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“Be serious,” I said, and then it was happening—his lips on mine. Warm, gentle, uncertain. Sprite and spearmint gum. I put my hands on his shoulders, gripped him a little, mostly to steady myself, and I wondered if I should open my mouth or move closer or—
Or nothing at all, because it was suddenly over.
“Should we—uh—try this from the second verse?” His hands were back on the keys, where they remained the rest of our practice session. Every so often I’d catch his mouth tip upward or his cheeks redden, and it made me feel oddly victorious.
Though we never talked about the details of the pact, my mind happily filled them in on nights I couldn’t fall asleep right away. Because I was in love with him—the kind of love that made my throat ache with all the things I couldn’t say. He just hadn’t figured out quite yet that he was too.
PART I
CHAPTER 1
SOPHIE
SOME DANCERS ARE GAZELLES. THEIR legs slash the air like scissors through silk, and their arms beckon the audience closer. They are works of art, pretty things to stare at.
I am no gazelle. On dance team, none of us are.
We are lions.
Montana Huang, fresh off a unanimous vote for captain last week, leads us in rehearsal in the gym—five, six, seven, eight—and then we roar to life. We toss our hair, swivel our hips, bare our teeth.
“Sophie!” Montana growls, her brows leaping to her hairline. “The second eight count starts with punch-punch-hip-circle-hair-flip, not hip-circle-punch-punch-hair-flip.” She demonstrates.
Admittedly, I’m a little distracted today, but not the kind of school’s-almost-out distracted some of the other dancers seem to be. “Sorry,” I mumble before Montana restarts the remixed nineties hip-hop song.
Sophomore year, I quit the studio I’d been dancing at since I was a kid. I needed freedom from my teachers squawking, “Back straight!” and “Chin up!” and “Don’t forget to smile.” I didn’t want to smile all the time—sometimes I wanted to look angry, because the steps were raw and ferocious, because I felt angry. I wasn’t delicate, and I didn’t want to be.
And I saw the way guys watched the girls on dance team during asse
mblies and football games.
I wanted Peter to watch me that way.
Once a week I take a jazz class at my old studio to stay on top of my technique for the team. But back when I took competition classes, I was at the studio four days a week, sometimes until ten p.m. It was too much.
Punch-punch-hip-circle-hair-flip. Run, run, run, and grand jeté. Heads down, new formation. Again and again—“Sophie, are you with us?”—and again.
“Great last practice,” Montana says when we’re all sweat-slick and out of breath. “Check your e-mail for our summer schedule, okay?” A chorus of yeses. A grin from Montana. “We’re going to be rock stars next year.”
I chew the cap off my water bottle and pin loose strands of red hair back into my ponytail. Junior year is officially over. In the locker room, my teammates trade summer plans. They hope we’ll have a real summer this year, the possibility of a tan. They talk about parties I won’t be attending despite the “maybe” I marked on all social media invites. “No” has always felt too brash to me, too final. I guess I like having options. Sophie Orenstein: perennial maybe.
“Anyone want to carpool to Grant Gleason’s party this weekend?”
“Did you see the finale of Dance Island?”
“I need a better smudge-proof eyeliner. Was it dripping down my face all practice and no one told me?”
My summer will be spent first in a hospital room and then recovering from a voluntary surgery my parents are still convinced I shouldn’t have volunteered for.
For me, it was never a question of should or shouldn’t.
Only a matter of when.
The curtains of his first-floor bedroom window are open when I race across the street to his house. In my life, I have never simply walked to Peter’s house. I am always on fast-forward, eager to get to him. A lion, though Peter is not exactly my prey.
His legs are stretched out on the red plaid comforter, one arm triangled behind his head, the other balancing a book on his lap. When Peter’s nervous or concentrating hard, he draws his bottom lip into his mouth and keeps it there, like he’s doing now.
In Peter’s room, each of his hobbies gets its own space. In one corner: his vintage record player and stacks of LPs. Along the wall opposite his bed: an alphabetized bookshelf. In another corner: his pet chinchilla, Mark, the most adorable creature on this earth, and his maze of a cage. Next to his bed: his Yamaha keyboard and pages of sheet music, though we don’t play as the Terrible Twosome as much as we used to. School and other commitments got in the way. I’m hoping that will change this fall. And half hidden by his closet: a storage bin for his medical supplies.
