Her mom offered to drive her to the subway, but it was a gorgeous day, and she decided to walk and think through what to do with Aria after school. She was tying her laces gingerly on her front step when she heard a door open. She looked up to see Alex heading out.
He paused to adjust the chain on his bike. He’d gotten taller and his brown hair was longer and shaggier. How long had it been since she’d stopped and really looked at him? She felt her face grow warm.
“Hey, Alex,” she said as she made her way down the steps, then leaned her elbows on the low chain fence between their houses.
He looked over and smiled. “Hey, stranger. How’s dance?”
Mikayla glanced down. “It’s fine,” she lied, adding softly, “That’s not all I do, you know.”
“Could have fooled me,” he said, teasingly.
“We should go ride our bikes in the park sometime,” Mikayla said, looking back up at him and thinking of her list.
Alex smiled. “I’d like that,” he said. “If you can find the time.”
She blushed, but said, “I’ll make time.”
Alex swung his leg over his bike. “You want a lift to the subway?”
“Is that thing safe for two?”
Alex held out his hand. “Come on, M. Have a little faith.”
Aria sat on the school steps, working on her own list. She didn’t want to tell Mikayla that she was making one, because it would be too complicated to explain.
But, sitting on the train the previous night, she’d conjured a piece of paper and pen and started writing. It wasn’t much, just a list of places in the city she wanted to see, and things she wanted to do, before her time here was up.
Sometimes she cheated and added a place she’d already been — like the Botanic Garden — but she figured that was okay, since the list was just for her.
Go to a movie, she wrote.
Find the tallest building.
Visit Times Square.
“What’s that?”
She glanced up to see Mikayla, looking well rested and happy, her dark hair loose instead of pulled back in its bun. Her smoke swirled around her, a little thinner, but still there.
“Just some notes,” said Aria, getting to her feet. She was about to ask Mikayla how she was feeling, when Katie and Beth appeared, lavishing worry.
“M! How are you feeling?”
“Are you going to be okay?”
“Are you going crazy without dance?”
“I’m fine,” said Mikayla, her smile shifting into the practiced one.
“How long are you off?” asked Sara snidely, who’d just appeared on the steps.
“Just a few days,” said Mikayla, looking stiffer than ever.
“So you’re still planning to audition at Drexton?” Sara pressed, narrowing her eyes.
Mikayla’s smile flattened. “Of course,” she said. Sara shrugged and went inside. The bell rang, and Mikayla and the others followed. Aria trailed after, watching the way Mikayla’s smoke got darker every time she talked about dance.
Aria knew she needed to stop trying to distract Mikayla from her problems, and help her face them.
But she didn’t know how. And she feared it wouldn’t be easy.
“Park or museum?” asked Mikayla after school.
Without Filigree filling up her schedule, she’d taken it upon herself to show Aria around the city.
“Park,” said Aria, looking at the sky. It was a beautiful day, a little cool, but sunny.
“We could do Prospect if we wanted to go back to Brooklyn now,” Mikayla mused out loud. “But Central Park is much closer. Come on!”
They took the subway to Columbus Circle. Aria had ridden to that station before, invisibly at night, but she hadn’t gotten off, had no idea what waited above. And nothing could prepare her, as they emerged, for the low stone gate that surrounded a massive, gorgeous sprawl of green.
“It’s huge,” she whispered to herself. Mikayla giggled. As they followed a path in, Aria stared around in awe at the trees and the rocks and the way the whole city just seemed to disappear, replaced by a forest, a lake, a hiking trail.
“Magical,” Aria sighed, taking in a sloping green lawn that ended at a glittering pond.
Mikayla smiled. “Lots of people say that.” She looked around. “I guess I’d stopped seeing it. But you’re right, it is.” She smiled, a genuine, private smile. “I used to think Central Park was full of fairies, that they hid in the cracks of the big rocks, or in the lake….”
Aria liked that idea. As Mikayla led her through the paths, Aria kept her eyes peeled for fairies. All around them, people were walking, jogging, laughing. Pushing strollers and walking dogs, eating ice cream and holding hands. Then, when Aria thought it couldn’t get any better, she and Mikayla arrived at a zoo.
Aria had seen animals, of course. But she’d only been a person for a couple of months, so her experience had been limited to cats and dogs and birds and, since she’d arrived in New York, a few subway rats. Now, walking through the Central Park Zoo, Aria was captivated. She’d always thought that being an angel — or at least an angel-in-progress — was pretty cool, but the snow leopards, the penguins, and the monkeys seemed even cooler.
“You act like you’ve never seen a sea lion before,” said Mikayla as Aria gaped at the incredible creature.
And the way she said it, like everyone — or at least everyone who had been someone for long enough — had seen them, made Aria say, “Not … like this. It’s just so different when you’re up close.”
Aria held up her hand, and to her surprise — and everyone else’s — one of the sea lions waddled toward her, as if eager to converse. This, thought Aria, for the fifteenth time that day, is magical. And then suddenly, as the sea lion wandered away, she felt a strange pang of sadness at the thought that the world was so big, so big that even if she had a thousand missions instead of three, she’d never get to see it all.
“What’s wrong?” asked Mikayla.
Aria shook her head. “Nothing,” she said, taking the girl’s arm. “Where should we go next?”
“What do you want to see?” asked Mikayla.
Aria broke into a smile. “Everything.”
Over the next few days, they went to the Museum of Natural History (where Aria could have stood staring at the dinosaur bones for hours), the Statue of Liberty (Aria loved the cool spray on her face from the ferry ride, and the grandeur of the statue on that tiny island), and Times Square (which was the strangest and brightest place Aria had ever seen; she was pretty sure there was more color and sound there than in the whole rest of the city, and Mikayla ended up having to lead her away).
Aria happily crossed items off her secret list just as Mikayla crossed items off hers. But as the week went on, and Mikayla’s ankle got better, her smoke got worse, and she seemed more and more distracted. They’d avoided talking about dance, but Aria knew that avoiding a problem wasn’t the same thing as overcoming it.
And it was time to talk.
It was Wednesday night, and they were sitting on her bed, reading from the Harry Potter books out loud and tossing out questions like, “Which house would you be sorted into?” (Aria felt she was strongly Hufflepuff, while Mikayla was certain they’d both be in Gryffindor) and “What would your Patronus look like?” But Mikayla kept glancing at the calendar on her bedroom wall.
“What’s going on?” asked Aria at last.
Mikayla took one look at Aria, sighed, and said, “I’m going back to Filigree.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “My Drexton audition is on Saturday. I need to practice my routine.”
“Are you ready?” asked Aria, and they both knew she wasn’t asking about the strength of Mikayla’s ankle.
Mikayla didn’t answer that. Instead, she said, “I have to go back.”
Aria chewed her lip. “Do you remember what you told me in the hospital? About being relieved?”
“Of course I do.”
>
“Well,” said Aria, slowly. “Don’t you think there’s a reason you felt that way? Something you should consider?”
“I was just tired,” said Mikayla, sounding like she was trying to convince herself more than Aria. “I needed a break, but it’s time to get back to work.”
Aria reached out and touched her shoulder. “But if you don’t love it anymore, then why —”
“Because I have to,” she said.
“But do you want to?” asked Aria. Mikayla had been dancing for so long that people had stopped asking her if it was what she wanted. She had stopped asking herself. Nobody gave her the choice, because everyone assumed they knew the answer. But maybe someone needed to ask the question. The simple, important question.
“Mikayla,” Aria said. “Do you want to quit dancing?”
At first, all Mikayla heard was quit. She recoiled at the word.
“No,” she said automatically. And then, “Of course not.” And then, after a longer pause, “I can’t.”
“Of course you can,” said Aria simply. It actually started to annoy Mikayla, the way Aria acted like it was such a small thing, to up and quit the biggest part of her life.
Mikayla shook her head, thinking of Miss Annette and Filigree and her parents and the wall of gold downstairs.
“You deserve to be happy,” said Aria.
“Happy has nothing to do with it,” snapped Mikayla.
“Shouldn’t it?” countered Aria with a frown.
Mikayla shook her head. Happy. She struggled with that word. It was true, she’d felt happier these past few days than she had in ages. She certainly hadn’t felt happy at the competition. Or in dance class.
It’s just nerves, Miss Annette would say.
It’s natural, her parents would insist.
This is the way it is, she’d tell herself.
After all, this was how it had been for as long as she could remember. No, that wasn’t totally true. Mikayla thought of the girl in the photo album. Hadn’t there been a time, in the beginning, when she danced because it made her happy? A time when she didn’t dread getting on stage, didn’t fear the failure of second place? What happened to that version of herself?
Mikayla shook her head again, as if she could clear the thoughts. Happy was simple, and this was complicated.
“I miss dancing,” she insisted. And it wasn’t a lie. She did. She didn’t miss what it had become, but she missed what it used to be, when she first started, back before it all mattered so much. She hadn’t missed Filigree, hadn’t missed competing, hadn’t missed feeling like no matter how hard she worked, it wasn’t enough.
But she wasn’t a quitter.
“The Drexton audition —” she started.
“Are you sure you want to do it?” challenged Aria.
“I have to,” said Mikayla. “I don’t expect you to understand.”
“Then help me understand,” pressed Aria.
Mikayla looked at her, long and hard. And then she stood up. “Okay,” she said. “Follow me.”
Mikayla flicked the switch in the basement, and the light glinted off the trophies. Mikayla hadn’t been down here since her accident. She’d been avoiding the room, as if she could somehow avoid everything it represented. Out of sight, out of mind.
“Wow,” said Aria quietly, taking in the wall of gold.
“The thing people don’t understand,” said Mikayla, running her fingers over a shelf of medals, “is that it’s not enough to become the best. You have to stay the best. It’s exhausting. People are always waiting for you to slip up, to go from gold to silver, to fail.”
“Silver doesn’t seem like failing.”
Mikayla’s fingers slid off the shelf. “It is when you’re gold.”
“All the gold’s not worth it if you’re miserable, Mikayla.”
Mikayla’s shoulders slumped. “You saw the boxes, Aria. We don’t have enough money. If dad doesn’t get a new job soon, we’re going to lose the house.”
Aria eyed her thoughtfully. “But what does that have to do with Drexton?”
“Drexton would pay for dance, and school. It would help.”
“So would quitting Filigree,” observed Aria. She glanced up at the ceiling. “It’s not your job to save this house, Mikayla. You can’t take that on.”
Mikayla’s throat tightened. “My parents have given up so much, for so long. They’ve poured money into my classes. It’s my job to make it worth it. It matters too much now. They need me to succeed. If I give up — if I quit — then it was all a waste. Every one of these gold trophies was for nothing. If I can just get through the audition …”
“Then what?” pressed Aria. “What happens when you get accepted?”
“If,” corrected Mikayla.
“If you get in, Mikayla, then everything goes back to how it was, right? Only worse. You said Drexton was the most prestigious dance school in the city, right? So it’s even more intense than Filigree. Are you sure you want to get in?”
Mikayla felt frustration bubbling inside her. “I’ve been working toward this for years, Aria. It’s everything I’ve been training for. I can’t just walk away.”
Aria ran a hand through her curly red hair. “Why do you have to?” she asked. “Why does it have to be all or nothing? If what you miss is dancing, why can’t you just … dance?”
Mikayla’s chest tightened. “It’s not that simple,” she said.
“Why can’t it be?”
“Because it’s not,” shouted Mikayla.
The words echoed through the small room.
“I’m sorry,” said Mikayla, feeling bad for snapping at her friend.
“It’s okay,” said Aria. “I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
A moment later, Mikayla’s mom appeared.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, looking worried.
Mikayla pulled her face into a forced smile. “We’re fine,” she said. “I was just telling Aria how excited I am to get back to dance tomorrow.”
Her mom looked relieved. She crossed the room and kissed the top of Mikayla’s head. “I’m proud of you,” she said. “And I know you’ll do wonderfully.”
Mikayla found Aria’s eyes in the mirrored wall, a crease of concern between them, but she turned away. “Thanks, Mom.”
The next day, Mikayla went back to dance.
She said good-bye to Aria after school, part of her wishing they could go on another adventure. Like seeing paintings in a museum, or shopping in Union Square. But instead she followed Sara to Filigree, telling herself she just had to get through the Drexton audition.
Aria’s question — Then what? — echoed in her head, but she pushed it away.
“What, no shadow?” asked Sara, obviously referring to Aria.
“She decided she didn’t like Filigree,” said Mikayla, not wanting to tell Sara that Miss Annette had kicked her out.
“Well,” said Sara, smugly. “Quitters never win.” The words Mikayla was so familiar with sounded meaner than usual, coming out of Sara’s mouth. Or maybe they’d always been harsh.
As they climbed the stairs to the dance studio, Mikayla asked, “Did I miss anything?”
Sara shrugged, smirking. “I guess we’ll find out.”
Inside, Miss Annette wrapped Mikayla in a sequined embrace. “You gave us a scare,” she said, pulling back. “Are you still my golden girl?”
Mikayla’s chest tightened, and she felt herself slip back into her performance smile. “Absolutely.”
Class started. Mikayla had only been gone for a few days, but she already felt like she’d fallen behind. Why hadn’t she stretched more on her time off? She could have stayed limber, could have practiced her stance and her arms. Now her leaps weren’t as high as they’d been, her lines weren’t as perfect. She tried to stop the negative thoughts, tried not to beat herself up for the tiny flaws.
To her surprise, Miss Annette didn’t beat her up, either.
“You’ll find your stride again,” h
er teacher said. It was probably the nicest Miss Annette had ever been to her. And then she added, “Just find it quickly.”
Mikayla went through her audition routine for Drexton under her coach’s scrutiny, Miss Annette punctuating the music with corrections like, “Leg up, elbow higher, posture, that’s too rough, that’s too soft….”
And then, after she’d gone through the routine half a dozen times, she looked up, and Miss Annette wasn’t there. Mikayla looked around, wondering for a second if she might have finally willed the coach away. And then she heard the woman’s abrasive voice in the next room over.
Mikayla frowned, following it, and found Sara practicing a solo, Miss Annette scrutinizing her limbs and motions the way she’d done earlier with Mikayla.
Mikayla watched as Sara moved with elegance across the floor. She didn’t make a single mistake. Sara had always been good, but recently, she’d gotten even better. But their next competition wasn’t for weeks. Why did she have a new solo routine? What was it for? Sara finished at the same time as the music, coming to a stop in a graceful pose. In the mirror, Sara saw Mikayla watching, and smiled.
“How did it go?” asked Aria that night.
They were sitting on Mikayla’s front stoop. Mikayla was icing her ankle while Aria cuddled Chow.
“Surprisingly okay. Miss Annette actually went easy on me.”
“I didn’t know Miss Annette had an easy setting.”
“Me neither,” said Mikayla, laughing. “So what did you do today?” she asked, feeling vaguely jealous of Aria’s adventures, even before she heard about them.
Aria scratched Chow’s head. “Just wandered, mostly. I love how big this city is. I love how, if you just start walking in any direction, you find something fascinating. Like this one place …”
Mikayla tried to listen, but her thoughts were already drifting back to Filigree. She couldn’t stop thinking about Sara’s routine, how good she’d been, and the smug way she’d looked at Mikayla.
Like she had a secret.
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