I look down at my phone as if I’ll see something from Clay, but I won’t. I still have her blocked.
Walking back into the dressing room, I pass the nurse—Evie Leong, taking over my role—and tuck my phone away, heading out to the curtain. Lifting the flap, I peer through the peep holes, watching the house get seated as the lights dim.
The snow begins to fall, a perpetual night as the backdrop of the Kingdom of New York looms on the horizon, and the swords are changed out for bows and kung fu.
The audience quiets, the narrator enters from stage right, walking past the audience, finishing her monologue just as she disappears into stage left. The theater darkens, thunder cracks, and lightning glows behind the cathedral and skyscrapers as the houses of Montague and Capulet enter crowded Central Park.
Sampson and Gregory speak, bantering with each other. “Therefore, I will push Montague’s men from the wall and thrust his maids to the wall!”
And then the other, “The quarrel is between our masters and us their men.”
“’Tis all one,” Sampson replies. “I will show myself a tyrant. When I have fought with the men, I will be civil with the maids; I will cut off their heads.”
That line alone was what first got me thinking I wanted this role. I’d enjoy entering stage and playing one of the production’s most enigmatic, male characters and showing them that the ‘weaker’ sex would get a few cuts in herself.
But standing here, watching the story play out, and my entrance grow closer, it doesn’t feel like I thought it would.
I’m not even nauseous anymore. I peek out to the audience once more, smiling when I see my brothers slouched and clearly bored, Army and Iron sitting quietly, and Trace already asleep. Army will wake him when I come on.
And then the door at the back opens, and I notice the large frame that fills the doorway before it closes.
My heart swells a little. Macon. I watch him hide back by the wall, standing quietly, because as hard as he acts and as worried about him as I sometimes am, I know he loves me.
But still, I can’t help but scan the crowd again, searching for someone else.
The drums beat, Juliet and her mother talking about the party tonight, and I watch Lizbeth in the new costuming, wishing Clay was here. Hoping she’s here, because I want her to see this. I want her to be proud of me.
Romeo and Benvolio enter stage left, and I draw in a deep breath, close my eyes for a moment, my heart suddenly pounding in my chest.
Clay.
My head swims, and somehow all the tears and anger and bitterness of years of hurt and a freshly axed heart swirl like a whirlwind, and for the first time I know that Mercutio isn’t dynamic at all. He’s lost. He’s missing that one thing that being loved gives you, and that’s why he needs Romeo. That’s why he’s protective of him. He lives through him.
Romeo must be protected at all cost.
And now, I get it.
“Nay, gentle Romeo,” I call out, stepping onto the stage. “We must have you dance.”
I hold my friend’s eyes, the spotlight on me and following me to him, and the adrenaline burns down my arms, something inside showing me the way.
I pull off my friend’s jacket, Benvolio and other maskers dancing around, and whip it off to the side, but Romeo resists me. “Not I, believe me,” he says, continuing.
I attach myself to him, his sidekick, because Mercutio adores his best friend. Needs him.
The audience laughs as I joke and jump around, and I can feel her eyes, the sadness of loss so obvious as I dive into his Queen Maab monologue. How his humor and passion are just a shield for the pain.
And he gives you that tiny peek inside before…he closes it up again. The curtain falling once more.
Tears spilling down my cheeks, breathing hard, my friends pull me to the party, and I clutch Romeo’s hand, meeting his eyes so I never have to look in the mirror and see myself.
The scene concludes, we leave stage, and I hear my brothers throw out whistles in the audience as people clap.
“You were great,” Clarke says.
But I can’t look at him. I swallow hard, something making my heart feel like it’s getting too big for my chest.
I enter the stage again for the party, for the scene with the nurse, for my battle with Tybalt… My death.
I scream, tears streaming down my face as I fall to the ground, and Mercutio realizes that this wasn’t worth it. He’d tried to protect his friend’s life, but he failed to protect his happiness. He made it worse. Just a domino in the tragedy who failed to see how short our time was.