Days after being selected as Romeo, I'm standing in the auditorium for rehearsals. Someone is testing the stage lights, and golden beams flicker through the air, cutting through the dark like veins of sunlight in an old church.
The theatre is alive with chatter. Laughter bouncing off the high ceilings, shoes tapping, paper scripts rustling. Someone from the drama club, a journalism major with a camera almost bigger than her face, is snapping pictures between scenes.
I try not to look directly at the lens. Cameras make me feel like I owe the world a version of myself I still haven't figured out.
It has been weeks since the party, and I still can't shake the taste of humiliation. But here, now, under these lights, it feels like the world outside has frozen.
Lena is already on stage, flipping through her script. She is in jeans and a white shirt, her hair tied back loosely, a pencil tucked behind her ear. Deeply focused, trying to memorize the whole thing by heart.
When she spots me walking toward her, her face softens.
"Hey, stranger."
"Hey." My voice sounds steadier than I feel.
Ms. Evelyn Clarke claps her hands. "Alright, everyone. We will start with Act Two, Scene Two, the balcony. Lena, Ash, you are up. Let us find some magic today."
Magic. Right. No pressure.
Lena climbs the small platform built to resemble Juliet's balcony. I stay below, holding my tattered script, pretending my palms are not sweating.
"Okay," Ms. Clarke says. "Remember, you are not reciting poetry. You are confessing. Let it sound like you are discovering the words as you speak them."
I nod, take a breath, and start.
"But, soft. What light through yonder window breaks?
It is the east, and Juliet is the sun."
My voice trembles on sun, because right now she really looks like one. Warm. Distant. Impossible to touch.
Lena smiles faintly, her eyes lowering as she answers,
"O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?"
Her voice wraps around me like silk, and suddenly it is not a play anymore. It is us. Every unspoken thing we never fixed, hidden beneath lines written four hundred years ago.
She leans forward, elbows on the railing, smiling in a way that is not scripted.
And before I can remember the next line, there is a click.
The camera flashes. Once. Twice.
Lena laughs, covering her face. "Oh no, not mid-line. I must have looked like I am trying to smell the air dramatically."
The photographer giggles. "You two look amazing. Perfect couple energy."
My stomach twists at the word couple. I force a grin and shake it off.
We move through the scene, the words rolling easier now.
When I say,
"My life were better ended by their hate
Than death prorogued, wanting of thy love,"
my throat tightens.
Because I mean it. I always have.
There is a stillness when we finish. You can hear the hum of the lights. Then, applause. Actual applause.
Ms. Clarke stands with her arms crossed, a rare smile tugging at her lips. "You have something rare, Ash. Truth. Keep it."
Truth. The word hits somewhere deep. For a second, I cannot breathe.
Because for once, I was not faking anything.
Lena jumps down from the balcony, grinning. "See. I told you you would be perfect." There is a proud look in her eyes, one that makes my heart beat louder.
"Guess so," I mumble, smiling back.
She nudges me with her elbow. "You even made the crowd swoon."
"I think they were just relieved I did not forget my lines."
"Shut up." She laughs, that soft and bright laugh I used to think could fix anything.
And maybe, for one fragile heartbeat, I believe it again.
After rehearsal, everyone crowds around the photographer girl's phone to look at the photos. I linger near the edge of the group, pretending to pack my bag.
Then I hear Lena laugh. "Look at this one."
The photo fills the phone screen. Her on the balcony, me below, our faces tilted toward each other, just a breath apart. My hand is mid-reach, like I am about to touch her.
It is too much. Too intimate.
Someone whistles. "Damn, that is real chemistry."
Another voice chimes in, "You sure you two are not actually dating?"
Lena shakes her head, still laughing, but her cheeks go pink. "No. It is acting."
Later that evening, I scroll through my phone and see it. The same photo, now posted on the college social media page.
"Meet our Romeo and Juliet. Chemistry on and off the stage?"
The caption sits beneath our faces like a loaded question.
The comments are lighthearted at first. Laughing emojis, hearts, people tagging friends. But my chest still feels tight. I know what people can turn this into. I have seen it before.
The next day in class, a guy from the back grins and says, "Guess we do not need to rehearse the kiss scene anymore, Bennett."
Everyone laughs. Even Lena tries to smile it off. I just stare at my notebook, finding infinite depth in the blank page.
It is small. A harmless joke. But it sticks, like gum under a shoe you cannot scrape off.
Thanks to this play, people started noticing me. Not just for my thrifted clothes and scholarship, but as a fellow student.
When rehearsal ends, a few classmates slap my shoulder or toss me compliments. Someone jokes that I have officially replaced Samuel as the campus heartthrob.
I laugh awkwardly, but something inside me soaks it up. I mean, it felt good to win against the jerk who stole the love of my life, maybe by using some shady tricks I'm yet to uncover. Well, it seems like my life is now a spy thriller on top of being a tragic romance.
The theatre lights hum softly as they dim, washing the stage in a warm, fading glow.
Lena still stands near the center, hair loose from the final act, cheeks flushed in that way she gets when she's genuinely happy.
"You were incredible today," she says, holding out a milkshake glass like it's some sacred offering.
I take it, trying to play it cool, but something in my chest does an embarrassing little flip.
"Guess I make a decent dead guy," I say.
She laughs, the sound soft and bright in the empty auditorium. Then she turns and holds out another glass to Samuel, who's been lingering near the curtains, arms crossed, eyes sharp like he's cataloging every breath I take.
He shakes his head. "No thanks."
Lena blinks, then snaps her fingers. "Oh right! You're allergic to milk. Sorry, I forgot."
I freeze for a second.
My dad has the same allergy.
I'm not sure why, but something about that makes my stomach twist.
I don't like it. Not at all.
And especially not that he shares anything with my dad.
Samuel barely reacts. Just gives that unreadable half-smile and looks away.
Ms. Clarke passes us with her clipboard. "You two have real chemistry," she says, like it is an observation, not a knife disguised as praise.
Lena beams. I look down at my shoes, grinning like an idiot.
When we finish a scene, there is this awkward silence before anyone claps, like they are watching something they should not. A couple of kids whisper. I hear the word chemistry more than once.
I do not care. For once, I actually like being watched.
At lunch, the usual table that never saves me a seat suddenly waves me over.
"Yo, Bennett, that was sick yesterday," someone says. "Did not know you could act."
I laugh, a little dazed. "Neither did I."
Someone else adds, "You and Carter look like an actual couple up there."
My face burns, but not from shame. It is the good kind.
The kind that makes you feel visible.
Even Alice texts me during class.
ALICE: "Look at you, Mr. Starboy Romeo."
ME: "I am just trying not to trip over the stage lights."
ALICE: "Yeah, sure. Next thing I know you are winning Oscars."
Maybe that is what this is. A flicker of normal.
A chance to breathe again.
For once, I am just a boy standing beneath a balcony, saying words written for someone braver than him, and meaning every one.
I am not thinking about losses anymore. Just lines, lights, and Lena's laughter.
Behind me, someone whispers my name. A low, knowing tone I cannot place.
Then laughter. Quick. Cruel.
It fades before I turn around.
Eventually, the halls start buzzing louder.
Not laughter. Not excitement. Something else.