I know. I know what you did to me, you bitch.
“Wow,” Grace whispers into the back of my neck. “It works.”
Yes. It does.
* * *
“Well?” Briana says from the stage when the scene is ended. “Do I get it or not?”
I gaze up at her, sitting on her throne alone now, Ellie having run off the stage to join the other students in the wings. All of them looking at Briana, who looks even paler than when she first started. Breathing more quickly through her mouth. Everyone is watching us—my face and her face. Waiting. Will I yield? Will I submit to this sickly creature?
“Everyone,” I say, smiling. “That’s good for today. We’ll see you back here Monday. Thanks.”
They all scurry off. Mumbling their goodbyes to Briana as they pass, their Glad you’re backs, to which she replies with a clipped Thanks, her ghostly face still fixed on me. Ellie tentatively tells her to take care, she hopes she’s feeling better. Briana ignores her, even as she still holds her water bottle. Trevor offers her a limp goodbye, and I feel her pointed silence from here. Trevor feels it too, apparently.
“Do you want me to stay?” he whispers.
Suddenly she clutches his hand, still looking at me. “Wait outside for me,” she says. “Drive me home.”
“Didn’t you drive yourself here?” he deigns to ask her.
She looks at him, appalled. Dare he question her? Has the yes-man grown a spine in her absence? Impossible. Still. Best not to tighten the yoke, tug on the choke chain too quickly. Best to give him the illusion of free will.
She closes her eyes as if she’s going through something.
“I don’t think I can drive myself back,” she whispers, shaking her head. As though she’s afraid for herself. It’s quite a performance. Is it a performance? I can’t tell. Neither can Trevor.
He looks over at Ellie, who walks hurriedly out of the theater with her head down. She left without her coat.
“Okay, I’ll wait for you in the hall,” he whispers, and I think, Spineless.
Briana doesn’t thank him, of course. He shuffles off, and Briana still sits there on her throne. Crooked. Unmovable. Looking at me, always looking at me. Her eyes shining with sickness and hate. And desperation, a naked longing I’ve never seen. She’s actually unsure if the part will be hers. She will not leave until I tell her whether she will be King. Even though surely she is King, isn’t she? Her performance spoke for itself, didn’t it?
“Well?” she says again.
“Very impressive, wasn’t she, Miranda?” Grace says.
Is my leg seizing? What is this sudden hardness in my limbs? This flash of heaviness?
“Miranda?”
“Yes. Yes, very impressive. I even think your”—Don’t say illness. Condition? No—“absence has really opened up some doors for you, as an actor.”
“So I get to play him, then. So I’m the King.”
I watch a sickly joy spread across her sickly face. Dread. In the pit of my stomach. Why? Why is she so fucking happy? To play a part she wouldn’t have pissed on a month ago? An old, dying man with a malignant boil on his rectum. For Briana? Briana, who turned up her nose at the part of Helen? For whom nothing but Juliet and Lady M were good enough? And now here she is. Frothing at the chance to play a diseased invalid. Sabotage. She wants to sabotage me, of course.
She’s about to rise from her throne and hobble out the double doors triumphant, far too triumphant for the crumbs she has won. Trevor will be waiting for her in the hall, of course, to drive her home. She’ll tell him the news on the way. He’ll pretend to be happy for her, but his heart will sink. He’ll call Ellie later, after he’s tucked Briana into bed, and she’ll be crestfallen but understanding. She’ll agree to give them both space during this awkward time. Perhaps she’ll attempt to console herself. Take a restorative bath. Cast a sad spell. But she’ll be miserable. And all of this will make her a better Helen, of course, for nothing will quell her love.
But what of her heart? What about Helen’s heart?
And Briana will have won. Not only Trevor, a sad little game I know she cares nothing for, but at something bigger, something I can’t guess. Something that is making her happy, far too happy at the moment. Something that is making my leg feel suddenly heavy, making the pain return to my back in small, bright flashes. She’s clearly dreaming of whatever it is now as she sits crookedly on her throne.
“Miranda?” Grace prompts.