Room C and peered inside. Four people were frozen in a tableau. Paloma stood to the side in such a way that made me assume she was controlling the scene. Will and the others were shaking with laughter. Their coach, Roger, was crouched against the wall, his head in his hands. The more everyone laughed, the more pleased Paloma’s face became. The players frozen in place began to shake from holding their positions for so long.
They were happy.
I didn’t want to break that up.
Easing the door closed, I pivoted on my heel just in time to see Sirena bound up the stairs.
“Hi,” I said in a low voice.
“Hi, Zelda!” she said, smiling as she put her hand on the door-knob to the rehearsal room. Then she took a second look at me and frowned. “What’s wrong?”
I shook my head and rubbed my eyebrow. “Crazy morning. I was hoping to talk to Will, but they’re neck deep in something hilarious. He’d never forgive me for pulling him out of that.”
She nodded slowly. “Break’s in fifteen. Or we might call it for the day . . . You want to come in until then?”
“No, it’s okay. I don’t want to interrupt.” I pulled my bag higher on my shoulder and tried to fix my features into a no-one’s-made-out-with-me-lately-especially-not-my-coach face.
Sirena stared at me for a moment with her head cocked. Then she pushed her glasses back on her nose and nodded at rehearsal. “I should get back in there—unless you want to talk or something.”
I did—desperately—but I really needed Will first. I reached out and squeezed her forearm. “I’ll be okay. Have fun.”
“Okay . . .” She squeezed my arm back, nodded once, and slipped into the room.
Fifteen minutes. I slid down the wall and cracked my ice pack in half, propping it on my foot. I sighed with relief as the cool pressure tingled against my toes. Wiggling them experimentally, I decided I’d probably be fine in a day or two. They were achy, but I didn’t think they were broken.
Not that there’s much you can do for a broken toe. When Will and I were in fifth grade, Mom broke one as she was lugging climbing equipment out of the Adventure Closet in the basement. The doctor had just taped her broken toe to the one next to it. “Its buddy helps the broken one heal,” she’d said.
I missed Will, my own buddy toe.
But soon, he slipped out of the door of the rehearsal room. “Hey, Sirena told me you—holy Jesus, Z, what happened to you?”
Then, for the first time since this whole thing had started, I began to cry in front of someone. It poured out of me in waves crashing onto the shore of Will. He gathered me in his arms and just sat there, holding me while I sobbed. I wiped my tears with the sleeve of my flannel, and pretty soon I was wiping my nose with it, too.
“Can you walk?” he asked when my tears had started to let up a little. I nodded. He helped me down the stairs and out onto the wraparound porch. We sat on a bench around the corner from the main door.
“Okay,” he said, folding his arms, “did he do this to you?”
I furrowed my brow. “Who? Ben? No! He—” And then all I could think about was the weird, awkward kissing I’d just participated in. Something must have shown on my face because he tugged on my shirt sleeve.
“Tell me.”
So, I did. I told him about rehearsals. The high ropes course. My makeup rehearsal. The kissing scene.
At that point, he pursed his lips so tightly they became a straight, hard line of disapproval. But I pushed on. I told him about my cold open that everyone loved. The terrible and embarrassing scene Ben wrote. My storming off. My hike with the Boy Scouts. My fall. Ben’s rescuing me. The nurse’s office.
“So, you’re back on Varsity,” he said evenly.
I nodded.
“And you kissed him.”
I pulled at my sleeve and nodded again, not looking at him.
He sighed. “He’s your coach.”
“I know,” I said, “I feel really stupid. But—”
“But nothing. It’s a power thing. He shouldn’t be taking advantage of you like that.”
“He wasn’t taking advantage, exactly,” I protested.
“No? He humiliates you in front of your team. He doesn’t stand up for you when they take their turn. He yanks you around, being all hot and cold. He writes a scene about how you don’t know how to kiss—”
I buried my face in