Page 28 of Dance Practice, Marooned: Part 2

Aggie is standing about five feet away from her, and Kellen is holding her arm, stopping her from going any closer. She struggles, like she needs him to let her go, like she has so many things to say, but Kellen isn’t letting her move. Zeke is standing behind Tati, but he’s not holding her back. Adrian is nowhere to be seen.

“Hey,” I say, rushing over, breathless from the run to get here. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“It was her,” Tatiana screams so loudly it makes me flinch. “She fucking ruined my life.”

I’m confused.

I look to Rachel, who is biting her lip. She glances at me, and then says low, “Aggie was the one who got Tatiana thrown from the lead role. What they didn’t tell you is that when they got home, Tatiana was going to be suspended.”

Wait, what?

I look to Aggie. “What is she talking about?”

Aggie is crying, heavy tears falling down her cheeks. “I didn’t... it was an accident.”

“How?” Tatiana screams.

“Stop,” I yell, throwing my hands up. “Just calm down and someone tell me what the fuck happened?”

“Aggie reported me for drug use,” Tati wails. “She is the reason I got kicked out of the lead role and she is the reason I’m going to lose my fucking career when I get home.”

My heart skips and I look over to Aggie, who has her face buried in her hands.

“Aggie,” I say, my voice shaky but careful.

“It... I was worried, okay? I knew she was doing drugs to help with her injury, and I could see that it was getting worse. She missed practice more than she should and we were all suffering because of it, so I made a report.”

Oh.

Gosh.

“You could have talked to me,” Tati yells. “You could have fucking come and talked to me. Instead, you went behind my back so you could get what you wanted, and you did, the lead role.”

“We all worked hard for our career,” Aggie screams, her voice rising higher than I’ve heard it. “We all fucking worked for it and you’re there, high as a fucking kite, getting everything. It’s not fair, Tati. It isn’t fair and you know it.”

“I’m your best friend,” Tati bellows. “You should have come to me.”

“Okay,” Zeke says, taking Tati’s arm. “We all need to calm down. Tati, you’re going to walk with me. We will revisit this when everyone has had a minute to process.”

“Good idea,” Kellen mutters.

“No,” Tatiana jerks her arm from Zeke’s grip. “No, I’m not going anywhere.”

I see it coming a full half second before it happens. My feet don’t even have time to react before Tatiana launches at Aggie across the sand, a screaming blur. Her fist winds back, and the next instant both women are tumbling in a frenzy of hair and fingernails and knees.

“Jesus Christ!” I yell, but it’s already chaos.

Tati grabs Aggie’s hair and yanks her down, hard, but before she can get a second shot in, Kellen and Zeke are on them. Kellen wraps his arms around Aggie’s waist and hauls her off the ground, while Zeke tries to catch hold of Tati without, I guess, breaking her. Tati kicks out at Aggie even as she’s midair. An arc of sand explodes into the wind.

Screaming—so much goddamn screaming—rises over the shoreline.

“Stop it!” I bellow.

It’s useless.

Tati has tears streaming down her cheeks, hair wild, and she’s shrieking as she tries to break free of Zeke’s grip.

“How could you!” Tati cries, still fighting. “You ruined everything! Everything!”