“To think I thought all this time you were interfering with my casting opportunities,” I muse.
I mean for it to be cheeky, but Oliver laughs and says, “Millie … of course I was. I had to, for the points system.”
I blink a few times, not quite processing. “Excuse you? What points system?”
Oliver puts a hand on my knee. It’s meant to be a gesture of peace, but the tingle of it makes it feel like something more than that.
“Mrs. Cooke casts on a points system to keep things fair. The bigger the role, the more ‘points’ you use up,” he explains. “By junior year I knew we were going to get the rights to Mamma Mia. I wanted to make sure you’d be in the running for Donna, so—yeah. I talked her out of giving you a lead last year.” His voice is markedly more quiet when he adds, “I never thought you’d be gone before … well.”
I open my mouth to say something—about precollege, maybe, or senior year, or how I feel about all of it—but then the lights start dimming and people start filing back toward their rows.
“Well, one thing’s for sure,” I say. “You’re going into the right profession.”
I wait for another infamous Oliver quip, but the tips of his ears go red. “Thanks.”
I shift in my seat, leaning in close again. “Hey, maybe one day we’ll take this full circle,” I say, seeing the excitement in his eyes match mine. “Me a Broadway star, you the high-profile manager who keeps me and all the next generation of Elphaba hopefuls in line.”
But then Oliver lets out a laugh. “Like that could ever work.”
Everyone’s hustling back into their seats, so he misses the streak of hurt that crosses my face. The universe sure has done its best to humble me in the last twenty-four hours—like, the sheer number of things I was wrong about is impressive, even for me—but this one has its own bite. Not just because I didn’t see it coming, but because I should have.
The lights to the theater start to fully dim, and Samantha distracts everyone with another squeaky round of apologies as she climbs over us again. As she passes I carefully move myself so my shoulder isn’t pressed against Oliver’s anymore, so my arm isn’t on the shared armrest between us.
It was a fraction of the summer. That’s not near enough to undo the damage of three full years. We’re lucky we can call ourselves friends at all—it would be ridiculous of me to hope for anything more. Selfish, even. One more massive overstep I’ve made this summer.
At least I won’t trip on this one. I never said or did anything I can’t take back. Just a silly kiss on the cheek. It’s nothing, really. Just a passing feeling. A blip.
I press my fingers into the skirt of my dress, willing myself to believe that as the curtain rises and the music swells from the pit and people erupt into applause. I’ve never been this close to a Broadway stage before. My eyes start to tear up, overwhelmed by everything all at once—this dream of a night, the tangled feelings for Oliver, the shock of learning the truth about Georgie.
Then Oliver reaches out and wraps his hand around mine, giving it a quick squeeze. It feels for a moment like the chaos of it all is grounded in it, like some of it absorbed into him. Like maybe we’ve never been opposites, but two halves of a whole we didn’t have enough distance to see yet.
I squeeze his hand back. Really, I’m lucky. Everyone’s happy. My dad found Beth, Heather found Farrah, Teddy found Chloe. Oliver’s my friend, and that’s more than I ever thought we could be. More than enough.
I linger for a moment before I let his hand go—one last glimpse of what might have been. Then the curtain rises, and the show goes on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The show is spectacular. Baron is electric, and I can feel the energy of every single person on the stage. We’re so close up that I can stare into each of their individual faces—can see the pure, barely contained joy in their eyes, can imagine everything that it took for them to get where they are and how much this moment means to them now. It swells up in my own chest like I’m breathing in that same hope, that same energy. That same dream that I’ll never outgrow, no matter how many old versions of myself I leave behind.
At intermission Samantha takes my number, and Oliver and I split a melted Twix bar I found in my purse, cheersing with our sticks. When the show ends we stumble out, both a little starstruck and punch-drunk from the show. All the way out of the theater I have that same weird sensation you have in the first few steps after you get off a treadmill, like I’m half floating as I walk, my eyes clouded with the future. Visions of a time when I’ll be on the other side of that stage, hugging castmates and crying and peeling another night of glitter and fake lashes off my face.
Then we hit the street and a gust of warm, sweet summer wind blows in our faces, pulling me back into reality. The ache is back just like it never left. I suddenly can’t look at Oliver; I need to get away from him, and fast. I need a few days to squash whatever this is out of my system, before it squashes us both.
“You don’t want to stage door the cast?” Oliver asks.
I shake my head. “I’m tired. I think I’ll head back, but if you want to stay—”
“No, no. I’ll head back with you.”
I nod, and we pivot ourselves away from the crush of bodies leaving the theater and start heading toward the subway. I close my eyes for a moment, wishing I could just will him away. I really am tired. The kind of tired I don’t think I’ll be able to push past, desperate to shove my headphones into my ears and let myself get swallowed up by the crowd.
“You’re quiet,” Oliver observes.
“That show … it was just amazing.”
“It was, wasn’t it?” says Oliver. “That plot twist in act two with Athena was nuts.”
It feels like my heart is so full and confused that it’s tipping over, leaking into the rest of me. It’s everything. It’s the precollege and the workshop, it’s the heartbreak, it’s the uncertainty of the life I might leave behind and the one I might keep. I don’t know what to do about any of it. I only know that I need to talk to Heather.
My throat feels thick, thinking of the way we left things last night. I cast my gaze down at her boots, wishing they could just carry me to wherever she is right now. I just need her to hug me and tell me it’s going to be okay.
“Millie … what’s going on?”
“Sorry, what did you say?”
Oliver has slowed his pace, and I realize it’s to match mine. I’ve basically been wandering blind, loosely following him toward the station.
“It’s nothing,” I tell him. “I’m being dumb.”
An understatement. I told Chloe a few days ago that I’d never had a crush before, and it was the truth. Or at least I thought it was. This feeling, whatever it is or isn’t, snuck up on me too fast to give it a name.
Well, now I have one—it’s disappointment. I skipped right past crush and all the way to crushed. And the worst part is, I don’t even know if I’m allowed to be. I had plenty of chances to fall for Oliver over the past few years. Plenty of chances to wheedle that small smile out of him, to talk about our families, to lift each other up. Maybe this is just one of those lessons I’m supposed to learn the hard way. The kind of hurt that I’m supposed to remember for the next time, so I don’t make the same mistake with somebody else.