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It seemed eons ago that I'd bought a couple of the kegs for the Halloween party — Meredith never seemed to mind, but it wasn't fair that she bankrolled nearly every celebration we threw — and the women behind the counter had teased me, without any particular gentleness or malice.
"Oh, you're one of those delectable Dellechites," the one with hard blue eyes had said. She'd made both delectable and Dellechites — a term new to me, if not to the townspeople who depended on our custom, a feudal state of affairs — sound vaguely unpleasant, like I'd been flaunting my shopworn wares or still prowling like a leopard rather than walking into the liquor store in faded jeans and a Stagedoor Manor t-shirt.
"This the one you meant, Liz?" she'd asked her co-worker. Stupidly, I'd looked down at myself, as if I'd be able to provide the answer.
"Nah." The woman with the thick-rimmed glasses and chewed-to-the-quick fingernails had spoken after a dismissive look at me. They both acted like I couldn't hear them though only the width of the counter separated us, but I had no willing suspension of disbelief for real-life encounters; that magic only flooded the air when I was in the sacred space of a theater. "This one's the cute one. The one I'm talking about is fuckable."
The word had hit me like a slap. Alexander? Could be. Richard? Harder to imagine anyone thinking they could fuck Richard, that he wouldn't fuck them first. Then realization had struck like another blow: Oliver. Only I'd been the one to hit him first, and we all knew very well that I never should have touched him.
Oliver had, of course, taken the blame for my blow, actively, hardly waiting for me to stutter out apologies. Oliver was like that, always ready to cast himself in the wrong, to make light of the work he did — though he was more industrious than most of the rest of us — as if his gifts were lesser than ours.
I had known we belonged together in some way, in some form, from the moment we'd met. He made no sense to me — the self-deprecation was real, though it shouldn't have been; he was extraordinary — and yet he was harmonious to me: we chimed together. That first night we'd had in our tower room together, we'd talked the hours away and I never broke the habit of looking at him, tracking the way his thick, straight lashes made his indigo eyes look like they drooped moodily at the corners, how he bit at his own mouth, lips flushing darker pink as soon as they'd been released by white teeth that were charmingly meandering, untouched by character-effacing orthodontia.
Truth to tell, I'd I found myself watching him sleep. Only a few minutes each night, but I needed those minutes like oxygen, gazing at his slumbering body, his restful face. A few times he'd flung an arm out and I fantasized that he was reaching toward me, his hand open, waiting for mine to clasp it tight so that he could lead us somewhere wonderful. He was so real, as earthbound as if he'd dug elegant toes into the dirt beneath his feet, and I knew he'd agree with that word choice, thinking flights of fancy were beyond his irredeemably prosaic self. But I meant it in a way that put him far beyond my ken: he was so empathetic, so vulnerably himself, so ready to be a friend to anyone who asked.
I hadn't asked. I'd coveted, I'd wanted, and I'd received. He spoke once of feeling pieces click into place when he'd arrived at Dellecher, when he'd understood that the actors' cohort — there had been nearly thirty of us in our year, at the beginning — would be his family, that I in particular would be his friend. And I had done nothing to deserve him.
*
I'd come to Dellecher convinced of a few unshakeable truths: I would have the most solid academic foundation of any actor in my year, I felt Shakespeare in my bones, and I would find the girl of my dreams at Dellecher. None of these was disproved. I must have been insufferable, with my color-coded annotations, my constant pondering of motivations, but I had found my people, and my quirks seemed minor when set against Alexander's lupine thespian instincts or Richard's shock-and-awe approach to acting, romance, and life in general. And there was Wren, Richard's gossamer cousin, brave and talented and beautiful, looking like a fantasy come to life and dancing into my path. She loved stories as much as I did, in the same way that I did; we both had analytical minds capable of being enchanted by words. We had been paired up so many times as young lovers that it seemed the universe — or at least Gwendolyn — was hinting at a happily ever after of the kind Shakespeare had never really written. Even the way we chafed at the stock types into which we supposedly fit so seamlessly matched.
And yet, there was Oliver. He was tall and slim and while he had growing to do still, all his power was already there; he had an aura of enormous potential that he seemed unaware of, though it shone blindingly around him, limning him so that the perfect lines of him seemed more deeply etched than anyone else. He listened and opened his whole heart to the world, and it came to me one day when I was idly casting our latest production in my head: I was the one you (that mythical you we all played to) yearned for — I had the untroubling, bland features of an animated hero — while Alexander was the one you fear, Richard was the one before whom you trembled, and Oliver was the one you could approach. He was the audience's surrogate; they tracked what he paid attention to, whom he had kindness for, and sensed that he was not only an ideal confidant but the steady second, the person to whom you could take your troubles who would also help you solve them.
And I, like the rest of them, was in love with him. Soft-mouthed, soft-hearted Oliver, for whom everyone except Richard and Gwendolyn had a soft spot.
Richard had always been a bit of a bastard, which might just have been the natural consequence of being so commanding in stature and voice, the adored only child of theatrical types, and Gwendolyn's much-touted favorite, but lately he'd been more so, particularly where Oliver was concerned. If Richard had finally picked up on the undercurrents between Meredith — the ne plus ultra of delectable Dellechites — and Oliver — the lovable and fuckable one — and was lashing out, he was laughably late to the party. I'd sensed mutual interest from both of them since that first conversation in which Oliver had bashfully admitted to playing the boy-king Henry, and Meredith, who'd been Olivia and Desdemona and Rosalind, had smiled up at him, clearly envisioning him in a crown.
I had had more than enough of Richard for months now, but once he began laying into Oliver, who scarcely seemed to register the insults, my forbearance frayed. Not that it did me any good or Richard any harm; he was twice my size and thought nothing of using his weight against Meredith and Wren, let alone me. Still, I genuinely felt murderous rage when Richard sneered that Oliver was the true "wooden O" when Oliver, off-book as he always was, was trying to work out his movements and blocking and murmuring his lines without emotion or intent, breaking his work into pieces before synthesizing them once more.
"Richard, don't," Wren had said, quite sharply, and Filippa had shot him a look of disgust while Meredith had pushed her boyfriend's possessive hand off her knee. Oliver had let it roll off him, still working, and only seemed to rejoin us once he was satisfied he knew what he was doing in the scene.
"All good?" Oliver asked me, and I curbed my sharp tongue — primed to ask Richard if he'd considered that being the big man at Dellecher would not grant him greater age or experience, and he was likely to be merely a spear-carrier in Broadway productions this time next year — to smile at him.
I hadn't yet known I would cut his face open. I hadn't yet known he would let me.
*
Camilo's words — think of what he would have to do to make you hit him — wormed into my brain and laid their poisonous eggs immediately. There was one answer leaping about my mind, begging for attention, and I could feel it changing my face: draining my cheeks, dotting my forehead with sweat, clenching my jaw. Even my eyes must have changed, my pupils contracting as Oliver loomed, brighter than ever, before me and I could see only his hazy outline. What would he have to do? Simple: disown me, walk away from me, spurn me. Leave me in the cold while everyone else got to bask in him. And would that make me hit him, as Milo had suggested?
It couldn't, surely; if he turned away from me, it would be because of some wrong I had done him that even his forgiveness could not encompass. I would have to turn my fists on myself, not him. My shoulders rose, lifting those fists, and I felt divorced from my hands — I should play Lady Macbeth, I thought, grimly hilarious — as I saw one fly at Oliver's welcoming face, suddenly in razor-sharp focus. He hadn't shaved that morning, and I imagined I could feel bristly stubble against the back of my hand as time slowed to an oozing crawl and each moment of contact extended to ages. His dark-blue eyes widened with pain and I had the time to trace each tiny scarlet capillary, vivid against the white sclera. My hand throbbed but I still reached for him.
I had just made contact when suddenly Milo was there between us, care written in every line of him. Oliver turned to him, still as trusting as a child, and even as I took in the beauty of the picture the two of them made my heart throbbed angrily: I was furious at Oliver for letting me hit him, at Milo for assigning the blow to me to dish out, at myself above all for giving in to my worst fears and for being glad — at a time like this — that Richard had not witnessed my slip. Oliver turned to go back to his seat and he staggered, like he wasn't quite sure which way was up, and my rage returned to its rightful place, overtaking all else.
*
Rage was too tame a word for what I felt at Richard's bullying. He was so much bigger than I was, than Oliver was, that even the weakest taunts, the lightest plucking of our strings, were powerful. And when he unleashed his unearned fury, he was simply unstoppable, a juggernaut of malignity. I wanted so much for my incandescent wrath to have risen only in response to Richard's attempt to belittle Oliver's great heart, but as always Oliver ignored the imprecations directed at him and focused on Richard's attacks on me. Oxygen stolen from my lungs, everything went black, then white, then back again, the water both frigidly painful and keeping me from greater harm. Had I been bleeding as profusely as Richard profoundly wished, I might have made the green one red.
I must not have been alone in finding Richard's tantrums unbearable; they all ringed round us, pulling us apart, keeping me from lolling unconscious in the water, banishing the man who thought himself our king to the lonely castle. That much I pieced together later; in the moment, all I knew was that Oliver's arms were around me and it was his voice issuing from his scarlet-streaked chest, making my cheek, pressed against it, vibrate. Then I was sprawled out on soft, gritty sand and Meredith was crying and apologizing to me, as if she could be blamed for any of it. I looked up at her — she was still rapturously beautiful when she wept, unlike Wren, who faded with each tear — and saw Colin, whose eyes were like glassy marbles, trying and failing to find his footing.
They all disappeared at my insistence, but it was of course Oliver who secretly lingered to keep me company if I wished it. I could no more turn away his offer than I could out-Hulk King Richard, and his warm hand cupped my shoulder as the night deepened and finally broke.
"God," he said, as if he'd been waiting for just some cosmic cue, "what am I thinking? We've got to get you warm again, and you must have swallowed half the lake." He stood, somehow keeping a hand on me like he feared I'd disappear without a grounding touch. I slid the length of my arm through his hand until my fingers could curl around his and he pulled me up easily and let go only to drape a heavy arm along my shoulders. The fake blood that remained after his repeated dunkings was tenacious and still sticky, but any sensation that kept me from remembering how it had felt to struggle for air was welcome.
That rotten-smelling blood substitute gave me the excuse I needed to keep Oliver with me when at last we reached the second-floor bathroom, to lavish as much care on him as he was willing to spend on me. "Let me," I said, drawing him into the shower with me, and I blessed the untold hours we'd sat on the sand for giving the water heater time to replenish after everyone else had bathed and put themselves to bed. He came willingly enough, seeming to understand my unspoken point that he could not stay filthy while cleaning me, that our inevitable contact would only sully me again.
His chest, pink from the streaks of blood, soon blushed rosy from the heat and steam, and I fell against him, my mouth open on his clavicle. "James!" he said with quiet urgency, looping an arm around me and hauling me close to his steady strength. I blinked away the stream of water, looked up at him, lifted up to my tiptoes, and kissed him.
He kept the arm around my waist but cupped my face with his other hand, tilting my head with infinite care and kissing me back, his lips and tongue soft and firm and insistent. And I was Macbeth again, swinging between the poles of fate, winning my greatest desire on what had been the most horrific night of my life.
I'd always had a problem relinquishing the hold my characters had on me, on lifting myself free of what I'd eagerly immersed myself in. Not this time. Not with Oliver murmuring, "Oh" and "James" and "please" between fervent kisses, not with my hands tangled up in his hair for the second time that night, this time stripping it free of the blood I'd doused him in before. Not with us tumbling into my bed together, when he truly was reaching out for me and I could reach back with my whole heart, say his name, and watch him smile, just for me.