Tuesday & Max

28

I'M NOT HERE TO MAKE YOU FEEL GOOD

TO DRY UP YOUR TEARS AND APOLOGISE FOR YOU

I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER NOW YOU'RE NOT AROUND

SO KEEP ON WALKING OUT

Kyle shows up at drama the following Wednesday.

Candice is on the main theatre stage, rearranging the Von Trapps. Everyone knows about the breakup but as far as Tuesday knows, she, Jon and perhaps Harry are the only ones who know exactly why.

Jon is up on scaffolding at the back of the hall, adjusting lights, and Tuesday sits near the front with Harry, guzzling a coffee.

"So I said to them, like-how am I supposed to take someone seriously that thinks dogs are superior to cats?" Harry is whispering, but loudly.

Tuesday starts to laugh.

"No, really. It's one of those dividing things. We're just clearly not the same kind of person." He takes a sip of his drink. "And, frankly, I'd rather know that at the start of a date than the end. It saves me bothering to offer to pay."

"Who paid, in the end?"

"Well, fuck," Harry says, shaking his head, eyes to the front.

"What?" Tuesday laughs. "What did you do?"

Harry doesn't reply and she follows his line of sight. At the door near the right of the stage, someone is lingering. Tuesday squints and she realises it's Kyle.

"No way."

Rage blossoms in her. She can feel it in her fists, where nails dig; in her eyes, which burn furiously; in her blood, which heats her body like someone's poured a kettle of hot water into the top of her head. She glances up at the stage. Nobody has noticed him but them.

Harry gets up and motions for Tuesday to move. "I'll get rid." He slips past, but not in time.

"Candice," Kyle says, stepping closer to the small staircase by the stage. His voice his quiet and he's holding his body awkwardly, like he's wearing a suit that's too big. He looks ashamed. He looks sorry. Tuesday wishes he'd come in differently; maybe as angry as he must've been when he left the mark on Candice's arm. She'd feel better about punching him straight in the face then.

Candice turns and her face immediately flushes red. She looks lost on the vast expanse of the stage despite her seven Von Trapp children and Maria behind her.

"Can we talk, please?"

Candice hesitates.

Tuesday turns in her chair and looks up to Jon, on the scaffolding. Last time she saw him, he had big noise-cancelling headphones on. He's out of view, maybe fiddling with wires and plugs.

"Jon'll kill him," Harry says simply. He's taken to affectionately nicknaming Jon 'Candice's bulldog' due to their odd little friendship and Jon's limitless defence of her, but he's right.

"I was just thinking that," Tuesday says.

Kyle places a foot on the bottom step of the set of stairs that lead to the stage and the air feels heavy now as people start to notice. "Please?"

Candice takes a step back. "No."

"Come on." He's getting red, too, conscious of the attention.

You'd love to have her on your own, wouldn't you? Tuesday thinks, staring at him hard. Love to have her where nobody can see you, so you can make her do whatever you want.

"Please go away..." Candice says. She's never as quiet as when she talks to Kyle. Tuesday despises how much he reduces her, how he diminishes the sunny, commanding presence of her.

"No," he says. "Come on." He holds a hand out, advances onto the staircase. "Stop being stupid, come and talk to me."

Something ripples through the air when he says the word stupid.

"Don't say that to her," someone says loudly.

It's only when her head spins from standing up so quickly, black spots invading her vision, that Tuesday realises it was her. She can hear her blood rushing in her ears.

"Whatever," Kyle says dismissively.

"No," Tuesday asserts, vision returning. "She doesn't want to talk to you. She doesn't want you here. You should leave now."

"So you're talking for her now?" Kyle asks, the aggression that Candice described flooding back into his tone.

"No!" Tuesday is infuriated. "I'm just-"

Jon's footsteps clang behind them as he hurriedly begins to climb down from his vantage point. It's perhaps the fact that the ladder lands him on the opposite aisle, forcing him to race down and cross the stage, that saves Kyle from missing a couple of teeth.

"Get out!" Jon says, stopping beside Candice.

Candice rubs her temples, closing her eyes, then blurts, "Everyone-just-shut up!" As she lowers her hands, she catches sight of the wrist he hurt. Stares at it. There's no bruise, not anymore; at least not physically. But it will always be one of the parts of her that he marked, Tuesday understands that much. Candice crosses her arms, and when she looks at Kyle again, her back is ramrod straight, voice wavering only slightly. "We're not together anymore. So you should-you need to go away."

"Not without you," he answers, crossing his arms too, feet planted on that bottom step.

"Please..."

"No. Just let me talk to you."

Kyle's will seems far more persistent than Candice's and, for a moment, Tuesday thinks she might break--

But then Harry climbs over the couple of rows of seats in front of him. Because Kyle blocks the way on the closest set of steps, he vaults himself onto the stage, positions himself behind Candice and crosses his arms. Together with Jon, they resemble guards, armed crossed against Candice's potential threat.

It's a wordless gesture, but it's powerful. The actors on the stage follow suit, rallying around her, a blanket of von Trapps.

Tuesday climbs over the chairs as Harry did-with slightly less grace-and hops onto the stage backwards, bum bumping the hard surface painfully. When she gets up, her knees pop loudly in the tense quiet. She stands behind Candice, squeezes her elbow lightly, then crosses her own arms.

Slowly, one by one, every member of the cast and crew leave their positions and seats and join them on the stage, until it's such a vast bobbing sea of heads that Tuesday can't see Kyle at all anymore.

The door slamming behind him is the only indicator that he finally leaves.