Standing for Weirdo

Chapter 28

As if it hurt.

I concealed my moment of weakness with the entrance of my rival, though, and the curtain fell again. The last few notes wailed out and then it was break time.

The professor clapped. The support cast, the group members who didn't have an active role but were still vital to the production, erupted in an uproar. The mics went dead, while we rushed around changing a few items, and then live again as the curtain rose once more for the conflict to truly explode in Act III. Practice made the process fast and smooth, perfect.

So why did it feel so very wrong?

I wanted to jump off the stage and into the pit, to cling to Trevor until he stopped shaking, to take the fear away from his eyes when he looked at his guitar, now harmless and disconnected.

I couldn't. I had to keep up with the play. The show must go on, as they say, and Lady Windermere kept reciting her lines, sharing her desperation and her pain and her last-resort resolution with the audience, however reduced it might be.

It was the worst hour and a half of my life, and, for the first time since I joined the theatre group, I wanted it to just end.

Somehow, though, it worked. The play was, essentially, ready.

When it was over and people left the auditorium, I took the side exit from the stage and jumped the two steps that led into the pit. Trevor was bent over, elbows resting on his knees, and he heaved ragged breaths.

“Are you all right?” I asked when the silence stretched on for too long.

“I’m fine.”

“Liar.”

“Yeah.” He tried to smile and I sat down with him, looking around to make sure we were alone.

“So, what happened?”

“You know the feeling you get when you’re dragging your nails down a blackboard and it’s the worst screech possible and you just need to stop?” I nodded and he went on. “That’s what it felt like. Every note grated on my nerves, not just out of place, but wrong in every possible way.”

“But it sounded just fine. A bit less passion than usual, but as beautiful as always.”

He gave a mirthless laugh. “I know. Theory said that the melody was perfectly harmonic, so I played with my theory. It just didn’t keep my guts from twisting worse and worse with every bar.”

“You did wonderfully,” I said, feeling a bit stupid, because I didn’t know what else to say. “You don’t have to worry about the opening.”

“That’s not it at all, Alice,” he sighed.

“Are you nervous?”

“Frankly? No.” Confusion must have shown in my face, because he straightened up and went on with his explanation. “I know you love theater, that it’s important for you to stand in front of people and do a good job, taking them back to Lady Windermere’s Fan. But you’ve done a dozen openings since you joined the group. Besides, would you be worried about it if you knew that no matter what happens, you won’t be on stage again?”

I sat back, perplexed. “It’s our last year, but there’s always associations and stuff, even if I go to college and then start working in something else entirely. This won’t be my last play.”

“Exactly.”

“I’m not following.”

“This could be my last song. Who cares about doing it right?”

“You can’t live without music. I know that much about you; it’s your whole life!”

“Yes. That’s my point,” he said, with a tired sigh. Reaching out to his discarded guitar, he balanced it on his thigh and started absently plucking the strings, tuning them once again, even though he’d surely done it before the rehearsal.

“So don’t stop. You don’t have to.” I forced myself to be obtuse. I didn’t want to contemplate the other options.

“Playing anything but that song is physically painful, Alice. It’s worse than it was the first time. In the beginning, I just wanted to experiment with it. Now, I feel nauseated after a ten-minute long performance, because my head was screaming with the need to get the minuet right. And if I give in and try, then I can’t stop repeating it again and again, to the point that nothing but the music exists.” He twiddled the cable in the guitar’s jack, twisted the volume knob, and started dancing his fingers to the dreadfully familiar notes of the minuet. “See?” he asked, with a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “There I go again.”

“Perhaps it’s just stress. Perhaps it’ll pass when the opening, or the school year, or whatever is over.”

“Maybe.”

“But you don’t believe it.”

He shook his head. We sunk into silence, one that was sad and yet comforting at the same time, and he wove the melody around us like a cocoon keeping the rest of the world at bay. If only it had been another tune, I might have counted myself in Heaven.

“It’s easier here,” he said at length, when he was well into the building up of tension and speed.

“In the auditorium?”

“Yeah. This is where I got the inspiration, if you can call it that.”

I tilted my head to the side and listened. He was right. The melody came more fluid, with new layers of depth added to its line. I didn’t like it. There was something about its richness that didn’t sit well with me.

Probably the fact that it was upsetting my boyfriend, to put it mildly.

“Trevor, shouldn’t you stop?”

His left hand jerked away from the neck of the guitar and the right one hit a few discordant, open strings before he disconnected the sound again. I smiled while he started to pack his stuff.

“You didn’t get glued to it this time.”

“I’ve been thinking about it.” He hung his head, his back to me, as if he were ashamed or embarrassed. “I think it’s because of you.”

“What?” I froze. “You mean that this is my fault?”

He was by my side so fast that I started at his closeness. “Never say that. Whatever’s wrong with me, it’s not you. You’re the only good thing I have.”

I tried to swallow past his intense gaze. “Not true. You have your father and…” I was about to say, and your music, but bit my tongue in time. He was convinced that he had lost it, so rubbing salt in the wound was not the best thing.

“I love my father. He’s great; he’s always supported me as best as he’s been able to, and he understands me for the most part. But it’s you who can pull me back from the brink every time.”

“I didn’t…” I started to argue, but then I thought of the times he’d zoned off. His father had called me, and while I had removed his hand forcibly from the guitar, it suddenly occurred to me that Mr. Bennett must have attempted something similar. Only, it had not worked then. He’d had to call me, terrified because his only family was unresponsive and…

And what about today? I had called him, and he had been able to stop himself. Not easily, granted, but he had done it on his own terms.

So instead of telling him that I most certainly had done absolutely nothing to help him, I hugged him and let the steady pounding of his heart against mine beat away the worries and the surrealism of it all.

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