“That’s it, get angry at me. Use that anger. Channel it. Beatrice is mad. You’re mad and you want vengeance. You’re so mad you make an extreme request of Benedick. Think back toa time in your life when you wanted vengeance. When you were so mad you wanted to fight back. Try it again.”
I close my eyes and try to picture a time in my life when I was that mad, that emotional. “Kill Claudio,” I say with more force, as sweat trickles down the back of my neck.
“Again!”
“This is ridiculous, I’m not actually going to act the scene this way.”
“I don’t care how hard you’re going to act it later; I want to see you take direction. If I tell you to go harder, you do it. Again.”
“Kill Claudio,” I shout.
“More! I know you’ve got it in you.”
Something inside me snaps, and I drop my script as I turn to face him. “Kill him.Kill Claudio,” I shout, my emotions boiling over as I drop to my knees. I’m not just talking about a fictional man who wronged my cousin. An image flashes in my mind, but I can’t make sense of it as I squeeze my eyes closed, willing it away. It felt real. Whatever I just tapped into, felt so real, I’m having a hard time composing myself as I pant for breath.
His dark figure looms over me, threatening, menacing.Like he’s going to pounce at any minute. He hurt me. No, he hurt my mom.
I don’t think it’s just a dream, I think it’s a memory. And pulling from memories for this exercise has unlocked something in my brain. I was running from him, something wasn’t right. She needed my help. My heart was racing, and I was overcome with fear, so I ran. I needed to distract him, so he didn’t hurt her. I made it halfway down the stairs when he grabbed me, jerking my arm. But I fought back, I scratched him, and he let go. That’s when I fell and landed on my arm, my wrist absorbing the impact from the fall. My mom told me I broke it at camp.
She lied to me, to protect me from him, from remembering this.
The room is silent, except for my hiccupping breaths as I try to compose myself and unpack the thoughts and images in my head.
Oh my gosh. Itwasmy dad this whole time. I can’t believe it.
“Thank you, Miss Black. Excellent work today, everyone. Class is dismissed.”
I collapse onto my butt, crossing my legs and folding my body over them, making myself as small as I can as I try to come down from the rush of emotions. I can hear people shuffling about, and I wait. For my heart rate to come down. For the classroom to clear out. For my mind to make sense of what just happened.
My father was abusive toward my mom. Once I was older, she’d shared stories of how he’d hurt her when I was a baby and how she’d escaped that life. But I don’t really have any memories of him. So why was everything so clear in my head just now as if I was recalling a memory and not a dream?
A hand clasps my shoulder, and I flinch, instantly pulled out of my bubble as I scramble away from my professor.
“I need to go.”
“Miss Black, that was…”
My cheeks flush and my heart races as mortification swallows me. I don’t need to know how he finishes that sentence. I stumble off the stage to grab my bag so I can escape when his next word stops me.
“Incredible.”
I’m frozen in place resisting the urge to look at him. I can’t face him, afraid of the pity I’d find in his eyes, so I run out of the classroom, not stopping until I make it back to my dorm.
I send my mom a quick text and throw a few things in an overnight bag and drive to her house. As soon as I walk in, my mom pulls me into her arms.
“Oh, sweetie. I’m so sorry.”
She smells like cookies, and I let go of everything I’d beenholding in on the way here. Years worth of fears in the form of nightmares that were shielding my brain from the truth I was too young to understand.
When I pull back there’s a comically large wet spot on her shoulder and chest from my tears and snot. “I’m sorry,” I say, pointing to it.
“It’s okay. Once I had kids, bodily liquids stopped grossing me out.” She laughs, and I relax as she leads me into the living room and I sink onto the couch. Why is it that there’s no couch more comfortable than the one in your childhood home?
“What happened?” my mom asks.
“I know what’s been causing the nightmares.”
She nods solemnly, not looking at all surprised.
