Read My Lips(31)

“You sang a song to Clayton. Clayton Watts,” she clarifies, tilting her head so all that angelic, blonde hair drifts to the side like a curtain of snow. “I don’t mean to step on any toes, or to come off any certain way, but … just friend to friend, woman to woman … you need to be warned,” she tells me, her eyes soft and glassy. “I don’t know what you’ve heard, but—”

“I’m usually of the mindset that it doesn’t matter what I hear,” I retort as politely as I can, despite the sharp edge to each of my words. “I judge a person based on how I think of them, not others.”

Ariel’s sweet smile hasn’t left her face, though it tightens considerably at my words. I’m not fooled. Of course the ex would want to scare everyone else away from Clayton; this bitch just doesn’t want to picture his sexy lips anywhere near mine. Possessive, much?

“You are a very sweet person,” she tells me, and despite how I’m feeling, I can’t tell whether she means it or is just being snarky. “I wish everyone had as open and caring a mind as you. Well.” She tightens her smile yet some more. “It was certainly a pleasure. I have to be off now to help grade Phonetics papers for the voice prof. Have a nice day, Dessie! And … do take care,” she adds. “A rose always looks lovely from a distance, but their thorns will prick you just the same. It’s in their nature.”

With that, she dives back into her little river, her legs turning into half a fish, then flitters away.

I spend the afternoon alone, bitterly eating Ariel’s words and spitting them out of my mind. She’d totally do well to have a sea hag rip her tongue out. No, I didn’t get a text from Victoria, nor did she answer when I knocked on the door to her dorm four separate times. Sam wasn’t there either, presumably at the library or something, so I enjoy a dinner alone in the University Center food court. My meal is a half-wilted salad with nine-thousand calorie dressing. Boy, have my standards plummeted. If my mom and sister could see me now …

My dad would probably cheer me on and laugh. He was always the cool one in the family who encouraged me, even when I had my five-year-long tomboy phase in junior high, which completely humiliated my sister. You wouldn’t be able to tell from looking at me, but I’m actually quite handy with a switchblade. I also know how to tie eleven different knots and am not afraid of mud—which I always made fun of my sister for, considering stage makeup basically is mud that you put on your face.

When I’m back at the School of Theatre for my Wednesday evening lighting crew shift, my heart rate is so high, I seriously feel like I might faint before I reach the door. I don’t know why my confidence is so finicky; it’s blazing one minute, dead-cold the next.

I push through the door of the auditorium.

Clayton is seated on the edge of the stage.

Alone.

He doesn’t look up. He seems intent on staring at the seats. Surely he isn’t avoiding looking at me.

I force myself down the aisle to the stage. When he still doesn’t look up at me or acknowledge my existence—even with me clearly being in his peripheral view now—I give up, sitting on the edge of the stage too, but keeping quite some distance between us.

I fight an urge to fruitlessly say hello, then roll my eyes at how dumb I am. I shouldn’t have signed to him. I had no idea what I was doing.

I still don’t.

“This is just lovely,” I mumble under my breath, picking my nails despondently.

“What’s lovely?” comes a voice from behind.

I jump, turning around to find Dick standing there.

“Hello, D… Dick.”

“What’d you call me? Just kidding.” He sits down between us, legs dangling off the stage. I wonder if he was saving up that joke; I can picture him practicing it into mirrors. “Some guys switched around, since I had openings for more people Monday and Tuesday. So, it looks like our Wednesday crew is now … just you two. Which really means it’s just you, Dessie.”

“Just me,” I echo.

“And you’ve been cast in Our Town as Emily,” he reminds me unnecessarily, “and they will be starting rehearsals next week.”

“Yes, right.”

“So, it seems that we have a bit of a sudden scheduling conflict.”

I frown. Clayton seems to be in his own world, his hands braced on the edge of the stage in a way that tightens and accentuates his big, muscular arms. He stares down at the floor. I wonder if he was somehow told of this conflict already. Despite knowing he’s deaf, I can’t help but feel like he’s overhearing this whole exchange. It’s weird to me to think that he’s there, yet not a part of this conversation at all.