the large window. Rolling chairs were all over the room, some pushed away from the table, some overturned, like cockroaches stuck on their backs.
“Hamlet?”
He spun around to face me. “Get out of here. Haven’t you done enough damage already?”
I considered walking out, but my guilt kept me rooted. Checking on him was the least I could do. “Where’s Horatio?” I asked.
“Why? You gonna screw him, too?”
I crossed my arms forcefully and gritted my teeth. I had gone in there to check on him to be a good friend, and this was how he repaid me? His words were as powerful as a slap, and I wanted to hurt him back. “What do you care what I do or who I do, Hamlet?” The shock and deepening anger on his face egged me on. “You’ve made it pretty damn clear that you hate me. And apparently, you never loved me. So why would I wait around? I’ll screw whoever I want whenever I want. You did.”
“Liar.” He growled.
Hamlet climbed onto the conference table and sat down. He stared at me like a vulture, his chin low, glowering from under his brow. But I stood my ground. Then he reached behind his back, lifted his shirt, and pulled out the gun, the one he’d had in my room weeks before.
I froze, wondering if I was going to get shot for telling the truth. “Jesus, Hamlet,” I managed. “Are you still carrying that around?”
He laid it on the table between his feet and stared at it, then rubbed his face hard and shook out his hair. Tapping at the gun with one finger, he said to himself as much as to me, “I had the perfect chance to use it.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but a soft gasp was all that came out.
“But I didn’t,” he said. “I couldn’t. Claudius was right there, right in front of me. After the show, in the chapel. No security. No secretaries. On his kneeeees. And I thought, Well, he’s alone. Just get it done.
“But then I,” Hamlet continued, tapping the gun harder, “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t shoot someone who was praying. It was too disturbing. As if shooting someone isn’t disturbing, right? Maybe I just don’t have the balls to kill someone.”
Hamlet picked up the gun and pointed it at his own heart. “And I don’t know if I have the balls to kill myself. But someone’s gotta go.”
My heart pounded, and I wasn’t sure if I should run for help or keep talking to him. I didn’t want to leave him with a gun pointed at his chest. “Hamlet,” I said, forcing my dry mouth to speak, “killing Claudius… or yourself…” I couldn’t think. “I don’t want to lose you.”
“Liar,” he said, but he lowered the gun and rested it on the table. Then he began spinning it. Every time it slowed down, he’d spin it again.
I couldn’t make my body walk closer to his, not with that gun between us. “Hamlet, don’t.”
He slammed his palm onto the gun. “Maybe you should take this,” he said, and slid the gun across the table at me.
I shook my head, unable to speak.
He kicked over another chair as he jumped off the table, then rounded the corner and came toward me. Standing so close I could feel his breath on my face, he whispered, “You should’ve taken it while you had the chance.” He reached across me, his arm grazing mine, grabbed the gun, and shoved it under his shirt. Then he walked out without another word.
He was right. I should have taken it.
Barnardo: You said Hamlet wouldn’t speak to you, but, in what’s left of the surveillance tape from before the show, he’s seen whispering to you. Part of his plot again?
Ophelia: He wanted to humiliate me.
Barnardo: By doing what?
Ophelia: Suggesting I—do lewd things with him in front of everyone.
Barnardo: And did you?
Ophelia: Are you always this rude, or do you just hate women?
Barnardo: Watch it.
Francisco: What did you think of the show?
Ophelia: Funny.
Francisco: It’s pretty insulting to the queen and the king.
Ophelia: Yeah.
Barnardo: You don’t seem too upset.
Ophelia: They deserved it after what they did, don’t you think?
Barnardo: What else did they deserve?
Francisco: (pause) Again with the silence. (pause) Take her back to her cell.
18
“What happened after the improv show?”
Ophelia looks down. “I’d rather not talk about this.”
Zara tilts her head and croons to the camera, “We’ll be right back after a word from our sponsors.”