Rosaline was founded in 1787. Accordingly, over the years, the performance of Romeo and Juliet had been shifted to take place in that era-a little nod to the ancestors. Now when you think 1700s, you may think Marie Antoinette, and those huge, box-like skirts that people had to turn sideways in to get through doors. But in a town as drenched in history as ours was, you grew up knowing differently.

Romeo and Juliet was not only a play; it was a spectacle. A night for Rosaline to assert its place in history and in the tourist pamphlets so thickly strewn about every rest stop in New England. That meant accuracy. Historical accuracy and a good theatrical display that could draw bored travellers for miles around.

For a play that the Founders had originally messed with to suit their town-naming needs, Shakespeare's most popular project was taken very seriously.

The morning of the play, I sat in the kitchen, dead to the world and hating the fact that I had been roped into this. My cereal sat in front of me, and I poked at it with the spoon. I never really liked eating cold things before the sun rose and this time it was especially unappetizing.

After seeing Therese the day before, I had come home to spend my last hour alone before my mother got back from work. I had sat in just the same position, unable to write anything coherent in my journal, running through my thoughts time and again to try to find what about that afternoon had felt so wrong. I was scared, I knew. For Rayanne. For me, a bit too, but not in the same way.

Something about how Nik had watched Ray before coming over to us...the way his mouth twitched into that strange smirk when she smiled at him. It was skeevy, sure. It was more than that, too. It reminded me of a time I had seen an old dog of mine go after a rabbit.

Intent. Amused. Predatory.

Ray had had her share of weird guys, including some that obviously had no honorable intentions. She usually came out of it a little sad, maybe shaken up, but there was never a way to persuade her to act otherwise before it came to that. She followed her heart...or whatever it was, I liked to think it was her imagination...until reality caught up to her.

I was the exact opposite. Where my heart went, I was a million miles behind, staring at whatever it was I wanted from a safe distance. My first love had been a boy I'd grown up next door to, who was a few years older than me. We talked occasionally, and passed each other at the bus stop. He'd play around with me like the extra sibling he saw me as, and I dreamed safely behind my closed bedroom door at night. Writing down my dreams about us, and the small exchanges we'd shared in the past day or so. I lived on those sentences that he said to me, the short hellos that we called to each other when nearby.

I knew a lot about waiting. Going after something meant risk, and even scarier, it meant betraying a little bit of yourself-showing what you were really like. And I was pretty sure I was sub-par.

I was the little girl next door, who watched people with her tilted gray eyes, and kept her head down when strangers looked her way. The history buff with a book propped in front of her at all times rather than the newest Cosmo or People.

You wouldn't take a second look at me. Which was why I was always so grateful about my friends, about the people that actually took the time to know me. The ones that spent time with me, and didn't make fun of the fact that I was eighteen and still had never had a boyfriend. The girls that had seen me through dead pets and my parents' divorce. I owed them so much, and I loved them all fiercely.

It worried me that I had left Ray high and dry. It bothered me even more that it wasn't the only thing I was preoccupied with. Nik's brother-the one that had kissed my palm as if it were the most natural thing in the world-stayed in the back of my head all night and the next morning, his cool lips lingering over my now-healed skin. No one had touched me so intimately, before...I supposed that made me extra prone to analyzing something so simple.

No. It wasn't the manner he had, the easy elegance that was laced into every word he said, the small gestures he and his brother peppered their actions with. He'd had a slight accent. Not quite English, not quite American. Not quite anything, if I thought about it. Different from Nik.

His eyes had been dark, intelligent in a way that echoed his brother's, but without the overt malice.

The bowl of cereal remained uneaten when I went over the livingroom in a cursory check for anything I might have forgotten. Rayanne or Therese usually picked me up, but as the latter was clearly out of commission, and the former was a no-show, I settled for the shitty bus ride that awaited me.

Only I didn't have to wait for the bus to arrive...Ray was already there, proudly arranged in the passenger seat of a huge blue SUV driven by Nik. I had never been more unhappy to see her in my entire life.

"Uh...thanks for the ride. I would have been fine with the bus; you didn't have to-"

"Oh nonsense," Nik said, leering at Ray and I from the driver's side window. "It was my pleasure to drop you girls off today. I was on my way into town anyway. A little business to attend to." Ray giggled, twirling her finger in the silk scarf she wore around her neck today. I gazed at her numbly as her newest man friend pulled away.

"What the hell was that?"

"Hm?" She asked. "What? You mean Nik? You heard him, he was on his way into town. He did me a favor." She laughed again. "I knew you would be horrified."

Yeah, tell me about it, I thought.

That day in Government, I passed her a note, something that usually irritated me to no end when other people did it. But I couldn't wait for study hall, or our lunch period to roll around. I had to know now what all had happened with my friend and our new aquaintance.

She unfolded the paper, spreading it on her notebook. When the teacher turned back to the board next, she wrote her answer and slipped it to me over her shoulder.

I'd written in my frantic cursive, What happened?

Beneath it, she's responded, in tight, tiny letters: What didn't?

No surprise there. He was nice about it, right? I asked, giving the note back.

The perfect gentleman, she wrote.

Present? I wanted to know, and drew a cartoon of a scarf next to my question.

From Bulgaria.

Well that seemed a little far-fetched. But it wouldn't be the first time a man had exaggerated the facts to impress a girl. I stopped there, and turned my attention to the diagram of NGOs on the board. As long as he didn't hurt her.

...what kind of business did he have to 'attend to', though? What a stupid, enigmatic phrase to use. With Ray's luck he was a crack dealer. A scarf from Bulgaria, too. How random. What an idiot, I thought. A charming idiot, I had to admit, though. He'd obviously used these tactics before. I wondered how many girls had fallen for them.

Maybe he and his brother just wandered around, picking up underage girls and doing some sort of shady business on the side. Elijah...that had been his name, right? His suit had definitely been expensive. Nik didn't seem to care too much about appearances. He dressed fairly ordinary.

Whatever. It probably wasn't worth thinking about.

Rehersal that afternoon was actually pretty fun, more so than I had expected it to be. I didn't have anything to do other than sit and look pretty in the background while the rest of the actors milled around on stage, running their lines and learning where they had to stand. It was fairly relaxing, and enjoyable to see the work that went on behind the scenes of the two hundred year old tradition.

Rayanne came out on her cue, her hands clasped under her chest, responding saucily to all of Mrs Capulet's promptings about the lovely Juliet. At length, the fourteen year old lovebird came in, offering her opinions on marriage to the young Paris. A girl named Heather was in the role this year, and was having some trouble not being pompous about it.

Soon, the exchange ended, and Ray wrapped up the Scene with my one of my favorite lines, "Go, girl, seek happy nights to happy days."

A loud clapping distracted the Capulets from their Exeunt, and, from my place backstage, I could see that it was Nik who was being so enthusiastic. He walked down the aisle, trailed by his darker brother, who chose a seat in the audience as if the interruption was too boring to pay further attention to. He crossed one leg over the other, and watched, a hand gently propped beneath his jaw.

Nik threw up his hands as he reached the stage. "Bravo!" Ray beamed, and sidled to the edge near the lights. Despite her obvious pleasure at seeing Nik again, she seemed a bit put-off by his sudden appearance.

"Nik!" She said, still relishing being on stage, "What are you doing here? The performance isn't until tonight."

"Oh, I know. I wanted to see you in all your glory, but couldn't wait that long. I also wanted to see the fair Rosaline. I'm sponsoring the production, after all: I want to know that the right woman has the part." He craned his neck to see into the wings at either end of the stage.

Ray was overjoyed at his interest. "You're sponsoring? Wow. Wait, Nor! Nor is Rosaline this year! She's been doing great." I saw Nik smile, a hand at my friend's waist. "Nor!"

As a member of the crew came forward to see what our guests had held up the show for, I stepped from behind the curtain. I felt the same urge of not wanting to be around Nik, to run and hide from the nakedness of his stare. I didn't like that he was touching Ray again, so possessive, even in this little encounter.

"Oh, my dear you are right," he said to Ray. "She does fill the role quite well." He nodded my way. "All eyes on you tonight, love."

I tried to smile at the compliment, however disingenuous it sounded. From the corner of my eye, I caught his brother moving closer to the conversation.

Ray giggled, I assumed from covert tickling that Nik had executed unabashedly under the eyes of our director, who was becoming irate the longer the rehearsal stalled. "You'll have to try pretty hard not to steal the light from our Juliet and Romeo as well," he remarked to Ray.

I averted my eyes. Who knew when the run-through would start up again? I made to walk off the stage by a set of side stairs, not eager to take my place in a show paid for by Nik, whoever, whatever he was. He must make enough money to give freely to shows such as this. It made sense, I thought. People with money contributed to theater...

"You do seem to be a very fair Rosaline," came a voice from the foot of the stairs. Nik's brother. He held out a hand to help me descend the stair while I gathered my full skirt so I could see my footing. Without thinking, I accepted.

I clasped his cold hand, the fingers as cool as his mouth had been, but not unpleasant. Together with his eyes, surveying me with a detached interest, they formed an unusually calming focus to my busy mind. "Thank you," I said.

"I'm going to get some water..." I released his hand and made my way up the aisle to the first set of double doors leading to the cafeteria. My slippered feet felt strange against the flat carpet, I was so used to walking there in tennis shoes. Not bothering to check if I was right, I felt him follow me into the deserted lunch room.

The water splashed against my pursed lips, numbing the heat that had risen in them as I fought the urge to run away from Nik. I liked the hum of the water fountain, and sometimes let it run longer than necessary to enjoy the soothing murmur of the mechanisms. Wasteful, but true. Realizing that I was being watched, I looked back at Elijah.

For lack of a better way to break the silence, I motioned to the nearest vending machine, filled with Coke, Sprite, and generic orange drink. "Care for a drink?" I asked.

I could tell he stopped a small smile at my awkward offer. "Thank you, no."

We walked through the doors we had just come out of, and I decided to sit not far off and watch the scene that was still playing out at the stage. Nik and Ray laughed, each enjoying the attention of the other, sometimes touching a shoulder, her waist, their hands. The quieter brother took a seat two over from mine.

"My brother has a habit of making...friends, a bit more quickly and intimately than most." He said. I couldn't stifle the ironic expression that overtook my face as I looked at him. He smiled, dropping his gaze in gentile defeat.

I looked at my friend, her arms around Nik's waist. "I suppose I could say the same about Ray."

He observed Rayanne, a hand at his lips. "She's a very cheerful girl."

"Yes. She is." I watched her with him, feeling oddly protective. This cool consideration of his echoed the odd gleam that I saw in Nik's eyes when they appraised someone. "I've known her my entire life," I told him. "I've never found a happier person."

He smiled slightly again, perhaps sensing my defensiveness. At that moment, something occurred to me that had been in the back of my mind since the previous day. "Do you and your brother work together often?"

The question caught him off guard. I was very off topic. "He said he's sponsoring the show," I clarified. "Are you a part of that as well?"

A nod. "Indeed. We've contributed money to this program for a number of years. Nik has always been very fond of Shakespeare."

"And you?" His face became pensive, as if he was remembering some incident in the past.

"I prefer his sonnets, usually. And the history plays. Doubtless you've studied them in your English courses?" A bored drone crept into his voice. He didn't expect an intelligent answer.

"I've always like Henry VI." This was true, no matter how nerdy it was. He seemed surprised.

"The War of the Roses," he observed. And then, after a pause he added, "Perhaps you also like Joan of Arc?" A blush came into my cheeks, as I recognized he had considered my personality enough to make the connection. Or maybe it was just because she was a female role and he assumed I would relate.

"That's a part of it. And the trouble over Margaret, too." The play was divided into three parts, and much of the second and third parts were concerned with Margaret of Anjou, a French princess who agreed to be used in a scheme by an Earl to dominate the young king through marriage.

Elijah contemplated me carefully. "Margaret was cause of much of the trouble herself," he said.

"That's what makes her interesting," I said, meeting his gaze. He had strong brows set below thick, styled hair; an angular jawline…not exactly hard to look at. I refocused my eyes on the stage, unsure about how my latest assessment of his looks made me feel.

I felt his attention return to his brother as well. "I quite agree."