Page 124 of Rebel Romeo

“It’s not just the slap,” she says on a sigh, then raises her dark eyes to meet mine. “This has happened before with you.When you’re in love, your performance suffers.”

My heart becomes heavy. My blood slows in my veins, replaced with tar. “Excuse me?”

“It makes sense,” McCay continues. “You’re happy. And you get to kiss him and touch him whenever you want, every day. So kissing and touching him on stage isn’t as wrought with chemistry. It’s very normal.”

I swallow. “But?”

“But,” she continues. “Normal happiness doesn’t make an extraordinary performance.”

I gulp back the tears that burn my sinuses. “I—I thought we were doing better.”

“Better is relative. You’re doing better than you were with Ellis, but from what I hear, that’s easy.”

When I look into the audience, I find Holden sitting in one of the middle rows, talking quietly with his dad. “And you two have had meetings about this?”

“Yes,” she says simply. “Right now, Holden is stealing your spotlight.” I tear my gaze away from Holden, looking back at my professor. “He did that to you once before. Are you really going to let him do it again? Are you going to blow the chance of a lifetime, as a leading role on Broadway, for something as trite as love?”

“Why can’t I have both? Holden can. Holden can seem to grasp onto those feelings and act the shit out of these scenes, then go home and be with me at night. Why can’t I?”

McCay’s brows shoot to her hairline. “Do you want the real answer? Or the PBS sound bite?”

I snort. “When have you ever given me the PBS sound bite?”

For the first time since she reentered my life, a smile twitches at the corner of her mouth. “Holden is better than you are. That’s the simple truth. That’s why he can do it and you can’t.”

Air punches from my lungs. It’s harsh. But it’s also true.

“But,” McCay continues pointedly, “You are good. You were the best singer to ever enter our program. Better than Holden. You can dance circles around him and Addison.You just have to stop seeing Holden when you’re onstage with him. He’s not Holden up here. He’s not your loving boyfriend. He’s Zach. A man who’s smothering you with love. He’s a man who gives Skyler a glimpse of the sort of life she never dreamed she could deserve. And that fear of success is far scarier than any failure she might encounter in her life. So she sabotages it. She pushes him away time and time again to test him. How far can she go… how badly can she hurt him before he stops coming back? Because either way, she considers it a win. If he leaves for good, she gets to be right and go back to her old ways. Every time she’s wrong and he comes back, she still wins because she gets more time with him.”

“I know this!” I shout, and try to run my hands through my hair. But there’s so much product and hairspray in it that I can’t even move it. “I know this,” I repeat again, quieter. “I’m trying, Professor McCay, I really am. I don’t know how else to give you that girl.”

“Method 101, Kate. Remember the performance of Remy and Julie? Remember when Keith had to pull you off of Holden, you were hitting him so hard?”

The knot in my chest punches tighter. I don’t want to remember that night. I’ve spent five years trying to forget that night. I shake my head. “That wasn’t me. That was… she was…”

“It was you. It was the start of the new you. The guarded you. The you who stopped trusting everyone. The you who started cursing.”

I look up and McCay is distorted by my unshed tears. I swallow them down, refusing to cry again in front of this woman. “You were so hard on me. Nothing I did was right.”

“It was my job to get the best out of you that I could. And that night that you lost control with Holden, I was proud of you. I thought we’d had a breakthrough. I thought finally she has a spine. Finally she’s purging her anger and emotions. And then… you just shut down again. In a different way than before. In a worse way than before. But I need you to bring that Kate back. The Kate that lost control and gave into every messy emotion she was feeling. Bring her back. And let her slap the shit out of Holden.”

McCay doesn’t let me answer when she finishes talking. She simply turns around and walks toward the edge of the stage, calling to me from over her shoulder, “And for fuck’s sake, Kate, I’m not your professor anymore. Would you call me Laurie?”

I close my eyes, not looking at Holden as he takes his place in front of me center stage. When I open them, my eyes are on the floor. Focused on the grayish blue spotlight circling us. But Holden’s not on his mark. He’s standing dead center in the spotlight, leaving me nudged to the ring of the circle, half my body in darkness.

When I look up at him, he’s oblivious. Staring up at the sound booth, Joe, our sound designer yells, “Microphones are hot!”

I wait for Holden to move over. To make room to share the spotlight with me.

But he doesn’t. He stands there. Taking.

Always taking.

Laurie calls out, “Whenever you two are ready.”

Red hot pinpricks race down my body and my breath comes in uneven bursts. Sharp. Short. Then long and drawn in. I can’t regulate it. I can’t regulate my heartbeat. Or the trembling in my knees.

“Kate?” Holden whispers. “Are you ready?”

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