Can you believe we're a quarter through? Let us join some new characters.
- Fredrik -
Checkmate, homophobes, I think, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms behind my head.
Let me explain what I mean.
Isn't their whole thesis that it's a deviancy born of bad choices? If I had a business card, 'Makes bad choices' would be printed at the top instead of my name. Mostly because a business card isn't big enough to fit Fredrik 'Freddy' Valtteri Hämäläinen. But my point is that I'm well-acquainted with impulsive, hedonistic choices, and trust me when I say, my 'homosexual urges' are not a choice.
"Ha!" Baru exclaims, slapping his older brother's wooden sword out of his hands. Mr. A dashes over to reprimand him.
Because if it was a choice I wouldn't have a thing for the worst human person alive. I pretend to study the edge of the stage as Baru looks over at me. I'd pick someone normal and hot and straight like Leandro. Not… my asshole friend.
Correct! I did not stutter! I have spent the better part of the last year unwillingly obsessed with one of my best friends, Baru-goddamn-Tandon, five feet and three inches of misplaced confidence and dick jokes, and I am furious. It took a few weeks to acknowledge that staring at him and finding excuses to touch him and actually encouraging him to be less of a dick and daydreaming about him instead of Colin Jost—to acknowledge that all that was perhaps not a result of the next level of friendship.
Unfortunately, 'realizing you have a problem' is the step that I've gotten stuck on. My train of thought plummets into the Caspian sea as Baru struggles to yank his crewtop over his head, and I start flipping through my script, not looking at him. Looking at anything but him, really. And his stupid polo. Those polos are horrendous. Actually, the leather jacket is worse. He probably thinks it makes him look really cool. Like a sixties greaser. Next he'll be gelling his hair. And then we'll really be in it. I swallow hard. C'mon, now, Freddy. Music rehearsal is in like half an hour. You can make it. And I affix my attention to the script again. Come away, come away death, and in sad cypress… Ms. Cary sent me home with the sheet music the rehearsal before last to prepare it for today.
Instead of thinking about how he's probably out of breath from the stage-combat drills Mr. A is running them through, I start mumbling Feste's lines under my breath. Before I know it, it's like I can actually hear him breathing right in front of me.
"Freddy! What the hell, bro?"
I jerk up, snapping shut my script like it's incriminating, and pin my gaze to the spot between his eyes. Direct eye contact usually isn't good for my sanity. "Hey, done fighting?"
He cracks his knuckles. "Yeah, Moiz is done."
"Looks like you did a number on him," I observe, eyeing the still-perfectly-groomed grade twelve as he hops off the stage and goes to greet Ivette. Even Moiz would be a better choice, brain. Then again, Baru would fuckin' flip if I tried to date his brother. "Music rehearsal now?"
"Yeah, dude, Ms. Cary's been shouting at us for like ten minutes. Are you deaf?"
Now I hear the music teacher. "Nope, just… thinkin' my thoughts." I shove my script into my bag, sling it over my shoulder, and stand. My bones do their little snap-crackle-pop, and I stretch out my arms. "C'mon."
Because apparently I can't catch a break today, once we're all somewhat warmed up, Ms. Cary calls me up immediately to do Feste's little mournful song. Luckily, Mr. A slides in to deliver a sermon about it which gives me a minute to steel myself for singing in front of a dozen high schoolers.
"In this scene, which you guys should've read together in your small groups, Feste sings Come Away Death to Orsino and Viola. It's a very… forlorn song, because it comes at a time in the play where Viola's begun to give up hope. This is the part of the comedy that's supposed to tug on the audience's heartstrings a bit," Mr. A says, leaning across the piano to me. "So Freddy, no pressure, I know you only started learning this a couple weeks ago."
Is that a challenge?
Ms. Cary clinks through the intro, much slower than I practiced it, and as I launch into it, I feel my voice shiver with vibrato on each stretched-out note. "And in sad cypress, let me be laid." Just as I'm drawing a breath to start the second verse, Ms. Cary stops and I make a half-aborted note. Shit.
"Very nice, Freddy!" Mr. A's eyes practically glow. I get a smatter of applause from my classmates and I realize perhaps slightly too late that I should've done it less… seriously, maybe. To compensate, I grin.
"Next time I'll bring my harp and we can make it beautiful, darling." From the reaction I get, I'm pretty sure most of everyone thinks I'm joking. Poor fools, don't you know that I've played almost every instrument for a week and then immediately given it up because I can't commit? Harp and accordion were the closest I ever got to sticking with it. Hmmm, I wonder if one of the other songs would sound good with an accordion.
I peel myself off the piano before anyone starts dwelling on the sorts of emotions that were drudged up in my voice, and slide into a folding chair next to Baru on the outskirts of the cast.
"What'd you think?"
Baru rolls his eyes at me. "Man, you already know you're a great singer. If I were you, though, I would've taken a smaller breath between…"
I tune him out. "Mhmm." That's probably why most people find Baru annoying; he loves to offer his opinion on everything everyone's ever done, regardless of how much actual expertise he has in the area. I tolerate it though, because I know he doesn't do it to be annoying, just can't help himself.
"It sounded good, though," he finishes.
"Thanks." I wasn't planning it, but most of my ideas come from ill-advised spontaneity, so I just run with it; "Hey, you wanna check out that bubble tea place that opened up on Second after this?"
Baru is nonplussed. "Bubble tea?"
"Yeah, you know, the stuff with the little orbeez-shit in it. It's like a smoothie."
"I know what bubble tea is."
"Then why'd—"
"I don't—why the hell d'you want bubble tea?" His nose scrunches up. Cute. Shut up, Freddy.
"I dunno. Just wanna try it out. Look, man, if you're scared everyone's gonna think you're a fruity-gay now you can wear a ski mask."
Baru flushes darker. "I'm not—shut up. You seriously want to go get bubble tea after rehearsal?"
"Yeah, why not? When's the last time you ate a piece of fruit?"
Ms. Cary shoots us a stink-eye as she starts to take us through the song we're apparently going to use to open the play. Baru's still putting up a fight, but he lowers his voice.
"Fuck are you, my mom?"
"Just looking out for you, man." Then I shut my mouth because That was way too far, but Baru shrugs.
"Yeah, alright."
- Daphne -
I'm surprised by the number of Shakespeare musicals.
I guess I shouldn't be, at this point. Last year, when we did history, I'm pretty sure I only passed the test on England because of Six. Heart of Stone still has a place of honour in my 'Greatest Musical Tracks of All Time' playlist. The memory of trying to sing it at my audition might have ruined it forever, but the point is, it kind of seems like there's a musical for everything under the sun. It's exciting to think that a whole new subgenre of Shakespeare-inspired musicals might open up to me now that I know the first thing about the Bard himself.
All I really remembered about Shakespeare before auditioning for this was Freddy playing Nick Bottom in our class reading of Midsummer Night's Dream, and the absurd voice he insisted on putting on when Bottom was in donkey mode.Other than that… my brain refuses to grasp the finicky language. Guess I won't get so lucky as to find a whole Twelfth Night musical, though. Something Rotten is good enough for now.
"Daphne?" Mr. A's calling my name. Oh, shoot, has he been trying to get my attention? Rehearsal just finished, and I was flipping through my dying phone's YouTube recommendations to see if there was something new to listen to while I get my stuff ready to go. I yank out my earbuds at lightning speed and stand.
"Sorry, Mr. A! Didn't hear you," I gasp.
"Hey, no worries, I just wanted to make sure you got this." He passes me a slip of paper. "Cory and Bruno's emails, if you guys want to sort out a time to run lines outside of rehearsal. No pressure, but if you want to be extra prepared."
He gives me one of his corny winks, and then heads off with a fistful of paper slips, presumably for everyone else and their scene partners. Oh yeah, I'll get right on that, I think, staring at the little black type spelling out 'cfedd3' and 'baike3.' Great. Two terrifying grade twelves, one of which is hitting on me, according to Ivy. I was pretty excited to land a big role like Maria, since I'm a measly grade eleven without much theatre experience, other than the like, four acting classes I took when I was ten. But apparently it's going to mean acting like I'm on the same level as Corinne and Bruno, which I'm… abjectly not. Abjectly? Is that a word?
"Hey!"
I turn to see Blaire, Bruno's younger sister waving to me from a couple chairs down. She's just as bright-eyed and peppy as I remember from the two session of the failed Dungeons and Dragons club last year. I smile when I see her; she's got good energy, from what I remember.
"Blaire, right?" I stand, grab my bag, and shift down to sit next to her. She's moved her own backpack onto her lap to start stuffing her script in.
"And you must be Dpomm4." She holds up her slip between two fingers, before tossing it into the bag as well.
"Daphne," I say, and she grins. It's so wide and bright that I can't help smiling too. "Pommier."
"Oui, oui," Blaire answers, then squishes her lips together, widening her eyes like it slipped out by accident.
"You speak french?"
"Er, nope." Her dark eyes widen more, nearly guilty, then she gives me an easy smile. "You're playing Maria, right?"
"Yeah."
"Congratulations! She's cool, isn't she?"
"I'm… I dunno, I didn't read Twelfth Night in grade nine," I admit, then redden a little and, under my breath, confess, "And I wasn't really paying attention when we did the text readings last week."
Blaire grins, and knits one of her fingers into her afro of curly black hair. "Yeah, me neither. But I think that's just cos Bruno's got like half the lines in the play and my brain shuts off every time he speaks."
A helpless laugh escapes me. "Isn't he your brother?"
"Bother," she corrects. It's the corniest, oldest joke ever, and it still gets a snort out of me. "Hey, listen, I'm the Toby understudy so you're basically my major scene partner, right?"
She's in grade ten and she was cast as the understudy of the biggest part in the show? I blink. "Wow, you're Toby? That's a big part, isn't it?"
"Huge," she agrees. "And I have the memory of a dead goldfish, so you're gonna have to run lines with me, okay?"
"Oh! Yeah, sure, I can do that!" I try not to sound too enthusiastic, but the prospect of replacing intimidating, possibly-trying-to-date-me Bruno Aiken with his more amiable sister is a giant relief. Now just don't start info-dumping about Hadestown or Six, and we'll be golden. "Here, I'll give you my number. I'm too scared to check my email; Mr. Adigi sends like sixty google classroom posts every day."
"You're taking Humanities?" Blaire's eyes light up.
"What? Oh, yeah, uh… I had a spare elective and I thought it would be fun," I say, not sure why I'm suddenly hesitant. Because if you open this can of worms you're going to start spouting off about your life calendar and becoming a human rights lawyer and probably also every musical you've ever listened to for good measure.
"Cool!" she agrees. "I wanna take it next year too."
"It's October," I tease. "Are you seriously planning your courses a year in advance?"
She shrugs, and I think I detect a russet tinge in her dark brown cheeks. "So what? I'm a planner."
"I—I meant—" I bite my lip. "No, I think it's cool. I mean—smart. Nevermind. Here's my number."
I take the slip of paper from her—Her hands are so warm!—and quickly scribble down my number. "Text me or I'll have a heart attack."
"What?!"
"I mean—I meant don't call me," I amend. Get it together, girl, Ivy's voice rings in my head. Well, it's her fault for stealing all the smoothness with girls in the family. Not that I'm trying to flirt. Because I don't know her, even if she is super pretty. And I'm still talking to her, so stop staring and say something. C'mon brain. "Text me first. Sorry. Uh. I'll see you next week. Or I'll talk to you if you call me. But text me first. Bye!"
And I power walk off before I dig my hole deeper. Given that particularly stupid word-spaghetti, I'm pretty sure I've hit the centre of the earth. What's going on with me? I chew on my lip as I hurry out of the gym. Well, guess it's good to know that I'm just as awkward around grade tens as I am around grade twelves.
My phone buzzes and I split-screen between YouTube and the Messages app to check the notification.
hey im texting u so now i can call u whenever
I smile to myself and set the contact, then return to YouTube. Or… wait, is there a Twelfth Night musical?! Shaina Taub, huh…
- Baru -
Ten minutes into bubble tea and he gives me a look like he doesn't know who I am.
I try to ignore Freddy and slurp on the peach bubble tea he strong-armed me into. Turn of phrase; his arms are more like straws in both colour (white broken up with bits of red freckles) and shape (skinny as fuck). Even though I went along with this whole weird proposition, Freddy's hardly spoken a word. Another turn of phrase; as usual, he can't shut up, but he's hardly saying anything of actual substance. More like a weird sort of buzz of his own stream of consciousness.
"How's yours?" I finally ask, motioning to the in-theory-lychee-flavoured sludge in his plastic cup. It's a really appealing shade of watery mustard.
"Absolutely terrible!" Freddy finally smiles, one of his normal cheshire-cat, I'm-trying-to-crack-my-face-open grins, and somehow it sets me at ease. "We'll have to come back and try the rest of the flavours."
"Hell no," I groan. I don't want someone walking by and recognizing me; this place is way too cutesy. Going back again is just asking for trouble. The little art of the cartoon cats drinking tea on the walls is adorable though. Which I would die before saying out loud.
"Then at least lemme try yours?" His brown eyes, possibly the only non-neon part of him, get round like a puppy's.
I'm immediately suspicious. Normally he wouldn't ask; many of my lunches have narrowly escaped their fate at Freddy's hands by me speedily swiping them away from him. I swear he's got some hidden compartment or something. No one can be that hungry all the time. Apparently, though, today he's decided to actually ask for permission. "Not gonna try to grab it out of my hands?"
Freddy looks a little insulted. "I wouldn't."
Yes, you would, and you have. I eye him. I'm definitely not going crazy, though, he's acting weird. And I'm loath to admit it, but it makes me nervous too. Look, I'm not stupid; I know Freddy's kind of too cool for me, and while I'm not going to go kiss his crocs for deigning to hang out with me, when he suddenly starts acting really weird my brain immediately jumps to the worst possible conclusions. He's tired of me. He noticed he could have way cooler friends. He realized that—nope, nope, because if he knew that he wouldn't just be acting weird, he would never speak to me again.
"C'mon, just a little sip," he wheedles.
"Don't drink half of it," I grumble, passing him the drink and quickly averting my eyes.
"So you do like it!" Triumph lights his face and, mercifully, he bypasses the straw and pops off the lid instead to just drink directly from cup. Aaaaaand sure enough, guzzles down most of it.
"Fuck's sake, Freddy." I grab for it, but without even pausing his drinking, he swerves out of the way. We're in a booth, because I insisted on steering him away from the window seats, which means as I lean forward to try to retrieve my drink before it's gone, I land halfway on the table. Great. "Shit."
He puts a hand on my shoulder to kind of push me back into my seat, and I yank away real quick. Freddy looks a little caught off guard, and quickly sets my drink down. "Hey, chill, if I knew you were gonna jump me I wouldn't have… uh…" Freddy vaguely gestures to my pillaged drink.
"Wouldn't've chugged the whole goddamn thing?"
"I left you some of the boba!"
"Because you don't like it."
"How would you know? Perhaps I'm just a kind, generous person."
"You literally positioned your straw like a fuckin' microbiologist for every sip just to avoid them!" I exclaim.
One nearly-nonexistent ginger brow raises and I suddenly wish I'd played dumb. "Perceptive."
"Why the hell did you want to get bubble tea if you don't like boba?" Time to change the topic from how closely I was or wasn't studying the way he drank tea.
"Never know until you try." He shrugs.
"And yet you wanna come back and try every flavour?"
"How do those contradict each other? Maybe I'll like non-lychee flavoured boba."
"The boba itself isn't the flavoured—oh, forget it." I shake my head. "You're acting weird, man, what's going on?"
Freddy's eyes widen and if I didn't know any better, I'd say he looks guilty. "What? Nothing. Just felt a little… uh, weird after singing like that in front of everybody."
Is he seriously fishing for compliments again? Complimenting him on anything feels risky these days. "Ah, shut up. You sounded great."
He shrugs, suddenly completely at ease once more. "Yup. And I'd sound even better with my harp."
"Mr. A's gonna have a hernia."
"Naw, that dude's wack, he'd love it."
"Okay, Ms. Cary's gonna have a hernia."
"Entirely possible."
I grin, and for a sec it feels like everything normal. Then Freddy's eyes do that thing they've been doing lately, where they nearly unfocus. Like he's looking right through me. A flicker of a frown twitches at the edge of my face, but I try to play it cool. I guess someone upstairs is looking out for me, because the awkwardness that's ready to swoop in if we stay silent for another second is chased off when Freddy's phone buzzes.
"Ah, 'sup Bruno?"
Oh shit, not him. Bruno Aiken is possibly the human incarnation of all insecurities I have around my friendship with Freddy. For one, he's older than both Freddy and I and I'm already younger than Freddy by a year. And second, much cooler than me. Or maybe just taller, it's hard to tell. All I know is that I feel like a little kid and also an idiot when I stand next to him. Especially if Freddy's nearby.
"Oof," Freddy says sympathetically into his phone. "Yeah. Shiiiit, dude, good luck with that."
Great, and now it's like I'm not even here.
"Well, lemme know how it goes." Then he pulls the phone from his ear and ends the call with his thumb. Bet it doesn't bother Bruno when he doesn't say bye.
"What was that about?" I try to sound disinterested. Failing that, I swirl the straw around the rejected boba left in my cup.
"Nothing, really." Freddy squirrels his phone away, back into some crevice of his bright yellow raincoat. "Aiken tries and fails to lose his virginity, part four hundred and seventy."
"What, four-sixty-nine wasn't his lucky number?"
Freddy cackles. "Nice."
- Haiza -
"No, it's 'I pray you sir' first." Bruno takes off his aesthetic glasses to rub his nose impatiently, a gesture I suspect he's enjoying way too much.
"Right, sorry," I mutter. Mr. A gives me the four hundredth encouraging nod this rehearsal. We were supposed to be rock solid on the lines for this scene so that Mr. A could get us started on the fight choreography, but something about everyone's eyes on me and Bruno looming over me and sighing loudly every time I mess up… isn't conducive to a good memory. "I pray you, sir, what is he?"
Bruno launches into another monologue; I should be grateful that I don't talk much this scene, but listening to Bruno instead isn't really… great.
"By pangs of death and sepulcher," he finishes flatly, then gives me an expectant stare down his nose.
I open my mouth.
And… Fuck. I shoot a desperate look at Mr. A, who mouths, "I will return again."
"I will return…" I begin. "Into the house and desire some company of the lady." And break off again.
Bruno glowers. Mr. A hems, waiting to see if I'll pull myself out of this trench (I won't) and then says, "Alright, thanks Haiza. Why don't you go run lines with someone and we'll have Moiz, Ivette, and Bruno run their fight-lines again?"
"We ran it like six times," Bruno complains, but I'm already hopping off the stage. Nope, have fun, I'm out.
As I scoot past Mr. A, he gives me a reassuring look that I ignore. Leandro stands, looking ridiculous in the tiny folding chair, and offers me my script. I blink away the stinging feeling in my nose. Don't cry, this is just a rehearsal. Everyone fucks up sometimes.
"You okay?" Stupid Leandro and his stupid concerned look.
Alright. Time to chill. This isn't his fault.
"Sorry, yeah, I'm just—ugh, I had them last night." My voice does that awkward little rasp-squeak that means if I dwell on this I'm actually gonna start crying. Officially blaming this on PMS.
"Yeah." Leandro nods and lays a comforting arm over my shoulder as we head off to find somewhere secluded to run lines. "It's different when you're up on stage, I know."
I brush off the sarcastic answer about how much he does or doesn't know about theatre and stage-fright, and just make a noise of agreement. My sweater-coat-scarf combo isn't doing much to mitigate the feeling of Leandro's arm around me. Okay, no mood swings, please, uterus. Just let me chill for a second.
"You don't mind reading for Toby?" I tease. As I hoped, Leandro immediately chases the change of subject.
"I'll be fine for a day, but don't tell Julio. He's gotten… way too into this. I think he maybe relates to Malvolio a little too much," Leandro observes, dark eyes glimmering. We pass Julio a minute later, who's running lines with Blaire under one of the folded-up basketball hoops. Leandro greets him and Julio offers a vague nod in his brother's direction.
Wow, what I wouldn't give to have such a close relationship with my brothers, I think dryly. Then again, Baru's just as bad as Bruno when it comes to getting on my case for not having my lines memorized perfectly.
"Here, let's go behind the bleachers," I suggest. Volleyball tryouts started last week, which I know because I had an intense stress stomach ache trying to figure out if I wanted to try out this time. Verdict on that one; nope. As a result, one of the bleachers is fully extended to the edge of the basketball lines, and Leandro and I scoot around the back. The whole gym is lit in a fluorescent glare, and it's much more bearable when filtered by the lines of benches above us.
"Okay, you wanna try the scene again with me?" Leandro asks, flipping through his script. He still hasn't gotten a binder for it. Half those pages will be gone by December, I'm certain of it. "What is it, act three-scene four?"
"Yeah." I dig through my own (in-binder) script. Half the lines are starred. I tried to organize the lines last night, into ones I knew and didn't, but I guess I didn't account for stage-fright. A somewhat queasy feeling sets up shop in my stomach. How the hell am I supposed to get rid of stage-fright when I'm performing in front of even more people?
"Sure, okay, wanna try with the script or…?"
"No, I know it, I know I do."
And I'm right. Even as Leandro tries to throw me off with a silly face or by completely mispronouncing a word (possibly accidentally), I get through the whole scene without dropping a single line and minimal faltering. In your face, Bruno, you dick.
"Hey! You do know it."
"Don't sound so surprised," I snort, then grin. "We were supposed to practice this one. It's just literally every other scene that I'm shaky on."
Leandro snorts, but his smile doesn't waver. "Okay, then let's do one of those. What about the storm scene?"
"The storm scene?" I echo. "Like, where the twins get separated? Because that happens right before the play actually starts."
"No, no, the other one." When my eyebrow's quizzical slant fails to fade, he sighs. "Mel bullied us into watching the movie last weekend. First, gender-ambiguous Imogen Stubbs can get it, second, there was a scene with Orsino and Viola where they're arguing about love."
"Isn't that the whole play?"
Leandro throws his hands up and starts skimming back through the script. "Found it! It's the one where Freddy sings that creepy song—also, who knew he could sing so well?—and Orsino says like, vaguely misogynistic stuff and is generally oblivious."
It's angsty, not creepy. "Ohh, yeah, I remember now. Yeah, I don't know those lines like… at all. I mean, I know the scene, I know how the conversation goes, but the lines aren't there at all."
Leandro's eyes light up and my stomach swoops. That can't be a good sign. "Then we can do—do the thing!"
"The thing?"
"I was looking up tips for memorizing lines and I found one specifically about Shakespeare that suggested running the scene in your own words until you get the feeling right." He gestures vaguely, then snaps his fingers. "Like, the idea is that you'll internalize the emotion of it, and then after that you can use the lines to express it."
He's looking up tips on memorizing Shakespeare now? I can't help an impressed huff. Damn, he really got into this. It's almost… annoyingly thoughtful. Or selfless is maybe a better word. He cares about it, just 'cause I care about it. I smile to myself. "Huh. That's smart. You wanna try it?"
"Let's do it! Er, and we'll skip past the bit with Curio." Leandro's eyes drift up for a moment as if he's picturing the scene, then grins. "Okay, uh, c'mere kid, lemme tell you about love."
I scoot closer. Are we seriously talking about love under the bleachers…? Keep it together, Haze.
"Do you like this song?" he asks in his plummy Orsino-voice, waving his hand as if to illustrate the beautiful symphony of sneakers and the hum of people running lines in the rest of the gym.
"Yeah, it's a banger." I put on my best poker face, and though a smile twitches at the edge of Leandro's lips, he doesn't crack.
"Ah, you put that so beautifully. Clearly you've fallen in love with someone. C'mon who is it?" His cajoling look is a little too real and I laugh nervously.
"Oh, uh, yeah, I'm interested in someone. They kind of look like you."
Leandro widens his eyes. "No way! But I'm so ugly!" He tosses his head and then strikes a pose and I flush, laughing. "C'mon, you gotta have better taste than that! How old is she?"
"Around your age." I grin, tapping my chin. It's easier to remember the thread of the scene when I'm not tripping over the Shakespeare; apparently reading it for four years doesn't lend you the ability to instantly be able to speak it.
"Terrible!" Leandro exclaims and another laugh bubbles out of me. "You should hit on younger women because, uh… the second women become beautiful, they start to get old."
I stage-gasp and Leandro chuckles too. "Oh no! You're right. Okay, I'll go look near Tranton."
At the name of the nearby middle school, Leandro finally breaks and bursts into laughter. "No, no, that's cursed, don't say that."
"It was your idea, mi'lord."
"And scene," he yelps as I elbow him.
"That's not the end of the scene!"
"You want me to go get Freddy so he can serenade us while we stare meaningfully at each other?"
"Yeah, hell no, I take it all back."
Leandro shakes his head, still grinning, and then looks down at his script. You'll be proud to know that when a tuft of his black hair flops in front of his face, I don't reach out and gently brush it back. One finger twitches. And only a little. "Man, Orsino is oblivious. How does the man function?"
Are you kidding…? "A fleet of servants?"
"Mm." He gives another little chuckle. I think I have arrhythmia. "But like… good grief. I think if I was Viola, I'd go crazy."
Well, I'm getting there.
*shakes tin* review sir? review?
~Akila
