A Plentiful Lack of Wit
My only saving grace over the next few days was being able to throw myself body and soul into the play. It offered me no answers, and it put me in the path of two of the three people I wanted nothing to do with, but it did keep me away from Zac.
God, I wanted to run back to him. I did. But every time I felt my resolve weakening, I remembered that he hadn’t completely denied being with Christin. He had only yelled at me and reminded me that I was just as bad, if not worse, than him. The awful truth was that if he wasn’t what Christin said, I was still what he said, and that meant I didn’t deserve him.
There was no way to win. Whatever the truth was, it was a truth that would probably put an end to me and Zac.
I didn’t see Zac again until class on Tuesday. We had both classes together that day, but he didn’t show up for the first one. I didn’t think he was going to show up for the second one either, but he finally wandered in at the last possible second and grudgingly took his seat beside me. He felt miles away. I glanced over at him, but his eyes were focused on Dr. Moberly.
His desk was farther from me than it should have been and I had to stretch to reach his notebook. At first, I thought he wasn’t going to loosen his grip and let me take it, but after a moment, he did. Once it was there on my desk, I realized I didn’t even know what I wanted to say to him. I just knew that I had to say something. This silence between us wasn’t fixing anything, and it left so much just hanging there, undone. Against my better judgment, I wrote the first words that came to mind.
I passed the notebook back to Zac and watched his jaw twitch as he read my words. He bored his pen into the paper as he wrote his reply, then practically tossed the notebook back to me.
I picked up my pen to write something else, but Zac yanked the notebook from my hand. He scooted his desk just a few inches away from me, but it was enough to keep me from reaching him. The distance between us was suddenly more than just metaphorical.
I didn’t take a single note for the rest of the class. I just couldn’t. The only things on my mind were Zac and how awful this whole situation was. When Dr. Moberly finally dismissed us for the afternoon, Zac was the first person out of his seat. I shoved my books in my bag as quickly as I could and rushed to follow him.
He was almost to the door of the building before I could catch him. “Zac! Wait!”
He spun around. “Why? Is there something else you’d like to accuse me of?”
“Zac,” I said, my tone warning him not to say another word. I closed the distance between us as quickly as I could and pulled him outside where we might not cause so much of a scene. “I don’t need your wit right now. I just need to talk to you, seriously. I want the truth.”
“Why do you think you deserve the truth?”
I did my best to ignore his malice and forged ahead. “Maybe we haven’t been acting like it lately, but I was supposed to be your girlfriend. Did you forget that?”
Zac smirked. “Not as easily as you seemed to forget that you were supposed to be Donovan’s girlfriend. I guess I just made him easy to forget, though.”
“What are you trying to say, Zac?”
“I’m trying to say that you don’t even realize how hypocritical you’re being right now,” he replied, leaning down to glare at me eye to eye. It allowed him to lower his voice to almost a whisper, which made him sound even angrier. “You cheated on him. Have you forgotten that? So whatever I did – or didn’t do – while you were busy trying to make your mind up or whatever it was you were doing… well, it doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter, Zac,” I replied. “If I’m asking you, then it matters to me and I want to know the truth.”
He straightened up and stared off into the distance. “I’ve asked nothing of you, you know. Only that you admit I was the one you wanted. The one who made you happy. But forget it. I can’t make you happy if you don’t trust me.”
“I didn’t say that I don’t trust you.”
“You didn’t have to.”
I could hardly believe that it was already time for the play two open. Only two more days, in fact. The only thing that made it real was the fact that we were finally in full dress for rehearsal. My costume was a beautiful, long green gown based on all of those Waterhouse paintings of Ophelia. It was beautiful, and it required a lot of help to get into it.
It was just my luck, of course, that Tuesday night, the only other person in the dressing room with me was Christin. I didn’t really feel shy about changing in front of her, but it was definitely awkward. I wasn’t going to stoop as low as to compare our bodies and try to figure out which one Zac might have liked better. But I could feel her eyes on me.
“Do you need help with your dress?”
“Oh, yeah,” I said, suddenly feeling dumb for wondering why she was looking at me. I was staring off into space with the back of my dress undone. I must have looked so weird. “Just start the zipper, if you don’t mind.”
“Of course,” she said crossing behind me and wiggling the zipper up.
I felt ridiculous for worrying about her judging me. Who was she to judge me, after all? If anything, she was the other woman. Not that I had exactly been the first woman at the time, but I liked to think I held more of Zac’s heart than she did. Maybe not, though. It was all a mess and I didn’t know what to think.
She finished the zipper and did up the hook at the top that would make the whole thing lay nicely onstage. “There you go.”
“Thanks,” I said, not feeling quite up to looking at her. With my back still turned, I retrieved my belt from the rack of costumes and began to put it on.
“Care to do mine now?” Christin asked.
“Sure,” I replied, turning around and brushing her hair out of the way so I could zip up her dress. It was a little more intricate than mine – she was playing a player Queen, after all – but the basic design was similar enough.
As I struggled to zip it past her waist – the costume was originally meant for Whitley, who was apparently skinnier – she began to speak. “You know, I did feel bad telling you about Zac. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“Oh.”
“It’s just that I would want to know if the guy I was with had another girl, too. Wouldn’t you? But maybe you and Zac weren’t that serious anyway. I mean, weren’t you with Donovan anyway?”
I noticed the way Christin seemed to laugh a little at the end of her question. There was something spiteful about it. Realization was just beginning to dawn on me, like a little nagging itch you can’t reach, but I didn’t yet know what I was realizing. Christin spun around and gave me an evil little grin. “Don’t worry, honey. If Zac is unfaithful to you… well, I’ll be the first one to tell you.”
As she sashayed away from me, layers of satin billowing behind her, I felt that nagging itch of realization again. Things were beginning, slowly, to take shape in my mind. There was something altogether calculating and just… fake about Christin. Of course there was – she was an actress! I knew all too well how we actors could play the people around us to get what we wanted. What Christin wanted was Zac. And who was standing in her way?
Little old me.
And how could she get me out of the way? Play on my doubt and insecurity; I might have been an actress, but those were two things I could never disguise. I had made it almost too easy for her. All she needed to do was plant a few seeds of doubt, make me wonder if Zac was really that devoted to me or if he had only wanted one thing from me – one thing that he could, perhaps even more easily, get from Christin.
At this point, it didn’t even matter if it was true. It didn’t matter if he had slept with her; she only needed me to wonder. And I did wonder. But more than that, I hated myself for being exactly what Zac had said – a hypocrite. He had proven time and time again that he wanted me, while I mistook his devotion for friendship. Meanwhile, I had… had I used him? I didn’t like to see it that way, but it wasn’t exactly an invalid interpretation.
It hit me fully at the end of the third act. I just didn’t deserve Zac.
I had been horrible to him and I didn’t blame him at all if his patience had run out. I might have finally come around enough to admit I wanted him, but I wasn’t really acting like it. I tried to channel all of the misery I felt into my performance, but I know it still suffered. I didn’t care about the show. I wanted to run right out of that building and into Zac’s arms, but I didn’t think he would have me.
After curtain call, I rushed from the stage, shedding my shoes as soon as I was backstage and tearing bobby pins and clips from my hair as I rushed down the hallway to the dressing room. I wanted to be out of that theatre as soon as I possibly could. I had to find Zac. I had to talk to him. I didn’t know if it would change anything, but I had to hope that it would.
Once I had shed my costume and checked out with Adrienne, I walked out into the night and into a storm. From inside the theatre, the thunder and rain had been impossible to hear, so it came as a bit of a shock. What remained of my pretty Ophelia curls were soon washed out entirely by the sudden downpour. But I didn’t care if I looked like a complete mess. Zac had seen me at my worse. Without giving the rain another thought, I scurried across campus to our dorm.
I was only a few feet from the door when I saw a familiar figure. I would have known him anywhere – even though the storm had matted his hair to his head, and his shoulders were slumped, I knew it was Zac.
“Zac! Hold on the door for me!” I called out.
He turned, his hand on the door handle, and frowned. I thought I saw him shake his head slightly, but he didn’t move. When I caught up with him, he held the door open for me without a word. I started to speak to him, but he shoved past me and hurried on down the hallway toward the elevator. I rushed to keep up with him.
“Zac, please…” I said, finding myself at a loss for any other words.
He glanced back at me, but only for a second. It was still enough for me to see the anger in his eyes. He stabbed at the elevator button and the elevator opened for him immediately. I nearly broke into a sprint to reach the elevator before it closed. The doors were already beginning to slide shut when I flew through them, almost losing my balance and colliding with Zac.
I turned and pushed the button for the fifth floor, suddenly wishing that the building was twice as tall. I needed more time with him when he couldn’t run and ignore me. From the blank stare on his face, I knew that it didn’t matter. He could stand right next to me and still ignore me.
“Zac,” I said. “Please. I need to talk to you.”
He growled under his breath. “I really don’t think you do.”
“Yes, I really –”
Suddenly, the elevator ground to a halt and the lights flickered out. We were plunged completely into darkness.