Rebel at Spruce High

Vann smirks, his eyes on the TV. “Thought you’d never ask.”

“So you want to? Should we? I mean, if you’re too tired, or it’s too late, I totally get it. It is late. I just thought maybe—”

“Am I crashing here again?” he asks, cutting me off.

He’s still watching the TV. Why won’t he look at me when he talks to me? “I, uh … yeah, if you want.”

The next instant, Vann thrusts a hand into his backpack, pulls out his script, and rises from the chair. I fetch my own script from my crowded backpack, then get to my feet as well, trembling. Why am I trembling? Stop that, nerves! While fighting my increasingly racing heart, I clear my throat and turn to the fourth scene. My clumsy fingers fight me with every turn of the page, threatening to accidentally drop the script twice as I do so.

Vann is gazing at his own script, eyes darting across the page left and right. “Ready?” he grunts, still not looking at me.

I take a deep breath. “Yeah. Let’s … Let’s just dive in.”

“Good.”

And then we start.

Line by line, we go through the whole beginning of the scene. I lose my place no less than five times. Five times! But I notice an odd, uncharacteristic stiffness in Vann’s delivery of every line. His neck is tight. He isn’t enunciating as well as he does during actual rehearsals. He stutters on one or two lines. Is he nervous, too?

“You’re shaking, Danny,” he says to me, reading his lines. “I’m not trying to upset you. I was just …” Vann lifts his eyes from the page at last, meeting mine. “I was just hoping you’d notice me.”

“Notice you?” I return. “How can I not notice you? How can anyone? You’re like a beacon of light in a very … very dark place.”

“Touch me.”

I flinch, pulled out of character. “Touch …? That’s not your line.”

“I know. It’s the stage direction. Danny reaches out and he …” Vann gestures at his body. “You’re supposed to touch me on that line. So do it for real.”

“Oh.” My eyes drop to his chest. I can’t stop shaking all over, no matter what mental coaching I do. Is my script trembling? Does he notice? “O-Okay. Let’s go back to that line. Notice—?”

“I was just hoping you’d notice me,” he prompts me, my cue.

I meet his eyes, which look coal-black in the weak and moody lighting of the room. “N-Notice you? How can I not notice you? How can anyone? You’re like …” Oh, man. “You’re like …”

Touch me. Just the sound of his voice when he said that before. The tone of it. The invitation. Touch me. Or was it an order? No guy has ever told me to do that before. Touch me.

“You’re like … a beacon of light in a very …” Just do it. I place my free hand on his chest. Oh, wow. “… very dark place.”

He meets my hand with his own, both of us seeming to clutch his chest. “It’s my heart that’s dark. And it’s you, Danny … it’s you who’s the bright place.”

The words are terrible. The script sucks. Yet Vann and I are connected in this moment, our hands clasped at his chest, and the words of the script are just facilitating whatever’s happening here.

“Kingsley, I …” My heart is up in my throat. Is this about to happen? Is this really about to happen? “I don’t know what to say.”

“Then don’t,” he says back, his eyes glued to mine, knowing his lines. “Danny, your eyes say it all.”

My heart is slamming against my chest.

I can’t make myself move.

Vann’s dark eyes consume me as he waits for me to do it. He doesn’t let my hand free from his chest, as if holding me hostage, keeping me in the moment with him. In the pads of my fingers, I feel the thumping of his heart—strong, proud, and mighty.

He’s nervous, too. He’s anticipating it. He’s waiting for me.

We’re in this together. Two actors with roles to fulfill. A moment to relish. A story to tell. Teammates with a goal.

“Just kiss me,” whispers Vann, so soft, I almost doubt he says it.

Using our gripped hands, I pull him toward me, and our faces nearly collide as I find his lips with my own. Soft. Wet. Firm. His lips seal perfectly upon mine, locking in place, and for a blissful handful of seconds, neither of us move.

I’m kissing Donovan Pane.

Does he realize he’s my first kiss? Did I, until this moment?

I release his lips and pull back. I find his eyes through a haze of emotions that crackle and fill the air between us, connecting us somehow, cellular and electric and ever-present. The scripts have lines for us to read, lines that are supposed to follow this kiss.