A Beauteous Flower Ch. 14

"Thank you," Todd whispered to the compliment.

Madison had never encountered a boy who wasn't anxious to talk to her. She was used to them being intimidated by her, because she was, in everyone's estimation, very pretty, but she had never, ever had to pursue a conversation with one in her life. Boys approached her and they drove the conversations and the fact that Todd was so reticent intrigued Madison.

The silence dragged on and a miserable and trapped Todd continually glanced around for an escape route. Madison felt a surge of sympathy in her heart like she always felt for the abused and abandoned dogs in the ASPCA commercials. Todd, the boy who until then was merely a two dimensional non-player character in her life, suddenly became a real person and she suddenly blurted out the first thing that came to her mind.

"Hey, you want a ride home?"

Slowly Todd looked up at her. She could see deeply ingrained mistrust and anxiety in his sad blue eyes as he looked for the humiliation that four years as the school weirdo had taught him to expect. While she had never been, what she thought, an active participant in that humiliation, it dawned on Madison that just maybe she had been a tacit accomplice to it. She felt a touch of guilt.

"No tricks," she reassured him. "I'll just give you a ride home."

Todd didn't exactly relax, and she could tell he still expected some kind of trap, but after a moment to consider her offer, he nodded and stood up.

"Okay," he said quietly; so quietly that Madison had to ask him to repeat himself because just then a car had passed and drowned out his reply.

What followed was a mostly silent ride. Madison only just managed to get Todd to give her his address and a couple of monosyllabic directions at traffic signals. Todd took a couple of sidelong glances at her, but never with a lascivious intent. Instead, he kept a worried eye on her, like he expected her to attack him in some mean-spirited way. Other boys ogled her, like she was some kind of sweet treat, so Todd's skittish attention was complimentary. Strange, yes, but also kind of sweet.

Twenty minutes later she pulled up in front of his house where he unfolded himself out of the passenger seat and mumbled his thanks. As he walked up the walk to his front door, Madison decided that Todd wasn't such a bad guy after all and that maybe, just maybe, it might be worth her while to try and get to know him a little better. They were co-stars after all. It could only benefit the play if they got along a little better.

From that day forward some unnamed thing happened and it caused the rehearsals to get better and less mechanical. Even the catty girls of the drama club had to acknowledge that a strange alchemy between Madison and Todd made the play better than your average High School play. The faculty advisor grew more pleased and vindicated with every rehearsal.

Madison also noticed that Todd became less skittish during the daily car rides. He would listen intently to her prattles and ask her a few pertinent questions. As the rehearsals went on, the rides home got longer and then they began to go to quiet spots and just talk. Well, Madison talked, and Todd listened. He was quietly sweet with her and always gave her some kind of wildflower that he could find around where they sat and talked. He never made her feel stupid or unintelligent even though she sensed in him a deep well of intellect that dwarfed hers. Todd's quiet presence made Madison feel safe and she always got a warm little glow in her chest when his sad blue eyes peeked out at her from under his shaggy hair.

Through it all Todd remained polite and patient. One time, he pretended not to notice when she ate all his French fries when they stopped at McDonald's even though he wasn't her boyfriend and she claimed she wasn't hungry and didn't order any food, but she was hungry and she ate all his fries because, after all, she didn't order them, so she wasn't a pig who ate food around boys.

Yes, Todd was very different than the boys she was used to. Where the others were predatory and made her feel uncomfortable, Todd simply enjoyed her presence and paid her small, kind attention. She wasn't sure how he did it, but he knew little things about her, such as she liked pink, so he brought her a pen with pink ink. He read to her from books mentioned in their talks, and he always turned off his cellular phone when they spoke, even though he didn't use Tiktok or Twitter or Snapchat and he didn't seem to talk to anyone but his parents on it anyway. This made her very comfortable around him and she never felt threatened or coveted. Rather she simply felt special. It was not long before her friends complained that she didn't hang out with them as much as she had in the past, but she told them that she was busy with the play, and it meant a lot to her, and they eventually stopped. Or at least if they kept it up, she didn't notice.

She wasn't sure exactly when it happened, but soon the thought of Todd made Madison smile a small, secret smile and, despite herself, she felt a fragile and rare intimate connection build between them. Once late at night, she stared out of her window and thought about Todd and tried to quantify what she felt. She decided she enjoyed Todd and his unobtrusive intellect. Maybe if he wasn't quite such a shambling, lanky, shaggy boy and took a little more care with his appearance? On the other hand, that seemed a petty thought.

More to the point, something was obviously absent between them. Todd had never once tried to make a move on her. He was always a perfect gentleman. Madison was both gratified and frustrated by this. In fact, since she was on the subject, she peevishly wondered why he hadn't he tried to lay a hand on her anyway? She was pretty and she knew it and, while he wasn't an Adonis like Miles, he didn't look all that bad.

Perhaps if she encouraged him to get a haircut and his acne cleared up, Todd's physical charms might be more apparent. For example, he did have nice, big square hands with manly veins along the back of them. That thought made her giggle involuntarily. Madison liked Todd's hands. That wasn't so bad, was it?

After a look around to be sure she was alone, Madison allowed herself to admit in a whisper to the quarter moon that it might be nice to hold one of Todd's hands for just a little while as long as none of her friends were around to see. Maybe even invite him to put one of his nice, big square hands on her bare thigh when she wore a short skirt? Well, maybe not, or... maybe? That might be worth a try, just to see how it felt to have Todd's hand on her thigh.

With that thought in mind, the next day she purposely wore a short skirt just to see if he would look at her long, tanned legs, in her estimation her best feature, and felt mildly insulted when he didn't look, let alone put his hand on her thigh. After she got home, she was a little cross about it, but ultimately, she decided there was nothing to really get upset about because as soon as the play was over, she was sure she and Todd would part ways and never speak again. Everyone expected her to be with Miles anyway and Todd didn't seem to notice her in that way, and in the end, she and Todd were from such different worlds it wouldn't really be possible. Unexpectedly that impossibility made her sad.

That sorrow didn't last long though. Madison mollified it by remembering that Miles was her first option. Miles was hot and handsome and was exactly what a potential High School prom queen like her had every right to want and expect and everyone else wanted and expected that for her as well. That made her happy. At least that's what she told herself and everyone else agreed, so it must be that it would make her happy. She should be happy about Miles. Right?

A little more time went by and in what Madison estimated was a very short time the week of the play was upon them, and it was time for the dress rehearsal. That afternoon Madison was a little late due to cheer practice and had to hurry to put on her makeup and costume. In her hurry, Madison almost overlooked the single pink rose with a note addressed to her on the makeup table. Initially she thought it was from the faculty advisor as a congratulations for her debut as a leading lady, but the fact that it was a pink rose brought another thought that caused her heart to skip a beat and she forgot her rush. Maybe her hands trembled a bit as she opened the note, but she put that down to dress rehearsal nerves. She took a deep breath to calm what must have been her pre-rehearsal jitters and read the note.

"Did my heart love till now? forswear it, sight! For I ne'er saw true beauty till this night."

An electric charge shot through Madison from the top of her head to her toes. Although the note was unsigned, she knew exactly who had given her that rose. She was so excited she very nearly started to hyperventilate. It took her a few moments to compose her thoughts again and when she came to herself, she joyfully reread the note. Tears welled in her eyes and blurred the words, but she smiled so broadly that her cheeks hurt with the effort. She couldn't believe just how happy she really was at that moment. The silly romantic part of her gave an internal shout for joy. Todd had noticed her! It wasn't impossible! Madison felt terrified and triumphant and simply could not wait for the ride home.

Madison did not remember much from that dress rehearsal until the balcony scene of Act II Scene II. On cue she strolled out onto the balcony to lean wistfully on the railing and stared out above the empty seats in distracted and rapt silence. After a dramatic pause she heard a rich voice launch into Romeo's famous soliloquy.

With the sound of his voice, the heady giddiness she felt as she clutched the note in the dressing room surged back to her and her spine and scalp tingled. She wasn't supposed to look at him during this soliloquy because Juliet didn't know Romeo was in the garden yet, but his voice was so strong and clear and the pink rose was still fresh in her mind, so she couldn't help herself. She took one small, surreptitious glance down and at the sight of him her knees literally buckled. If it had not been for the railing, she might very well have fallen to the floor.

The lanky and shambling Todd she felt so comfortable with was gone, and now he stood tall and proud in his brightly colored costume, with his shaggy blonde hair tamed into a neat middle part haircut that framed a strong jawed and acne free face. It must have been the lights, or maybe she was just swept up in the scene, but he looked so handsome it took her breath away, and best of all were his eyes. They weren't sad or shy any more but looked boldly at her with an unabashed mix of love and desire so intense that his eyes flared like blue fire.

He was no longer The Toad. He wasn't even Todd. He was Romeo, Romeo for her and her alone, and her mind went completely blank with fear and desire. She didn't even notice when his lines ended, and everyone waited for her to speak her lines. She was so flustered that even after the stage director cued her, she couldn't recall her lines and all she could do was stand stock still and hold back tears of frustration and fear and joy. She flushed at the thought that entered her mind that she hoped that the old wives' tales were true and that a man with large hands indicated that a man was well endowed. Sexually frustrated smoke clouded her mind and blotted out weeks of rehearsals and she unconsciously clenched her teeth to bite it down before her lustful thoughts flew out of her mouth and fatally embarrassed her.

Madison cast about, lost in confusion until Todd gave her a gentle wave to get her attention, bowed towards her and mouthed her line up at her. Under his quiet gaze all her confusion and frustration fled, and she no longer just played the part of Juliet. She became Juliet for him and unbidden her lines tumbled out of her mouth, rich with emotion she could not have faked with a lifetime of practice. For the first time she spoke to him and him alone and her heart raced in her chest so hard she was afraid she would faint.

"Ay, me."

After the rehearsal everyone beamed and congratulated her. The faculty advisor was exultant and even the catty drama club girls lined up to gush their praise. Everyone was sure this would be the best school play anyone had ever seen, but Madison didn't care about any of that. All she could think about was how she wanted to find Todd and drive him to McDonald's and share some celebratory French fries, but first she was going to grab two fistfuls of his neatly quaffed hair and kiss him so fiercely that he would forget his own name. And, she noted with unabashed lust, if anything else developed from that kiss, well that would be just fine with her. While everyone else anticipated greatness the next night, all Madison could focus on was the fact that she so badly wanted to kiss Todd that her teeth hurt.

Desperately she searched around backstage for him. Finally, the faculty advisor told her that Todd had left immediately after rehearsal. Madison couldn't help but let her disappointment show. The faculty advisor congratulated her again and told her that tomorrow she would be brilliant. She nodded, but she didn't care about that either. She wanted to see Todd and kiss him, but instead she walked to the parking lot alone, full of questions.

Where had Todd gone? Why had he left her like this? Hadn't they spent every afternoon together for weeks? Didn't Todd enjoy her company and read her books? Didn't he care for her like she cared for him? Wasn't he her Romeo and she his Juliette? What did that flower and note mean anyway?

Didn't he love her?

A distracted Madison wandered to her car, awash in disappointment and frustration, and because of that she didn't notice the wall of people that pointed their cellular phones at her. In fact, she nearly bumped into someone before she noticed them at all. That someone turned out to be Miles who asked her to go to the prom with him. He had even drawn up a sign with footballs and misspellings on it and presented her with a cupcake with the word "yes" written on it. Madison was so shocked and off balance she didn't know what to think. She felt like she had forgotten something only to be reminded of it in the nick of time before she had to admit she forgot about it. She stood and gawked at the cupcake in confused silence while everyone else smiled and waited and recorded. Madison looked around and tried to figure out just what to do.

She couldn't say "no" to this even though it wasn't exactly perfect. Right? Everyone was so excited and cheerful, and this was exactly what she and they agreed that she wanted. Right? Miles was the guy that every girl at the school dreamed of and he had asked her to the prom just as everyone assumed he would and that was as good as it could get for a high school girl. Right? Every girl in the school would envy her. Right? This was how it was supposed to be. Right? But what about Todd? Well, Todd wasn't there, and Miles was. Right?

And so, because it was the way it was supposed to be, she did as she and everyone else expected her to do. She took the cupcake and shouted "yes", and hugged Miles tight and she smiled brightly for the cameras that would upload the highest moment of her high school career as the prettiest girl in school to the internet platforms that would make her the envy of high school girls that she would never meet all over the country. She posed the very picture of the happiest and luckiest girl in the world, and she did her best to ignore a small sick, nagging something in her stomach that warned her that she had made some kind of mistake.

To celebrate, she went with Miles and their friends to McDonald's where Miles ordered two meals for himself and didn't share his French fries with her, so a little while later she drove home hungry. Along the way she tried to ignore the vague sense that she might just have forgotten something important. She smiled at herself in the rear-view mirror, but her smile looked a little forced. It must have been the shock of the moment and she resolved to feel as happy as everyone else though she should be.

By the time she arrived at home she had convinced herself that this was right and exactly what she wanted and that little sick feeling that nagged in the back of her mind wasn't real. That was until her mother greeted her at the door with a broad grin and told her someone wanted to speak with her. Her mother pulled open the door and Madison felt a cold stab in her heart when she saw Todd. He looked like a blond Humphrey Bogart in a tuxedo with a bouquet of pink roses and a sign that said, "Please do me the honor of attending the prom with me."

Madison's heart crashed to her feet. She put one hand over her mouth and the other on her stomach, so she didn't get sick. Todd stood there expectantly with the look of a hopeful and lovesick puppy on his face. Madison shook her head at the irony of it all as she realized what she really wanted had waited for her at home while she celebrated what she thought she wanted at McDonald's.

The irony and unfairness of it burned in her throat and, just for a second, she thought to throw herself in Todd's arms and tell him she would be so happy to go to the prom with him and to tell Miles to shove his cupcake up his tight ass and that her life wouldn't be complete until she went to her prom with Todd and at the end of the night she shucked off her prom dress so they could make love under the full moon while she told Todd that she was silly in love with him. But that wasn't what she or anyone else expected of her, and that made Madison confused.

Then Madison got angry. At first, she was angry because it all seemed too ironic to be real. And then she got angry that the hopelessly romantic part of her had put her in this position. And then she got angry at herself because she had said yes to Miles instead of Todd. And then she got angry at Todd because he left her alone that afternoon and had not asked her to prom before Miles did. And then she got angry that even for a moment she had considered Todd as an acceptable substitute for the high school dream of Miles. How dare Todd put her in this position where she had to choose him or Miles? Madison was angry.

So angry.

So very angry.

Then that anger poured out of her mouth in a torrent of invectives and insults which she hurled at the shocked and befuddled Todd. It went on and on and she hated herself as she lashed him with her anger, but she couldn't stop it no matter how shocked her mother looked or how pained the look on Todd's face. The sadder his blue eyes got the angrier she became. How dare someone like him, someone like THE TOAD, ever in a million years think that a girl like her would have any interest in the likes of him. The Toad was a silly, deluded fool if he thought she had any kind of feelings for him beyond contempt. He was simply a cast member and nothing else and any indications he had gotten to the contrary were just his misinterpretation of the fact she was just nice to him and that he had confused her generosity with real emotions.

Then she ordered him out of her life with a stamp of her foot, and she said she would thank him not to bother her with his foolish and stupid idealizations anymore and thrust an imperious finger towards the door for him to follow, which he did. As he shambled, tall and lanky out the door, he politely murmured his thanks and a "nice to meet you" to her stunned mother. There he paused, just for one last forlorn glance back, and Madison's anger melted into horror as Todd transformed back into The Toad. His transformation complete, he turned away from Madison, walked aimlessly down the walk, and looked both ways at the street as if he hoped someone would come pick him up. Then he realized he was all alone again and slowly plodded away down the sidewalk towards who knows where.