Okay, yeah. I may barf.
More and more skaters trickle in. Every conversation is loud, staccato, filled with the desperate need to mask nerves. The room gets crowded fast as people tiptoe around the tails of costumes and unzipped skate bags.
The minutes melt away, and before I’m ready, there’s a sharp whistle from the hallway. Director Hannah stands in her signature glittery tracksuit with a smile so electric it could power the arena.
“Let’s do this!” she calls out, clapping her hands together. “Everyone, main corridor, now! Curtain call in ten!”
The dressing room explodes in a controlled stampede. Skaters grab water bottles and touch up lipstick. I fall into step behind the others and hug my arms around my ribcage.
The corridor outside the dressing rooms is pure mayhem: techs in headsets, producers on walkie-talkies, and the scent of fog machines starting to churn. The orchestra’s warming up with fractured fairy tale melodies. Someone bumps into me and mutters an apology. I keep walking, letting myself be swept along.
Director Hannah waits at the corridor’s end, corralling us all into a messy huddle. She’s short but commands the group like an alpha wolf, every syllable clear and impossible to ignore.
“Listen up!” she calls out. The noise dies instantly.
I realize Connorishere, suddenly materializing for the group huddle. He’s pressed in on the opposite side of the circle with a locked jaw. His prince costume makes him look taller and broader. His eyes flick to mine, then away, then back. He looks nervous.
Good.
“First show means first impression,” Hannah says. “People will be watching closely. But you’ve trained for this. You’ve lived for this. All you have to do is go out there and remind them why Reverie exists.”
She walks the inside of the circle as she speaks, making sure to meet every pair of eyes. Her confidence is infectious. It ripples out and sets a charge in the group.
“There will be nerves. There will be mistakes. But you don’t give up. You improvise, you recover, and you keep going. That’s what makes this show magical.”
Hannah stops right in front of me and Connor. She looks at me, then at him, as if daring the universe to challenge her.
“Grace, Connor, you two are the heart of this thing. Everyone is following your lead. Don’t think about what happened before. Think about right now.”
I glance at Connor. For the first time all week, his glare is gone. There’s just this tired, unfiltered honesty in his face. He gives me a nod—small, but unmistakably meant for me.
My chest tightens.
Hannah extends a hand into the center. “On three. One, two?—”
The whole cast piles their hands in, a mess of gloves and callused palms.
“Three! Reverie!”
It’s louder than I expect. It reverberates in the corridor, bouncing off the cinder block walls.
We break apart and each person heads for their pre-show routines. I walk back towards the tunnel, my skate guards clacking against the tile. Behind me, Charlotte claps me on the back. “You’ve got this, Grace. We’re all rooting for you.”
I force a smile. “Don’t jinx it.”
I round the corner and see Connor, already waiting by the entryway to the ice. He glances at me, then at the silent blue surface beyond. His peppermint scent cocoons me entirely. An excited shiver of anticipation courses down my spine, one that has no reason to exist here.
Nothing will ever happen between me and Connor ever again.
“Ready?” he asks.
“As I’ll ever be,” I answer.
He shifts on his feet and opens his mouth to speak, but then the house lights dim and the orchestra begins. The time for words is over.
I step out beside him, princess and prince in our powder-blue costumes, a hundred thousand watts of spotlight waiting to catch us. My heart pounds, not from nerves, but from the impossible, dumb hope that this night could be different. That we could be different.
The curtain rises. I skate forward, the first note of the fairy tale about to be written on the ice.
