In Harmony

And no one is talking about it.

I supposed the veteran HCT actors all knew the score by now. They’d known Isaac much longer than I had. But their silence still angered me.

Doesn’t anyone care?

But then again, Isaac wasn’t exactly inviting questions. He stood alo

ne, wearing his leather jacket like armor. His bruised face a stone wall, the gates locked tight. He probably didn’t want anyone talking about it.

But what if he does?

I marked myself with black X’s, my version of the Scarlet Letter, only no one knew what they meant. Maybe it was me crying out for someone to ask, even if I would never tell them. Isaac had asked. Now he wore the marks of the abuse he suffered full on his face where he could not hide it.

I moved to stand next to him. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

He hardly moved his mouth, his voice soft. And grateful.

“The Fords are letting me stay with them,” he said. “I moved into their spare bedroom.”

“Good,” I said. “I’m glad.”

“It’s just for a little while.”

“Of course.”

A silence, then, “I can’t sleep. The bed is soft, the house is warm and I have a hot dinner every night, but I can’t fucking sleep. I lie awake and think of my dad, alone in that shitty trailer…”

I nodded. “I know what you mean,” I said, and then more words followed without my permission. A little piece of my secret. “I can’t sleep either.”

Slowly Isaac’s head turned. His gaze dropped down to my wrist, its black X concealed under a long-sleeved shirt. Then he looked me in the eye and his voice was like a hand held out to me, asking me to trust him. “Why can’t you sleep?”

Staring back, I wondered what it would be like to actually tell someone. To smash the icy block once and for all, and let the words out into the world.

I turned toward Isaac, and he turned toward me so that we leaned against the wall, on our sides, like how a couple might, lying in bed. He bent his head to me, ready to hear me, and I tilted my chin up to him, the words climbing up my throat.

Martin clapped his hands together, slicing the moment apart.

“Act Two, Scene One,” he called. “Ophelia? Daughter of mine?”

“Go on,” Isaac said. “Maybe later?”

“Yeah.” I said softly. “Maybe.”

Martin set the other actors to work with Rebecca, the assistant director, then pulled me aside. “Come, daughter. T’is time you and I worked out Act Two, Scene One.”

In Act Two, Scene One, Ophelia runs to Polonius, explaining that Hamlet came to visit her and was acting crazy. Instead of reacting to others onstage, I had to fly in, already terrorized, with a veteran actor and director as my scene partner and no motivation but what I created for myself.

This is going to suck…

“Whenever you’re ready,” Martins said from our corner of the stage.

Feeling like an idiot, I stepped backstage, took a deep breath, then flew back on.

“O my lord, my lord, I have been so affrighted!”

Martin whirled around with the perfect mix of shock and worry. “With what, i' th' name of God?”