Anyway, it’s not true. You always have a choice, and last night I made the wrong one. But I’m too much of an eejit to admit that. Not even to myself, let alone to Tori.
I spend the rest of the day being as chilly to Tori as possible, and I hate it. But it’s probably just as well. I’d love to know if she’s spoken to Valentine again, but I’m trying to act like I’m not interested. It works reasonably OK and I sigh with relief when I see later that Mr Acevedo’s not around today. He seems to be ill because there’s a notification on the school app that the rehearsal this afternoon has been cancelled too. It’s been rescheduled for Sunday evening, which causes some disgruntled muttering. I don’t care, so long as I can avoid Tori. I divide the weekend between the stables, the bakery and my room, until Sunday when I have to stop hiding. Mr Acevedo is still a bit under the weather as he greets us in the theatre. Tori hasn’t arrived yet. But Eleanor comes over. I might have been ignoring her messages all weekend.
‘Hey,’ she says, eyeing my face. I can’t blame her. It still looks rough.
‘Hey,’ I say feebly.
‘You OK?’
‘Yeah, fine. I’m fine.’
‘Seriously, Sinclair.’ Eleanor looks worried. ‘It looked really bad.’
I shrug.
‘Is Tori OK?’
‘How would I know?’
I don’t have to say anything else. Eleanor understands that I didn’t manage to speak to her. About any of the stuff that matters. Kisses that tasted of longing. The truth, for fuck’s sake.
She looks past me, up towards the doors. I don’t need to follow her gaze to know that Tori’s walked in. I turn my back on her even though everything within me is yearning to look at her. To go over to her, to make sure she’s all right.
‘Is everyone here?’ Mr Acevedo pops up from somewhere and looks around. His eyes rest on me. His eyebrows shoot up. I bite my bottom lip and stare at the floor. ‘Wonderful,’ he says. ‘Then let’s get started.’
We begin, as always, with a few warm-ups and I’m able to avoid any contact with Tori. It’s ridiculous. We both know it, and we’re both doing it all the same.
We practise a scene with the Nurse and Lady Capulet. Then it’s just Eleanor and me. To my own surprise, never mind anyone else’s, I’m good. I can use my anger and channel it into Romeo’s passion. This might even be a chance to escape reality and no longer have to be the useless Charles Sinclair. Romeo is the opposite of him. Romeo knows what he wants and has no difficulty conveying that to Juliet. Because he’s not such a bloody coward. And because he is – God knows why – entirely confident that Juliet wants him as much as he does her. It’s easy. It really is that bloody easy.
I act, and I forget reality. At least for a few minutes. Until I look into the auditorium. At Tori and her icy glare. It’s fucking her up how good we are. I can feel it, and I try to be better still. I’m an arsehole but I can’t help it.
I look at Eleanor and raise my intensity so high that I see amazement in her eyes. Because it’s genuine. Because she’s nolonger either Eleanor or Juliet, but Tori, and this is a version of reality in which I finally get to tell her what I’ve wanted to say for years. There’s no risk. She will reciprocate. We’re doomed, but at least we’ll be side by side.
We fly through our scene and the kiss is looming. This is going to be the first time we do it in front of the whole cast. At first, Mr Acevedo only let us rehearse the intimate scenes in front of him and Tori, but at the end of the year, it’ll be the whole cast plus the whole of Dunbridge Academy. Including Valentine Ward.
My pulse picks up as Eleanor looks at me and softly bites her bottom lip. I have to do this; I have to start. Hands on her cheeks, thumbs on her lips. Turn away from the audience slightly, so that it looks real.
Tori’s sitting in her seat like a block of ice. And I want to hurt her the way she hurt me.
‘“Your mouth has cleansed my lips from sin.”’ I touch Eleanor’s face, but I do so the way I touched Tori’s. Soft, firm, everything at once.
‘“Then give it back to me,”’ Eleanor replies.
And then I kiss her.
I kiss her properly. Eleanor hesitates for a fraction of a second and then she kisses me back. I can tell that it looks real because it feels real. It’s not acting, theyareRomeo’s and Juliet’s mouths claiming each other and wanting more.
I wait for Eleanor to pull away, but she doesn’t. I kiss her longer than necessary. I do it on purpose. I kiss her with all my rage and pain, and hope that Tori can feel it.
‘Eleanor, Charles, please. I really must insist.’ I jump, the way I’ve done every time since Thursday night when someone’s said my first name and it hasn’t been Tori. Did she even realize what she’d said? I did, at any rate, and I still get goosebumps at the mere thought of it. She stressed it differently, she said it softly, as if it were a promise I’d break. And now she’s got the proof.
Mr Acevedo is waving his hands in the air as I pull away from Eleanor.
‘Wasn’t it good?’ I ask, without taking off Romeo’s arrogance.
‘It was very good, but ninety per cent of your audience are underage. We’ll have to send the juniors out if you’re going to repeat that on the big stage.’
The others laugh, Eleanor strokes her hair back from her face. Tori doesn’t move. And I don’t move either. I feel no triumph. No satisfaction. I feel her disappointment, her pain, and all at once I feel regret.
