because on one drunken night I didn’t look away but let him stare at me and I stared back, locking him with my eyes, sharing in the mutual longing. But the next day, hungover and back to my senses, I remembered that I was taken and acted accordingly. He had continued to follow me around like a puppy, a damn attractive puppy, but to no avail. Until Hamlet and I broke up last spring.
Sebastian and I had gone to see the Poor Yoricks alone because none of our friends liked the band enough to pay scalpers’ prices to the sold-out show. Everything started out fine, but then when the equipment was being set up for the main act, the recorded music was really loud, so we had to lean in to hear each other. I was close enough to feel his heat and to smell the gel he used to make his hair perfectly messy. Something shifted, and I wanted so much to lean in and kiss him right behind the ear. Well, he must have felt the same, because at that moment, he inched forward and stroked my bare arm. A chill passed over me and I was about to touch my lips to his skin when over his shoulder, I caught a guy lifting his camera phone and pointing it at us.
I leaped back and ran, weaving through the crowd.
“I’m sorry, Ophelia,” I heard Sebastian calling after me.
I waited for him by the door. “It’s not you. But—I can’t have this in the papers.”
“You’re not with him anymore, so what do you care?”
Sebastian rarely called Hamlet by name, and at that moment, it upset me even more. “I love him, okay? We’re having problems right now, but we’ll get over them. We always do. And that’s not why I came out with you.” It kind of was, and we both knew it, but at least Sebastian didn’t argue the point. “I like you, and I can’t risk messing up our friendship. Or having my dad see what I do when he actually lets me go out.”
Sebastian rocked back on his heels, his face red. “So, you wanna leave?”
I looked at the stage, where the microphones were being set up. “No. But we can’t.… Just friends, okay?”
His shoulders had drooped, and he followed me back toward the stage.
In the art studio doorway, Sebastian stopped short when he saw me and asked, “Don’t you have practice?”
I shook my head. “Kicked off the team.” Saying it aloud, I was even more embarrassed than I had been before.
“You’re kidding,” he said, pulling his bag off his shoulder and setting it next to his easel. “That sucks.”
“Too much missed practice.”
He pursed his lips, holding back a comment about Hamlet, I’m sure, and said, “Well, it’s nice to have you back in here.”
I rubbed my forehead and said, “Thanks.”
“Keren and Justine are grabbing coffee. Wanna go after we work for a while?”
“Can’t.”
“Is he waiting for you?”
“He is back at school,” I snapped. “My dad told me to come straight home today.” Sebastian cocked his head, measuring his next move, I’m sure, but I added, “I’ll ask if we can all go out tomorrow.”
I know he caught the “all” I had carefully added to the phrase. He stooped to grab paint off a low shelf, and we both went back to work.
I spent the next while trying to catch up with my studies and my friends and trying not to worry about Hamlet. I figured if he was out of the castle, it was safer for everyone. I had finally begun to breathe, eat, and sleep normally when Horatio called.
Skipping all pleasantries, he opened with, “Hamlet’s bad.”
“What is it?”
“You have to visit. He’s dying here.”
“Well, it wasn’t so hot in Elsinore for him, so how much worse can it be?”
“He can’t sleep. He won’t go to class. He just sits around scribbling weird crap in journals and then burning the pages. He’s set off the fire alarm a few times, which is starting to piss off the other guys. He keeps saying he has to go back and finish business. I hope it doesn’t mean what I think it means. I keep reminding him how much he hated being around his mom and the Claw, but he won’t listen to reason.”
“The Claw?”
“It’s what we’ve taken to calling Claudius. It’s about the only thing that gets him to lighten up.”
I smiled. “I like that.”
“Can you come today?”
“Today? No. I have to—”
“He needs you.”
“Tomorrow. I think. I