Page 44 of Forget About Me

He reaches out to grab my arm and squeeze. “No.”

I sit up too, hugging my knees, wishing he’d look at me. “Then what’s the problem?”

His head drops, and then he scrubs his hands over his face before speaking into them. “What isn’t the problem?” He sighs and then gestures between us. “We shouldn’t be doing this, Lucy. If Tony?—?”

“Tony is thousands of miles away from here,” I yell. “Why are you still so afraid of him?”

Well, that got him to look at me, but I regret saying them because now he’s pissed. “I’m notafraidof Tony. But he’s my friend. And your mom is like my mom. The mom I never had. Every time we have sex, I have to push them out of my mind because I know they’d say this is wrong. You’re too young?—?”

I open my mouth to argue, but he holds up a hand to stop me.“We’retoo young. Plus, I know you don’t go to church anymore, but I can’t completely let go of twelve years of Sunday school. Your family is important to me, and I know that they think having sex outside of marriage is wrong.” He covers his face again. “A lot of times I feel like it’s wrong too. Like I shouldn’t be doing this with you if I’m not ready to be married to you. To be responsible for you.” He drops his hands, and the look on his face is tortured. “I mean, what if you got pregnant? Your dreams of being a vet, mine of being an actor—they’d be gone. I’d have to go to work for my dad; you’d be a housewife. You’d hate me.”

I can’t take it. I grab his hand with both of mine. “Okay. I’m sorry.”

He eases his hand out of mine, gets out of bed and starts putting his clothes on.

“Do you want to stop this?” I whisper, afraid of his answer.

He pauses, one leg in his shorts, head hanging. When he finally looks up, his lips are pressed together in a grimace. He swallows, then forces words past his tight jaw. “I should want to. If I were a better person, I’d say yes, let’s date and pretend we never did this and give it up until we’re older and ready to get married.” He shakes his head. “But I can’t give you up, Lucy. I’m addicted to you, and I’m not strong enough to give you up.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

"Sunday Papers" - Joe Jackson

Lucy’s Keep on Truckin’ Mixtape, Song #2

BEN

Since our interrupted kiss, it feels like Lucy’s been avoiding me. At rehearsal, every time I get within a few feet of her, she suddenly needs to ask Nick a question or tell the stage manager something or go to the bathroom. I even followed her out to her car last night, asking stupid questions she knows I know the answer to, dying to kiss her again, but she’s obviously relegated our relationship to strictly teacher-student.

I hate it.

I’ve been trying to talk myself into just hanging on until Nick decides that we don’t need her anymore. We’ll still be neighbors, I might run into her around town or when I take Puck to the vet, but I won’t be driven insane by the desire to feel her lips on mine again, to hear her sigh my name.

Problem is that kiss is all I can think about, even as it unearthed memories I’d rather keep buried, along with ones that keep me in the shower longer than necessary. I’m tortured by them both.

I have an idea of what I need to do to put Tony to rest, but it’s risky. If I tell her the whole truth, she might never forgive me.

Janet calls for a work-through of the next scene, which includes my first monologue. “Puck, are you and your master ready?”

His answering bark gets me off my ass.

Despite my inability to cope with the past, once we’re up on stage, it all falls away. Puck’s so completely in the moment he forces me to be present and just play. I haven’t had this much fun on stage—felt so free to take risks—in I don’t know how long. Maybe never. Bella and I feed off each other’s goofiness, and Will and Randall are excellent straight men. If I have to be tortured by Lucy's presence, at least I’m getting laughs for my pain.

However, this monologue still has a few sticky spots. On Janet’s cue, I enter with Puck and tell the story, laying out my shoes, staff and hat to represent my family members. When I get to the point where I say, “‘I am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog—Oh! the dog is me, and I am myself; ay, so, so,’” I break character to say, “I’m as confused as Launce here. Maybe I need another prop or something.”

Lucy sits up suddenly. “Oh! What if you take the end of the rope you use as a leash and tie it around your neck when you say, ‘I am the dog’?”

Nick leans forward. “Right—then could we get Puck to bite the leash when Launce says, ‘Oh! The dog is me’?” Nick choreographs movement with his hands as he continues. “You can try to stand when you say ‘and I am myself’ and then pretend to get strangled on ‘ay, so,’ wrestle with it a bit, and end up on the floor as if the rope is attacking you until you finally release yourself on the second ‘so.’ And then take a moment to recover before moving on to the next beat?”

“I think I’m going to need a longer rope, but yeah, I think I get what you’re saying.”

Janet nods to her assistant, and Becky runs off to look for a different rope while Lucy and I work on teaching Puck to grab the one I’ve got on cue. She suggests that I growl when I hand Puck the rope, and he quickly picks up that I want to do a tug of war, which totally makes sense for the back and forth where Launce can’t figure out who is the dog and who is himself.

Then Becky gets back with a long rope, and Will steps in to supervise. He’s the fight choreographer, so he has to make sure that I’m choking myself safely. When all is said and done, we’ve spent an hour on twenty words, but when I perform it in a run-through later, the reaction from the other cast members makes it all worthwhile. My writhing on the floor as if I’m choking while Puck growls and seems to drag me across the stage has everyone in hysterics.

When we break, I look around for Lucy to thank her for the idea, but she’s nowhere to be found. Becky tells me Lucy had to leave. “Oh, and Nick said he doesn’t want you to add anymore new business—or props”—she says with a wink—“after the designer run-through this weekend. So we won’t need Lucy after that.”

I nod, doing my best to hide my disappointment. And panic. What will I do when I don’t have an excuse to see her again? “Am I done for the day too?”

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