In The Silence, Our Stage Whisper Might Carry
Taylor stammered and stuttered. He turned his head to Joseph, who only offered him a shrug. I looked to Zac and his face was a picture of sheepishness. If I had wondered whether or not he had confronted Taylor, I now had my answer: he hadn’t.
Joseph took a step back from Taylor, leaving him out on his own with his defenses down. I didn’t think that was very fair of him, or very nice, especially if he were supposed to be Taylor’s boyfriend, and I assumed he was.
“Whitley, I can’t…” Taylor finally managed to squeak out, his voice smaller and meeker than I had ever heard it.
Whitley stood unnervingly still, her face motionless and her eyes wide. She didn’t speak. Joseph stepped closer to Taylor again, and whispered something in his ear. The way he laid his hands on Taylor, one on his back and the other on Taylor’s arm, was obviously more than a friendly gesture. I hoped Whitley wouldn’t notice, but the twitching of her bottom lip suggested that she had.
“You can’t what?” She finally spat out.
“I don’t… I don’t think I can be what you want me to be.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
She was not taking this well. I felt sorry for Taylor because I knew he had to be going through more than he could express, but I couldn’t say that my reaction would have been any better than hers. I really couldn’t imagine what either of them were going through, but it wasn’t fair for Taylor or Whitley to have to deal with any of it.
“It means what it means,” Taylor said, “I don’t know how else to explain it. I’m just… I guess I’ve been leading you on, because I’m not who I thought I was.”
“Leading me on…” Whitley repeated after him, as though if she heard the words again they might make more sense. I suspected that they didn’t.
Suddenly I was beginning to feel very self conscious about watching this take place. It wasn’t anything that concerned me and I shouldn’t have been there. I mouthed the words “I should leave” to Zac and started to stand up, but his hand on my shoulder pulled me back to the couch.
He leaned in close to my ear and whispered, “Please stay. I’m gonna need some moral support.”
“Listen, I just can’t be with you, Whit. I’m sorry… if things were different, maybe we could happen. But I’m just not the kind of guy you need,” Taylor half-explained, threading his hand into Joseph’s almost unconsciously as he spoke.
That was, as they say, the straw that broke the camel’s back. I saw Whitley’s eyes widen at Taylor’s little gesture. Her lips tightened into a thin, angry line. “Oh. I see.”
Before Taylor could reply, she turned and walked out of the room, her pace quickening with each step. Taylor didn’t chase after her. He pulled his hand back from Joseph’s. With sad eyes he looked over at Zac. I gave Zac a gentle nudge, hoping to prod him into saying something that was, if not profound, at least a little bit comforting to his brother. The boy clearly needed someone to be there for him, and it didn’t look like Joseph was doing a very good job. And in any case, Joseph couldn’t offer him the kind of approval he needed from his own brother.
“Tay, we need to talk.”
No shit, Sherlock, I thought. That was the best he could do? Then again, it was a start. A step in the right direction.
“Yeah, we really do,” Taylor replied, then looked over at Joseph. He said nothing, but took a step back from Taylor and offered him an encouraging nod and a little shove toward the couches where Zac and I still sat.
I looked up at Zac and his eyes implored me to stay. I didn’t want to. I should have been off comforting Whitley, even though I had no idea what I supposed to say to her. “Sorry the guy I set you up with is gay. At least you can go shopping together.” No, that wouldn’t do. “At least you got to first base before he started batting for the other team?”
This was hopeless. I was better off awkwardly listening in on the brotherly heart to heart than trying to console my friend and failing.
Zac patted the empty spot to his left and said, “Come on, Tay. I’m not mad. Come here, alright?”
Taylor ignored him and instead opted to sit in one of the chairs directly across from our couch. He curled up in the chair, folding his long limbs up until the fetal position. I was surprised at just how small he looked; he wasn’t a large guy by any means but someone his height shouldn’t have been able to look so much like a child. A scared child. I wanted to hug him and tell him everything would be okay.
“Listen, I really didn’t mean for you to see what you –”
“I’ve seen you make out with plenty of girls. Why be so shy about shoving your tongue down some guy’s throat?” Zac said, cutting off Taylor’s sentence.
Taylor visibly flinched. Even I was taken aback by Zac’s words, and the last few days had seen me grow quite accustomed to his sarcastic barbs. I had hoped this conversation would have some degree of civility, but that didn’t seem to be the case so far.
“That’s, that’s not what I meant. You weren’t supposed to find out that way,” Taylor managed to squeak out.
“Well, I did. Now we’ve got to deal with that, don’t we?” Zac replied, and although his tone was harsh, the words were fairly reasonable. I would have commended him for that, but he wasn’t getting off the hook so easily for his first comment.
Taylor mustered a little bit of courage and leaned forward in his chair. “Do you wonder why maybe I didn’t want to talk to you about this? I knew it wouldn’t go well.”
“I’m not upset that you’re… whatever you are,” Zac replied, “I’m upset that you had to hide it from me. Or you thought you had to. Or something. I don’t know what’s going on in your head, I really don’t.”
“Maybe I don’t either!” Taylor cried out. If Zac didn’t hug him soon, I was going to.
Zac looked down at his hands, his eyelashes fluttering. After a moment, he looked back up. “You’re still Taylor, though. You’re still my brother. You really thought I was gonna hate you or something?”
“I didn’t know, okay?” Taylor replied. “I don’t even know what’s happening here. I thought I knew who I was, or maybe I had just convinced myself I was something I wasn’t. I don’t know. But, but something just snapped. And I think… I think this is who I am. Do you see how hard that is to explain? I couldn’t expect you to understand or accept that, not when I haven’t figured it out for myself yet.”
I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. “But isn’t it better if you talk to someone about it? I mean, bottling all that up inside can’t be good for you. And like Zac says, you’re still gonna be his brother no matter what you decide you are in addition to that.”
“Me and Joey have been talking a little, about that kind of stuff,” Tay said. “But you’re right. Zac, you promise you aren’t mad?”
Zac nodded. “Of course I’m not mad. I’m frustrated that this is how I’m finding out that you’re… you’re…”
“Gay. Bisexual. Whatever. I’m a fag. I don’t know,” Tay said, a tiny smile beginning to play at the corner of his lips.
“Right. One of those,” Zac replied, returning Taylor’s small smile. “Whatever you are. You can’t change it, and that’s perfectly alright. You’re still Taylor and I’m still gonna love you, okay?”
The smile broke loose and seemed to engulf Taylor’s entire face. “That’s great, Zac. Really, you don’t know how great that is. I love you, too, dorkface.”
“Love you, ya big baby,” Zac replied.
I reached out my hand and placed it on top of Zac’s, giving his a small squeeze. I was proud of him, even if he had acted like an asshole toward Taylor at first. I was glad to see the two of them putting the pieces back together. At least something was starting to go well.
“How are you holding up?” I leaned in to Whitley and asked her, my voice low. She was refilling a water bottle from the fountain outside the green room during our five minute break and although there was no one else near enough to really hear our conversation, I knew she would appreciate it if I kept things under wraps.
She took a long swig of her water and I could tell she was avoiding the question or trying to craft an appropriate answer. When she finally spoke, I wasn’t at all prepared for what came out.
“Did you know?”
I couldn’t lie to her. No, I could. I most certainly could, and convincingly at that. But it wouldn’t have been right. Slowly, I nodded. “I guess. I saw him… with another guy. It was an accident. I mean, I didn’t mean to see them. But I didn’t talk to him about it so I didn’t know the whole story until last night.”
She didn’t seem thrilled by that answer, and I certainly didn’t blame her.
“And you didn’t feel the need to tell me that?”
I sighed. “I didn’t really know what to say. I mean, ‘I saw the guy you’re kind of dating with his tongue down some dude’s throat’ isn’t exactly a normal conversation topic, you know? Not exactly easy to slip that in at the dinner table.”
Whitley pulled a face, then sighed. “Yeah, alright. I guess it’s not exactly your place to tell me that anyway. I mean, Taylor should be able to come out on his schedule, you know.”
Nodding, I asked, “So, did you talk to him? Besides what me and Zac saw?”
“Yeah, he called me after that and I met him for lunch today. He told me how confused he was, and that he’s sorry I got caught in the middle of it. I guess he freaked out at the party because he saw a guy he had… well, anyway, he wasn’t expecting to see that guy there. And I guess the guy wasn’t happy to see Taylor either. The whole thing still sucks for me, but I’m glad to get the truth out of him finally,” Whitley said.
“So, does this mean I’m not the only one without a date for the homecoming dance?” I asked, biting my lip. Maybe that wasn’t the most tactful question to ask.
“Actually,” Whitley said, drawing the word out. “I’m going with Taylor and Justine is going with Joseph. She didn’t tell you? I guess you weren’t there in the coffee shop when we figured it all out. It’s the easiest way for Tay and Joey to be together at the dance without being totally obvious yet. Although Joey is way out of the closet, Tay’s still taking baby steps out of his.”
“So it does mean I’m the only one without a date.”
“Afraid so.”
Dr. Ansary peeked her head out of the green room door. “Time to start back, girls. We only have a few more days to pull this show together.”
I took a quick drink from the water fountain, then followed Whitley back into the green room. We were doing a full run through of the play that night, which meant that all the actors were required to wait backstage just as they would during a performance. I knew my first entrance didn’t come for several pages, but I wanted to go ahead and be ready for it so I went on backstage and began pacing, running through my lines in my mind.
I felt his presence behind me before he spoke. A warm shadow descending on me, peering over my shoulder. A tingle crept up my spine.
“Donovan.”
“Yes?”
“You shouldn’t creep up on people like that. It might really scare some people,” I hissed.
He placed a hand on my shoulder and I wanted to shrink away from it, but I didn’t. “I just wanted to see why you were pacing.”
I rolled my eyes, glad to still have my back to him so he wouldn’t see the gesture. “Running through my lines. It helps me to pace while I do it.”
“Are you nervous?” He asked and I could hear the hint of laughter in his question, and maybe even a little sarcasm.
“Of course I’m nervous,” I replied tersely. “If I wasn’t nervous, it wouldn’t be worth doing. The nerves just mean I still have emotions. That I care about my performance. I like the nerves.”
Just as I expected, he didn’t have a clue how to respond to that. He was calm and collected in all situations; of course he didn’t understand letting yourself be guided by your nerves.
“Well, I was thinking… they’ve got this homecoming dance a couple days from now, and it’s silly, but would you like to go with me?”
Was he fucking kidding me?
I turned around and looked at him. His face was completely serious. He really thought I would say yes? “Umm, don’t you think it’s a little late to ask me that? It’s two days away, how do you know I don’t already have a date?”
“Oh, let me guess. You’re going with Zac,” Donovan sneered.
I shook my head. “No, I’m not. But you just assume that I’m gonna be willing and able to just come running back to you?”
“I miss you, alright?” Donovan said, placing his hand on my arm. It gave me chills. “I think you and me could be good together. We make a good Hamlet and Ophelia, don’t we?”
While I was still formulating a response, he leaned down and silenced me, pressing his lips to mine. The kiss was forceful enough that I couldn’t have pushed him away. And it wasn’t that bad of a kiss. I relaxed my lips against his and followed his lead, willing to let the kiss play out as long as he was.
After what seemed forever, he pulled away. I could hear Kelsey delivering the lines leading up to Donovan’s next cue. He looked at me with imploring eyes. I stood on my tiptoes and leaned in as though I were going to kiss him again. When we were as close to eye level as possible, I hissed, “Hamlet is a bipolar sociopath and Ophelia kills herself. We are not our characters. And I won’t go to the dance with you.”