Part One here.

So we continued to neck in the wings, or in the empty scene shop, and especially in the back of the house. The director didn’t notice we were gone, because she was tied up with coaxing the best possible performance out of the lead actress, a blonde senior girl who played the part of a woman institutionalized by her grown children not because she was crazy, but so they could get at her money.

But we were missed by Brandon Walsh’s friends, who were used to gabbing with him between their scenes. He was especially close to another junior named Jerry who played one of the lead character’s grown sons. Once day as Brandon and I were in the back, engaged in our ongoing DNA-exchange project, Jerry burst in.

“Oh,” he said, as Brandon and I guiltily stepped apart from each other. I couldn’t understand the look on Jerry’s face, which was kind of disgust mixed with confusion. Was I that repellent? I knew I was no Kelly Taylor, but was I that out of his league? Jerry slipped out again.

“Shit,” Brandon said.

“What?” I wondered. I was hoping for some kind of explanation.

“No…never mind,” was all he replied. He walked out shortly after that, the mood broken.

The tone at rehearsal changed after that. There was a pivotal scene in the show where Jerry’s character stood over me while I was seated in a chair, questioning me and getting nowhere, while the institution’s doctor, played by Brandon Walsh, stood on the other side, defending me. Other residents of the institution were scattered all over the stage, reacting to what was going on with our trio.

When the director turned her attention to the stage manager or other players on stage, Jerry broke character and begin hissing at Brandon Walsh over my head.

“What is wrong with you, man?” he said, as I cringed in the chair. Were they talking about me? I wanted to melt into a puddle and slide into the orchestra pit.

“I don’t know,” Brandon replied coolly.

“I mean, what is your problem? Look at her! She’s just a…kid! Jesus.”

This stung. I had just turned fourteen and felt every ounce of the weight of my years. I was a lead in a high school play, for crying out loud! I had friends in my French class who could drive. I was plenty old.

What I didn’t understand was Jerry’s tone of complete disgust. Before he had walked in on Brandon and me kissing, he had been friendly to me. Oddly, I knew him previously from the eighth grade play I was in, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” since my eighth grade drama teacher came up short on actors and Jerry was “loaned” from the high school to act as Theseus to my Hippolyta. We were made to kiss at our wedding at the end, which he never seemed to have a problem with. I was happy to see him once I arrived at high school myself and he was happy to see me.

After that whispered conversation, things cooled off with Brandon and me. I stayed away from him at rehearsal. Sometimes I would see him in the library, where I often hid during free periods and lunch, with my nose buried in Serious Literature and he would make idle, awkward conversation with me.

Rehearsals went later and later, and eventually we were kept through dinnertime, and in early November we began doing dress rehearsals and complete runthroughs. We would break for dinner and eat pizza on stage, supplied by helpful parents. Brandon and I were still friendly, but I never understood why he never sat with me, instead walking to the other side of the stage to sit with the lead actress, Jerry, and a couple of other seniors.

“Why does he always sit over there with her?” I said out loud one night to a friend who was a year ahead of me, Taylor. He was a sophomore and we had gone to middle school together. Taylor was in love with me when I was a seventh grader, but I didn’t like him like him. I was always grateful to Taylor, though, for teaching me how to make a fist so when I punched people it was less likely I would break my thumb and for letting me repeatedly spank him at air hockey.

“Seriously?” Taylor said. “You don’t know? Brandon and her have been dating for, like, a year-and-a-half. Everyone knows that.” He looked at my face. “Except you, apparently.”

“Oh,” I said, in what I hoped was a casual tone. “Huh.”

Brandon’s girlfriend continued to act the same towards me, somewhat aloof, but pleasant. Nothing else seemed to change. There was no big bust up, no drama. After the fall play ended, I was asked out by a sophomore quarterback who had seen me on stage and decided I was interesting. We went on a few actual dates before we even kissed.

I stewed for a few months about what had happened between me and Brandon Walsh. He and I knew each other throughout high school, but I mostly avoided him. The next year his girlfriend went away to college and he continued to mack on me when he would see me, and I would blow him off. I didn’t have words for it at the time, but I knew that at first I felt guilty for what had happened, even though I had no idea what was happening, and shocked that his girlfriend was right in front of me on stage the whole time. I was the younger, scarlet woman and I didn’t even have a choice in the matter. Later the guilt turned to anger that he had played me like that.

The last time I saw him was at a Blue Meanies concert my senior year when I was in a half-assed ska phase. My idea of fashion at the time was a skintight silver stretchy shirt with no bra, and camouflage pants. I was with a guy that I was sort-of-almost dating, when Brandon Walsh, home from college for the weekend, materialized out of the crowd of skankers and made straight for me.

“Hey, SJ,” he smarmed at me. “You look GREAT. How have you been? We should really go out sometime and catch up.” His hair was shorter now: less Morrissey and more Caesar.

I didn’t even blink. Part of it was my hard-earned coolness, and the other part was probably the fact that the Vicodin I had cadged from my friend with a broken arm (shattered in another mosh pit a couple of weeks earlier) was kicking in.

“Go out?” I said, over the din of the concert. “Like on a date?”

“Yes!” Brandon said.

“No thanks,” I said, and laughed. I turned away to find the friend I came with, but not so quickly that I didn’t see his face fall. As if.