Star-Crossed

by Jo Cotterill

  “HEY!” someone shouts angrily, rushing towards you. The whole world slants and your vision starts to fade away into black. The blue eyes are gone and replaced by Reuben’s eyes – round and full of concern.

  Your rescuer’s voice floats into your head.

  “It wasn’t me… Watts, he … I heard her shout … I couldn’t leave her … I’ve gotta go.”

  Reuben’s voice again.

  “Wait, come back!”

  Pause.

  Another voice, also concerned and comforting.

  “Let’s get her back to yours, I’ll drive…”

  You walk into the rehearsal with Rubes holding your hand. You stayed at his after the club and woke up with a pounding head from your fall. Much as you try not to think about him, Chris’s kiss won’t leave your brain. When you think about it your heart rate picks up, and you have to concentrate very hard on not drooling.

  It’s like not knowing it was Chris suddenly made everything seem possible. His kiss cast a spell on me, you think as you shuffle down the corridor to the hall, where you can hear people chatting, shouting and rehearsing. And now I can’t get him out of my head. This is getting out of hand.

  It’s one week to the play, so everyone is in a flurry of activity. Someone calls Rubes over to practise with them, and he squeezes your hand, then goes to join the other cast members. You smile at him and stride confidently over to Walker, who is rifling through a large yellow folder and muttering to herself.

  “Hi!” you say.

  She looks up and stares at you, confused.

  Your confidence starts to fade at the blank look on the teacher’s face.

  “I’m here to do the lighting, remember?” you say nervously. You start to panic and feel stupid. She obviously doesn’t want you here. Go, go! “Unless you don’t want me to do it any more. I’ll just leave…”

  She smiles apologetically, patting her hand against her forehead.

  “Of course! Sorry, Jen, I forgot you were doing the lights … things are so hectic … so little time, so much to do…”

  You nod and follow her as she leads the way to the lighting room, which is a room to the right of the stage with a one-sided window – you can see out, but not in. You look feebly through the glass at the rehearsals going on on the other side. They all look so excited. Your smile slips. You can’t help but feel left out, stuck in a little box away from it all, separated from the energized pleasure you could have had out there with them, enjoying the lead role.

  “Here,” Walker says, dragging you from your thoughts by gesturing around the small room. It’s got a big switchboard filled with buttons and tiny lightbulbs, two chairs and a table in the corner for drinks. “You remember what to do, right?”

  You nod, smiling, as you look around the tiny room. You’re sure that you can remember how everything works. You smile, glad that you are still contributing, even if it isn’t the most ideal way to be part of the play.

  Walker opens her folder, flicks through it hurriedly, and pulls out a copy of the script with a flourish. Its pages contain lighting cues and directions.

  “This is your cue sheet – Miss Phillips wrote it up, so if you have any problems, ask her.”

  You nod. “Thanks.” You put your bag down. “Should I fix the angles of the lights now?”

  “That would be fantastic!” she exclaims, gesturing to the hall. “The ladder is in there already. Just be careful, OK?”

  You follow her back to the hall and find the ladder. Walker saunters over to the stage, and starts to direct the people up there.

  Chris and Misha are standing next to each other, about to do a scene. You push the ladder over to the lights left of the stage, and start to climb it. You listen to the lines. The scene … it’s THE scene … your scene…

  Oh God…

  You realize that you are staring into space, so you shake your head and carry on climbing.

  “If I profane with my unworthiest hand

  This holy shrine, the gentle fire is this…”

  You listen to Chris talk, his voice deep and earnest. You shut your eyes, his voice like a drug that you can’t get enough of; sweeter than honey.

  What am I thinking?! His voice is like honey?! What am I doing?! You shake your head again. He is just an ordinary boy! One that you hate, if you’ve forgotten, you think to yourself, as you descend the ladder to move it to another light. Just look at him. Look at him and you will see everything you loathe. Take one look.

  You are a few metres off the ground, and turn your head up from the floor to look at Chris’s face.

  Oh my God…

  His face is like an angel’s. Everything from the way his lips curve as he smiles, to the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he laughs – amazingly beautiful. Your eyes travel from his chin to his lips, nose, cheeks, eyes – those scorching, stunning blue eyes…

  Oh my GOD!

  Your right foot slips on the ladder and it crashes down at your feet.

  “AHHHH!”

  You stumble sideways, straight into Chris, who catches you before you hit the ground alongside the ladder.

  “You OK?” he says huskily.

  You look deeply into his eyes, your own squinting slightly. His face is full of concern. He is amazing. He’s handsome. He’s everything you’ve ever wanted. But hated. A stray thought enters your mind before you can stop it.

  I love you, Chris…

  Your whole body jumps, and you pull yourself out of Chris’s strong grip. You glare at him. He glares right back.

  “Yeah,” you say. You clear your throat and straighten your jacket. “I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Shame,” he replies quietly, and goes back on to the stage.

  You smile, reassuring Walker and the others that you are fine, but you just need to splash your face with cold water.

  You get to the bathroom and look at yourself hard in the mirror.

  “You. Are. Messed. Up,” you murmur to your harassed reflection. “You. Have. Screwed. Everything. Up. He doesn’t like you! He hates you, remember?!” You feel tears in your eyes. “Why couldn’t he be someone else? Why couldn’t he be anyone except my enemy? He will never like me the way I like him.”

  Your lip trembles. The first tear rolls down your cheek.

  “I’m so screwed.”

  You lean back against the wall and sink to the ground. Your shoulders sag and you cry like you never have before. You’re crying your heart out.

  “My only love sprung from my only hate…”

  Shakespeare didn’t know how right he was.

  “Hey, Will, can you chuck me that peeler? This one’s rubbish, and if we don’t peel all these in ten minutes Sergeant Scream will come and scare the living daylights out of us…”

  Will doesn’t reply.

  “Will?”

  Ethan turns away from the sink to face his friend, who is staring down and peeling in a steady rhythm in a world of his own. Ethan watches him for a second, then sighs.

  “Guess what? The other day my dog turned around and told me that he was moving to Barbados to live with a cross-dressing goat called Geraldine. Isn’t that funny?”

  Will’s mask of concentration cracks and he shakes his head slightly.

  “What?” he mutters, looking up at his friend with confusion. “Who’s Geraldine?”

  Ethan grins. “Now that I’ve got your attention,” he says, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “What’s up? You’ve been quiet all day.”

  Will puts down his carrot and peeler, then rubs his eyes. He looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. Ethan frowns as he sees that his best friend is shaking.

  “Will, what’s happened?” His tone becomes serious.

  “It’s like being back with my father. You remember . . . what he was like,”
he struggles, his cheeks flushing pink. Ethan narrows his eyes and looks straight at Will.

  “You’re being bullied?” he asks quietly. Will nods, still staring at the floor. “By who?”

  “Jack…” Will says in a shaky voice. “And the other guys in the dorm. Jack said that I should leave. He’s threatening me. He said that I shouldn’t be here, that I’d be a liability if we were at war and I should get out before he makes me.” Finally, Will looks up. “I’m scared,” he says. “I don’t know what to do.”

  Ethan sighs. He doesn’t know what to do either. He doesn’t know what to tell him. He decides to level with his friend.

  “I don’t really know what to say.” He pauses, looks at the floor, then carries on. “But my dad always told me to never give up if things get tough. He used to say that Banners don’t quit. We’re brothers.” He stretches out his hand and takes Will’s shaking one. “Which means that you’re a Banner. Keep going, ignore Jack, and he’ll get bored. Show him what you’re made of. Be the best you can be, and bring home your medals. I’ll help you.”

  Will smiles and looks at their grasped palms.

  “We’ll make it through together,” says Ethan.

  It’s the day of the play. Since last week, you have been quieter than normal. Rubes has asked you over and over again what is wrong, but you won’t tell him. He can probably guess. You know that he will be fantastic about it, but you want to carry on having this feeling: this floaty, dreamy feeling that makes you feel higher than any drug could take you – like you are special and loved and everything is all right, which is all nonsense of course, but you don’t want to admit that to yourself just yet.

  You have tried thinking about not thinking about Chris. It hasn’t worked. Your thoughts keep trailing back to how he kissed you that evening in the empty classroom, and how magical it had seemed. Now that you realize that your feelings of hate aren’t what you thought they were, you can recall the kiss with the self-satisfied smile that only thinking of Chris will give you.

  You are smiling like that right now in the lighting box, while you systematically tune, push and flick the appropriate buttons and switches to control the lighting. You have the whole day off lessons to rehearse, and you have already done the lighting checks on each individual, the sets and costumes. All that needs to be done now is the actual play, but first, you’ve got to get through the afternoon.

  One of your Chris-smiles creeps on to your face, filling you with the happiness that you feel every time his face flashes into your mind’s eye. You feel complete bliss as you remember his strong arms surrounding you protectively when you stumbled. You remember his voice, the concerned edge to it, as he asked you if you were OK. But then you remember the look that he gave you before walking away, and the happiness is replaced by a draining low because you know that you can’t have him. You feel your heart skip a beat, as if it has stumbled and fallen into the gaping hole left by Chris. It hurts so bad that you would rather die than feel like this for any longer. Anything is better than this.

  “I thought love was about pleasure, not about pain…” you mutter to yourself, collecting your papers from around the room and tidying up – anything to stop you wallowing in your own pity. You sit down heavily and sigh, all of your feelings settling like dust, clogging your logic so you feel trapped. Suddenly, you are angry.

  What the hell has happened to you, Jennifer Chloe Anderson?! You are willing to let a boy – not just any boy, CHRISTOPHER MORON BANNER – ruin your life?! You’re going to let him steal your heart, tear it in two and stomp on it with his big, dumb combat boots and destroy all your chances of love for the future?!

  You curse under your breath and put all the things that you have tidied into the corner. Someone enters behind you and leans against the door.

  “Hey, Jenny-honey, wassup?”

  You force a quick smile and turn to face your buddy.

  “Nothing, Rube.”

  You spin back on your chair to face the stage, where some people are rehearsing. You refuse to make eye contact with him, because you know once you look into his gentle, loving eyes you will tell him everything and the spell will be broken.

  You curse yourself again for being so vulnerable. You have never felt this much emotion before. Everything is so overwhelming and new. It’s like a blinding bright light has been switched on in your skull – confusing you, bringing tears to your eyes and uncertainty to your heart.

  “Jen?”

  The light vanishes. Reuben’s hand lies on your shoulder. You look at it, startled, then look up at his face.

  “What?” you say shakily.

  “I said, ‘Do you want to go to the Orchard?’ and you didn’t reply.”

  You clear your throat nervously. Rubes only ever asks to go to the Orchard, your most special place, when he wants to talk.

  “But it’s so cold outside, and I don’t have a coat…” Your voice trails off as you see your thick black coat hanging on the back of the door. Reuben spots it, takes it down from the hook and holds it out to you to put on.

  “Come on, sweetpea, we’re takin’ a break from the hectic showbiz life.” He throws the coat at you. “On.”

  You sigh, dutifully putting on your jacket and following your best friend out of school, past the gates and into the park nearby – a short cut to the Orchard. You traipse through the ice-covered grass, your torn jeans getting slightly wet at the bottom, over to the missing part of the fence that is your secret entrance to the Orchard. You step under the weathered, rusty railing and into the frosty Orchard. You can’t help but smile. The sight always takes your breath away.

  In the spring, the trees are heavy with a rich blossom, buzzing with the early bees. In the summer and autumn, all kinds of wildlife gather here, playing in the sunrays; or lying in the shade of the dense trees that are full of juicy apples for the picking. Despite all the benefits of the dry weather, though, you love the Orchard best in winter. It’s when the skeletal trees are fragile and withered; when the conifers stand proud and tall against the bleak, snow-bleached sky, filling the air with the smell of the evergreen tree. Your shoes crunch against the ground, and you leave your footprints in the frost. You feel twelve years old again.

  Taking a deep breath in, you find yourself glad that Rubes has dragged you out. You love this place and everything in it. Just seeing it puts your mind at rest. You sprint away from Rubes, darting through the dead trees, to the end of the field, where a bench is hidden in a low conifer bush, sheltered from the damp and cold. Memories of you and Rubes flash through your mind, memories of the years that have passed. You hear him laugh somewhere nearby, and then he ducks under the low-lying tree branch and sits next to you on the bench. You hug your knees up to your chest, remembering when the two of you would come to the Orchard in the summer evenings to talk about things in private, sometimes outstaying your parents’ curfew, only to be grounded for an extra day. But that had made no difference to you, and still most days you had chatted away until it got dark and you both got scared. Then the real work started, and the summer nights were spent revising for end of year exams; mock-this and module-that and things got too much. The Orchard visits had been minimal. You feel sad thinking about how you have missed out on more memories because you have not had the time. You start to absently pick at your shoelaces while still thinking about the past. You can feel Reuben looking at you, his eyes burning into your head, but you keep focused on your laces. You are both silent.

  “Jen…” Reuben starts, and you turn your head towards him, letting your hair slide over your face in a thick blanket. He pushes it back and looks at you seriously like he did four years ago, in this very spot, when he told you that he liked boys. You look deep into your friend’s eyes, regarding him with the same open, level stare that you had given him when he told you. You wait for him to continue. He holds your gaze.

  “You love him, don’t you?”
>
  You don’t flinch. You don’t gasp. You don’t widen your eyes in surprise. You simply nod. You find your voice.

  “Yes,” you reply simply.

  Rubes smiles at you and envelops you in a hug that radiates brotherly love, and you hug him back tightly, soaking in his strength and support.

  When you eventually break away, you realize that you are crying. Your breathing is silent and your shoulders are still; the tears fall down your face without you having to blink. One falls on to your coat. It’s so delicate it looks more like a dewdrop than a teardrop.

  “But there’s just one problem…”

  Your voice is filled with emotion. Reuben nods softly.

  “I know, it’s your families, but—”

  “No,” you say, shaking your head gently.

  You look up at your best friend.

  “He doesn’t love me.”

  Your lip trembles and another tear trickles slowly down your face. Rubes takes his gloved hand, wipes it across your face to clear away your tears, and takes your hand.

  “Think like Fame, babe. Save it for the stage,” he whispers.

  His palm grasps yours, and you let him pull you gently out of the clearing back towards the school.

  Time to face the music … or lighting … whichever way you want to look at it.

  “Will!” The dormitory door flies open, and in runs Ethan. His face is flushed as he rushes in, laughing and waving his arms. He is elated. “I asked Jess and she said yes, Will! Yes! She bloody well said—”

  The smile slips from his face. His arms drop and his expression becomes bewildered. His face darkens as he takes in the scene before him.

  Will is on the floor on his knees, hands held behind him by two guys and head held back by another. Jack is standing in front of Will with his back to the door, but has turned halfway around to see who had disturbed them. His face looks like pure evil.

  A bruise is already starting to form on Will’s left cheekbone, and blood is trickling from his mouth. He looks up from the floor. His eyes are hollow, pleading. For a second, Ethan sees the petrified eight-year-old boy that he met so many years ago in the woods, running for his life and searching for a place to hide. Then Ethan sees again his best friend, ten years older, but with that same petrified look and still looking for somewhere to run.