He’s wrong. I’ll sacrifice what I have to in order to keep her mouth on mine. The alternative is too hard to consider.
I run my fingers through my hair, untangling what the wind did to it and dig in my bag for some lip gloss. Smoothing out my hair and brushing my hands down my clothes, I enter the theater, hearing voices immediately.
“Let me be taken, let me be put to death!” someone cries.
I stand at the back of the theater, in the dark, and I can’t help but smile at the scene on the stage. The set looks like a wintery New York evening if New York had royalty and a strictly black option for clothing. Cathedral arches adorn the backdrop along with silver skyscrapers reaching up into the night. Clouds float past the full moon, and a stone mansion in ruins sits in the middle.
Liv is dressed in a long, black coat, fitted at the waist, her face chalk white and her hair in a wild ponytail. Smoky black surrounds her eyes, and I grip the back of a chair, because she’s so beautiful my knees feel weak.
“I am content, so thou wilt have it so, I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye, ‘Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow,” Romeo drones on, played by Clarke Tillerson in a way that I know I’d be asleep if I didn’t have Liv to look at.
Snow falls from above, and this must be one of the final dress rehearsals. Or they’re working on a scene that needs extra time, because I’m pretty sure Mercutio’s understudy isn’t in the bedroom scene.
“Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat.”
“Stop!”
Lambert comes up, the actors turning to receive direction, and Liv turns my way. I raise my hand to wave, but she keeps turning, not seeing me.
I put my hand down as she crosses her arms, and I don’t like the tension I see in her body. What’s wrong?
Ms. Lambert speaks quietly and closely to Clarke as Juliet sits on the bed, hugging her knees to her body and inspecting her fingernails. Everyone looks worn out. Some pace, some look bored as hell, and some are slouched in the theater seats, passed out.
Voices rise between Lambert and Romeo, and they’re starting to talk with their hands, their body language aggravated.
“Let me be taken,” someone calls out.
I find Liv as everyone turns toward her voice, and I see her stare at Juliet.
She runs and jumps up on the bed, Juliet falling back onto her hands, a shocked smile on her face.
“Let me be put to death!” Liv shouts, standing over her. “I am content, so thou wilt have it so.”
My heart creeps up my throat, and slowly, I move down the aisle, taking her in.
Liv crouches down, one black boot over Juliet’s body, her black coat spilling around them as she holds her beloved’s face. For once, Lizbeth Mercier, who plays Juliet, looks actually speechless as she’s carried away in Liv’s gaze.
“I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,” Liv tells her, caressing the girl’s cheeks, her words so gentle and her eyes searching her love’s. “‘Tis but the pale reflex of Cynthia’s brow.”
She doesn’t take her eyes off Juliet, so close, and I feel like she’s holding me. Everyone watches. “Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat, the vaulty heaven so high above our heads.”
Liv whispers into her temple, her microphone brushing the girl’s skin, “I have more care to stay than will to go.”
And my heart shudders, feeling the words, because I know what her breath feels like.
And her mouth dips close, taunting the corner of Lizbeth’s. I don’t think the girl breathes.
In one fell swoop, Romeo comes down on top of the girl, sending them both to the bed, and Lizbeth yelps, letting out an excited laugh, while Romeo smiles devilishly. “Come, death, and welcome!” Liv taunts playfully. “Juliet wills it so. How is’t, my soul?” She presses their foreheads together. “Let’s talk; it is not day.”
And the girl smiles, captivated and wanting to be nowhere but with her Romeo.
Olivia’s perfect. Why have they not given her the lead in anything all these years?
Everyone stands quiet, and after a moment, the curtain over Liv’s mind seems to close again, and she sits up, her demeanor serious once again.
“See, Clarke?” Lizbeth props herself up on her elbows, looking around Liv. “Just like that.”
I laugh to myself, seeing him shifting uneasily.
Lambert claps. “Okay, everyone! Tomorrow. Be here at three!”
Everyone starts to gather their things, chatter filling the room, and I watch as Liv doesn’t come down to me but disappears backstage.
She had to have seen me. I check my phone, seeing I’m twenty minutes late.
I carry the rose, climbing the stairs and veer behind the curtain and down another small set of stairs. I find Liv in a dressing room with the door open as she sits on a stool.