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  The scene began. Lord Capulet gives the servants instructions and flirts with his guests. Tybalt spies Romeo and gets angry that Capulet’s party has been crashed by a repulsive Montague. Romeo sees Juliet for the first time; he says a short speech and weaves his way through the dancing guests to her side.

  So there I was, standing in front of Gemma. Who was wearing the googly eyeglasses.

  I blanked.

  “If I profane with my unworthiest hand,” Miss Bluestone prompted me.

  I nodded. “If I profane with my unworthiest hand this holy shrine, the gentle fine is this . . .”

  “My lips,” Miss Bluestone said.

  “My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand to smooth that, um . . .”

  “Rough touch.”

  “Rough touch with—dang!”

  Gemma giggled. “Shall I take off my mask? I think it’s distracting you, Mattie.”

  I nodded. I wiped the sweat off my face with the back of my hand.

  She took off the glasses and looked into my eyes. Looking into hers, I could see that her irises were ringed with a darker shade. It was like an eclipse. Solar or lunar? I couldn’t remember.

  I wiped my face again.

  “To smooth that rough touch,” Miss Bluestone said. She fluttered her hand.

  “To smooth that rough touch,” I repeated.

  “With a tender kiss.”

  “With a—”

  Before I could finish, Gemma smooched my mouth.

  Then she laughed. “Come on, Mats, that wasn’t so awful, was it?”

  I shook my head. It just made me feel dizzier.

  Juliet says a few more lines. Then Romeo speaks, then Juliet, back and forth, while my knees were shaking.

  Two more kisses to go. I can do this.

  “Then move not, while my prayer’s effect I take,” I said. “Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.”

  I leaned in to kiss her.

  “Woo,” someone shouted. “Go, Mattie.”

  Ajay? It could have been. Other people were laughing.

  “None of that,” Mr. Torres snapped. “This is hard.”

  “Yes, it’s very challenging to kiss me,” Gemma said, giggling.

  “I’m serious,” Mr. Torres continued, glaring at the cast members in the audience. “No sounds. No jokes. Total silence. Understood?”

  He was so mad he didn’t even call them “humans.”

  “All right, let’s pick it up from Juliet’s line,” Mr. Torres said.

  “Then have my lips the sin that they have took,” Gemma said.

  “Sin from thy lips?” I began.

  “No, Mattie,” Miss Bluestone called out in exasperation. “The line is ‘sin from my lips.’ ”

  “Sorry. Sin from my lips? O trespass sweetly urged! Um . . .”

  “Give me my sin again,” Gemma whispered.

  “Gemma, let Miss Bluestone do the cuing, please,” Mr. Torres said.

  “Give me my sin again,” Miss Bluestone said in a swoony-actressy sort of voice.

  Someone in the audience giggled. It could have been Tessa.

  Mr. Torres’s face reddened.

  “Give me my sin again,” I said quickly. Then I kissed Gemma.

  And before I could get myself offstage, I collapsed.

  32

  “I’ll tell thee ere thou ask it me again.”

  —Romeo and Juliet, II.iii.48

  It wasn’t a true faint, like when book heroines black out and sprawl on the floor. But I did sink to my knees with a buzzing head. So immediately, Mr. Torres, Tessa, and Lucy ran to my side.

  “It’s nothing,” Lucy was saying loudly. “Mattie does this all the time. She has a very, very sensitive—”

  “Stomach,” Tessa finished. “We’re lucky she didn’t barf.”

  “Shouldn’t we call a parent?” Miss Bluestone asked, hovering.

  “No,” I said. “I’ll be fine. I just need a minute.” I tried to stand up, but I swayed a little, clutching Tessa’s arm.

  “I’ll get some water. And some damp towels,” Lucy said, running out of the auditorium.

  “Mattie, put your head between your knees,” Mr. Torres said. “Here, sit on this chair.”

  I did. It made me feel stupid and helpless, but also less queasy.

  A minute later Lucy was back with a bottle of water and some wet paper towels, which she put on my forehead and my neck. Cold water was dripping down my face and my back, causing my T-shirt to stick to my skin.

  “I’m feeling much better,” I announced.

  “Good,” Mr. Torres said, looking unsure. “I hope it wasn’t my wife’s cookies.”

  “Oh, no. I didn’t even eat any. I think it just may be a stomach bug or something.”

  “It better not be, because I’ll get it too,” Gemma said, smiling a little.

  I drank some water and walked around the stage for a few minutes. Then we continued the scene. Romeo had almost nothing left to say, and zero kissing, so it went fine.

  But I couldn’t wait to get home, crochet some cute baby animals, and hide under my covers.

  * * *

  The next day, Friday, was the balcony scene.

  “You’re feeling up for it today?” Tessa asked me at lunch.

  “I have to,” I said grimly. “I have no choice.”

  Tessa frowned. “I just don’t get why you’re so nervous, all of a sudden.”

  Lucy and I exchanged glances.

  I nodded.

  Tessa deserved to know. It was time.

  “Remember that crush I had?” I murmured. “I still have it.”

  “Okay,” Tessa said. “And?”

  “That’s why the scene was hard for me.”

  Tessa stared.

  I nodded.

  Her mouth dropped open. “You mean it’s . . . ?”

  “Gemma,” I said. “Exactly.”

  “Oh. Okay. Whoa.”

  “Yep.”

  “I had no idea. Really? So does this mean you—”

  “It just means I like her. That’s all it means, Tessa. Please don’t tell anybody else, okay?”

  Tessa’s face reddened. “Of course I wouldn’t! You think I go around talking behind your back, Mattie?”

  “No, no.” Now I was blushing too. “I just want to be super careful. Especially at school.”

  “Mattie, at theater camp I knew a bunch of kids who are gay. Like my good friend Henry, for example! You think I’m incapable of respecting privacy?”

  “Volume control,” I said, pointing to my mouth.

  “Eep. Sorry.” She leaned toward me. “But I don’t understand this, anyway. If she’s your crush, shouldn’t you want to kiss her?”

  I winced. “Not in public. Onstage. With all these people watching and laughing, and Miss Bluestone correcting.”

  “Mattie, why don’t you ask Mr. Torres if you can just leave out the kissing?” Lucy said.

  “Because it’s Romeo and Juliet! They get married! They die for each other! What are we supposed to do instead—fist-bump?”

  “Good point,” Tessa said. “Kissing is absolutely required. And since there’s all this secrecy, I take it Gemma doesn’t know?”

  I shook my head.

  “Unclear,” Lucy blurted. “Mattie sent Gemma a note.”

  I glared at her. We hadn’t agreed to keep the note a secret from Tessa, but it was my information to share, not Lucy’s.

  Tessa blinked at Lucy. “You knew all about this, didn’t you?”

  Lucy blushed. “Yes, but not because Mattie told me. I just sort of . . . figured it out.”

  “And then you came rushing to share it with me. So loyal of you, Lucy.”

  “Tessa, it wasn’t up to me!”

  “I asked Lucy to keep it to herself,” I said. “I needed time to, you know . . .”

  “Think about it?” Tessa’s mouth twisted. For a second, I thought she might start crying, but she didn’t. Even so, I felt awful for leaving her out. Why did som
ething good have to end up hurting people?

  Lucy and I exchanged a helpless glance.

  “Anyway,” Tessa said after a minute or two, “do you guys plan on telling me about this note?”

  “It was while you were away last week,” I said. I told her the whole story, including Gemma’s interpretation.

  “Oh, great,” Tessa said. “So now Gemma’s going to ‘reach out’ to Liam? I bet that means she’ll ask him to the Valentine’s Dance.”

  “If Willow hasn’t already,” Lucy said.

  “Aww, thanks. That makes me feel so much better.” Tessa chomped on a potato chip. “Mattie, you told me Gemma didn’t even like Liam.”

  My stomach clenched. “I said she thought he was a dim muppet. But now she feels sorry for him, I guess.”

  “Well, this is all going swimmingly. Maybe the three of us can just go to the stupid dance together. What?” she added, when she realized I was giving Lucy a look.

  “There’s something else you don’t know, Tessa,” Lucy said. “I asked Elijah. To the dance.”

  “Elijah Dirtbag? You didn’t.”

  “No, I did. It was kind of a mix-up, but I asked him, and he said yes.”

  “That’s insane. You’re insane. Holy crap. Anything else I need to know?”

  “No, that about covers it,” I said.

  “So I’m finally all caught up, then? Well, woohoo.” Suddenly, Tessa reached into her bag and flung a handful of chips at us.

  Lucy squealed. “What’s that for?”

  “Keeping secrets from me, you false caterpillars. Luckily for you both, I have a ridiculously forgiving heart. Which neither of you two scurvy knaves deserve. Incoming,” she added, lifting her chin.

  I spun around to see Gemma walking toward our table, with Willow and Isabel lagging behind her. Quickly, I brushed off the potato chip shards.

  Gemma, unlike the other two, looked concerned. “Hullo, Mattie. How are you feeling today?”

  “Great,” I said. “It was probably just a twenty-four-hour thingy.”

  “Oh, I hope so. Well, good to hear you’re better. See you later, then.” She smiled at Tessa and Lucy, and squeezed my shoulder. Willow and Isabel turned their backs without saying a word, and the three of them left.

  “Seriously, Mattie, you should just tell her,” Tessa said. “Although, if you ask me, she already knows.”

  33

  “O, I am Fortune’s fool!”

  —Romeo and Juliet, III.i.138

  Do not pass out.

  Do not mess up.

  Do not pass out.

  Do not mess up.

  I recited these lines to myself all afternoon, determined not to screw up the balcony scene. Everything should be easier, anyway, I told myself. Because it would just be Gemma and me in the auditorium—plus Mr. Torres and Miss Bluestone. Fewer eyes on us. No giggles or hoots.

  Plus, there was an extremely weird thing I’d noticed: The most famous love scene ever written for the stage didn’t have a single kiss in it. It was all words. But words I could handle. If I was good at anything, it was Shakespeare’s words.

  When I got to the auditorium, Mr. Torres walked over to me immediately. “You’re sure you’re up for this today, Mattie? No more dizzy spells?”

  “I’m fine, Mr. Torres! But thanks!”

  “Okay, but you’ll tell me if you start to feel woozy?”

  “Promise,” I said.

  We waited a few minutes for Gemma to show, but she was late again. Mr. Torres didn’t even try to hide his annoyance as he checked his watch. Finally, he told me to start without her; the scene opens with a long speech by Romeo, anyway.

  Which I nailed. The whole speech. Didn’t miss a word.

  The way Mr. Torres beamed at me, I felt like teacher’s pet all over again. And from the back of the auditorium, someone shouted, “Brava!”

  It was Gemma. She practically danced down the aisle. “That was perfect, Mattie! Well done! Full marks!”

  “You were here the whole time?” I tried to sound nonchalant as she climbed onstage.

  She nodded, laughing. “I thought if I hid it might help you focus! And I was right! So all you have to do from now on is imagine I’m invisible, and you’ll be fine!”

  Sure. No problem. Easy peasy.

  “All right, humans, let’s keep the momentum going,” Mr. Torres said. “Gemma, you’re up. O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou, et cetera.”

  Gemma said the lines as if she’d written them herself. And I—I mean Romeo—answered. We had a conversation. Back and forth. It was going great.

  Until Gemma held up her hand and asked for time, as if this were a soccer match.

  “Mr. Torres, don’t you think it’s odd that there’s no physical contact at all between Romeo and Juliet in this scene? Considering what’s happening onstage?”

  “Yes,” I said quickly, before Mr. Torres could answer. “I noticed it too. But Shakespeare is very specific about when he wants kisses. So I don’t think we should just plop some in.”

  Mr. Torres nodded. “I agree, Mattie. But Gemma has a point—it might look funny if all they do is talk at each other the whole scene. How about this—Romeo, you lean in several times as if you want to kiss Juliet, but Juliet, you always pull back. Can we try that?”

  “Sure, let’s,” Gemma said eagerly.

  Do not mess up. Do not pass out. Do not mess up—

  I started chanting to myself again. And maybe because of chanting and the leaning in and the possibility that Gemma had used a new shampoo that smelled like hyacinths, which happened to be my favorite flower scent of all, I messed up my lines. A whole bunch of times: Twice by tripping over the consonants. Once by saying the wrong speech. Three times by saying the right words in the wrong order. Five times by drawing a complete blank.

  When we finished the scene. Gemma smiled at me with soft eyes. “It’ll be okay, Mattie. You just need to relax.”

  “Yeah,” I said, watching Miss Bluestone say something to Mr. Torres that involved holding her hands in front of her as if she were shaking an imaginary coconut, and Mr. Torres hanging his head and not answering.

  I felt exactly like a dried-up slug. I couldn’t even look at Gemma, though I felt her eyes still on me as she put on her jacket and called out a good-bye.

  When she’d left the auditorium, and Miss Bluestone finally stopped shaking her coconut, I walked over to Mr. Torres, who was typing into his phone.

  He looked up at me, and I noticed that the shadows under his eyes were back.

  “Hey, Mattie,” he said quietly. “What’s up?”

  I couldn’t tell if the question meant: What’s wrong with you, anyway? But that’s the question I chose to answer.

  “Mr. Torres, I’m not sure I can do this anymore,” I said.

  “You mean the play?”

  I nodded.

  “What’s going on? You said Romeo’s speech beautifully before Gemma came onstage. When we were just reading through the scenes together in my classroom, you had no trouble, and I know you have no problem memorizing—”

  “It’s not that.”

  “No? Then what is it?”

  “I can’t really . . . talk about it.”

  He sighed. I could see he was frustrated with me, and trying not to show it. “Mattie, I can’t help you if you don’t communicate.”

  “I know! I’m just not comfortable explaining it!”

  “Is it Gemma?”

  My stomach dropped. Omigod, so it was that obvious. “What do you mean?”

  He studied my face for a few too many seconds. “Are you girls not getting along?”

  “No, no, we’re getting along great! I’m just . . . distracted.”

  “By what?”

  “Gemma.” My face burned, but the rest of my body broke out in a chilly sweat.

  Mr. Torres scratched his nose. “Well, I don’t know what to tell you, Mattie. You’re obviously feeling stuff right now that’s getting in your way onstage. So I’m wonder
ing if somehow you can use whatever you’re feeling in your acting.”

  “How would I do that?”

  “Come on, Mattie,” Mr. Torres said kindly. “You’re a great reader. And you know that feeling when you’re reading a book, and you’re totally connected to the character? It almost feels as if you’re thinking the same thoughts.”

  “Yeah.” It happened to me all the time, in fact.

  “Listen, I’m not saying you’re the same as Romeo. Far from it! But think about this: Romeo is like you because he’s feeling something deeply that he can’t express in public, right?”

  I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t.

  “So if you can somehow channel whatever you’re feeling to Romeo’s love for Juliet, which he has to keep private from his family and his friends, it might help you connect with his character. Who knows, it might even help you deal with your own emotions.”

  I swallowed. “Maybe.”

  “Because otherwise I’m not sure we can go on,” Mr. Torres said. “You’re the only one who can play Romeo at this point. If you can’t find a way to continue, no one will step into your shoes. We’ll just have to cancel the production.”

  “Couldn’t you be Romeo? Instead of me?” I begged.

  “No,” Mr. Torres said firmly. “That wouldn’t be appropriate, given the material. This is an eighth-grade production, so Romeo has to be an eighth grader.” Then his voice softened. “Mattie, look: I know playing this role was never your plan, so if you really don’t have it in you, that’s okay. We’ll just do a talent show or something. It’ll be fine.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know!”

  “What don’t you know?”

  “What I want to do! About any of it!”

  “All right,” he said quietly after a minute. “So why don’t you do some thinking this weekend? And then stop by my homeroom on Monday morning, and we’ll see where we are.”

  34

  “One too many by my weary self.”

  —Romeo and Juliet, I.i.131

  On Saturday morning, Kayden yanked me out of a dream. It was a nice dream about being on a beach, except I was being bitten by a swarm of mosquitoes. And when I tried to swat them away, I felt my little brother pinching my arm.