home, it was only to lock himself in his office. I looked away from Alex. I wanted nothing more than to be sincere, but the last thing I needed was to give the Walters another reason to feel sorry for me.
I shrugged and said, “We weren’t much of a game family. Watching movies was more our thing.”
Alex leaned in. “I’ll teach you something,” he said.
He dealt quickly, explaining the rules as he went. Picking up my hand, I decided that the cards were older than I’d originally thought. Each one was bent and grubby. The ace of spades was sticky with what looked like grape jelly, and I could feel the grime on my fingers.
