Just Revenge

Chapter Twenty-Four: No Words

We stayed in the bathroom until rehearsal started and, even once the run started, you could feel the effect of the day. The wall between actors and techies slammed down hard. The techies did their jobs, but there was no interaction beyond that. There was no friendly banter between makeup crew and the actors they worked on. No excuse me's from the running crew with their set pieces. No slack cut on touching props or set pieces. No interaction of any kind between the two sides. Abbi and Lis were quite literally the only actors to talk to a techie that day and that was only allowed because they cut out the actors. As for me, I got reminded where I belonged. I went onstage, said my lines, then retreated to the corners of the groups with my fellow techies. Even during notes, a clear foot wide separation split off the techies from the actors and not one dared to venture to the other or even try to close the gap. Cortland only looked in the direction of the techies once, when I walked over and sat with them. From that point, he didn't even glance at any of us and Lexi certainly never gave him the time of day – none of us did.

I was packing up my stuff after rehearsal and heading up to the parking lot to wait for my parents, pretty much everyone had cleared out already, when I noticed the door ajar in the storage room between the boys' and girls' bathroom. I still can't explain why I walked towards the open door or why I bothered to look inside, it wasn't my job and I had no good motivation, but I did. Inside, I found Cortland, his legs stretched out over a bag of mulch laying on the ground and his back against the concrete wall. His phone was lying next to him and his eyes were rimmed with red. They didn't look like they'd been crying though, maybe that's why I didn't walk away. His eyes held mine and the blue stare that held my gaze was blank, empty and hopeless. He didn't look like an asshole or a genius or a rich kid; he just looked lost, like he wasn't sure what he was fighting for anymore. It was a stare I recognized too well to walk away from, so I walked in. I sat against the wall opposite him, my eyes never leaving his. He folded his legs in to make room for me and, for a while, we just sat there like that – watching each other.

Finally, he broke the silence, his eyes drifting away from mine and resting on the floor. "I'm sorry."

"It's not me you have to be apologizing to."

"But it's you I'm sorry to."

This surprised me, not that he thought that, but that he had the nerve to say it. "Seriously?"

"Yeah." His jaw set and I saw the hardness settle back into his icy blue eyes. "I'm an asshole. I always get my way and, when I don't, I throw a fit until I do. I'm not a good person and I do not hesitate to hurt other people if I think it will, in any way, benefit me." His eyes softened a little, "But I don't usually hurt my friends. That's just the way it is. If I have your back, I have your back all the way and I'll protect you almost as well as I would myself." He finally looked up and met my gaze. "I was kinda starting to think you might've been one of those people, but I guess I failed on that bit. So, I'm sorry. For that part."

"But not for making a girl cry?"

"Tears are just a tool, like everything else is."

My jaw dropped a little, "That's sick."

He shook his head, closing his eyes like he was trying to shut something out, "Just go home, won't you. Leave me alone."

"My parents aren't here yet, but by all means..." I gestured to the door, "if your parents are."

He scoffed and then paused, frozen for a second, "My parents aren't coming". He couldn't meet my eyes as he admitted it.

"Why not?"

He looked back to me, his eyes burning, "Because if I can't be responsible enough to take care of the things I am given, why should he give me anything more?"

It suddenly clicked for me, "The chair."

"Yeah," he huffed, "the fucking chair."

Maybe it was the broken look in his eyes or the shame in his posture, but I suddenly felt the need to make this broken, lonely boy know the he was not alone. So, I stood up and I shook my jacket to the ground. Slowly, I turned around and pulled up the back of my shirt. Underneath, the fading yellow bruises were clearly visible, in straight, uninterrupted patterns that followed my back as far as my shirt was pulled up. I didn't say anything or try and explain them; I didn't need to. He knew.

He pulled up his shirt and I searched for marks, but couldn't find any.

"Perfect children can't have bruises, so when I do something he doesn't like, I run. Or I walk home. Or I do pushups or jumping jacks or hold a plank until he gets tired." He explained.

I didn't tell him I was sorry. It wouldn't have helped. It wouldn't have meant anything, apologies rarely do. Instead, we just stayed there. We didn't talk or share stories or cry about our pain and our fucked-up childhoods. We just sat in a blissful kind of silence and recognized, at least for a moment, that somebody out there understood. Someone saw us and knew, and I got to see the exact change in his eyes when he realized that he was not alone.

There were a million things I could've said to him right then, a million things he probably needed to hear. But none of them would've meant anything. So, I opted for no words at all and just waited with him until the headlights bleeding through the crack in the door alerted me that my parents had pulled in. At that, I stood up and brushed the dirt off my shorts.

Walking to the door, I stopped right before I pushed it open and turned to face him.

"Hey Cort," his eyes stayed fixed on mine, "you know, you're still an ass."

The silence broke when he laughed. It was a sound more beautiful than a creature that mean had any right to. "Only as much as you're a bitch."

I smiled at him, "Fair enough." And the sound of his laugh followed me all the way out to the car, long after I stopped being able to hear it.