"Why the devil came you between us?" Raleigh suddenly screamed, her body doubled over in mock pain and fake blood oozing through her costume and fingers. In the audience, Raleigh's friends chuckled. They knew exactly what was running through her head at this moment, what this role meant to her, what her next line really meant. Lord knew she told them often enough. And now she was finally there onstage, actually doing it.
Raleigh looked up and locked eyes with Tristan, the Romeo to her Mercutio. Yes, she was playing a male role, but seriously, when offered the opportunity to play Mercutio in her school's production of Romeo and Juliet, who could resist? He had the best lines, the best personality, the best death scene, for goodness sake.
Raleigh's knees began to quake as she stared into Tristan's hazel eyes and suddenly it all became real, as this scene always did. The differences between Tristan and Romeo blurred; her fake death that was real to Mercutio became one with all the ways Tristan had wounded her over the years. Raleigh didn't worry about thinking clearly as she choked out her next line. "I was hurt under your arm," she said to Tristan, simultaneously angry and terrified, vindictive and sorrowful, accusing and hurt beyond words. You're the one who broke my heart.
They stared transfixed at each other, Raleigh shaking with an ache and a need that was all too real, Tristan spellbound by his true-to-life best friend's intensity and passion. He had never seen her this vulnerable… this raw. The rehearsals of this scene had always been good, but this level of sincerity was new. His eyes filled with tears when hers did. It's my fault, he thought. I mean, Romeo's fault. I killed her. I mean him. I mean… dear gods. "I thought all for the best."
Raleigh tore her gaze awayand stumbled towards Benvolio. "Help me into some house Benvolio, or I shall faint." He helped her slowly the short distance to the curtains. Just before she completely disappeared from sight, she turned back to Tristan, locking eyes with him once more, and noticed for the first time that the bewildered and panic-stricken look he usually wore for this scene was gone. He looked… like his best friend really did just die. But she didn't forgive him. He needed to know that every time he breathed he broke her heart, that every time he looked at her she crumbled, that… she loved him.
Suddenly, all the pent up frustration and heart-ache of the past three years overwhelmed her. She was tired of caring about him more than he did her, of hiding the fact that when she looked at him she forgot to breathe. "Your houses!" she screamed at the top of her lungs with her dying breath and the audience erupted into applause. The sound of the crowd snapped Tristan and Raleigh out of their state of complete immersion in the scene. Tristan, still onstage, began grinning like an idiot. She nailed it, he thought and quickly tried to cover up his huge smile.
In the mean time, Benny had somehow reappeared onstage. Tristan snatched his gaze away from Raleigh and threw himself back into Verona. "Here comes the furious Tybalt back again."