Onstage, Aural Fixation waved us out. We ran between the curtains. Everything was bright and delirious and unreal. And then, as we came up to them to shake hands, to accept our recognition, I froze. Shock struck the smile from my face.
They’d parted. At the front of the group stood the alumni, and among them—right there, like a bad dream—stood Michael.
Michael, eyes like obsidian, copper skin burnished by stage light. Michael, tall and handsome, still himself.
My feet reacted before my thoughts, carrying me back in a rush. I made it offstage just as Watson started talking again, but the other Sharps were looking after me, and Michael hadn’t stopped staring. I dashed for the greenroom. A hand—Victoria’s hand, small and strong—caught my arm. “Hey. Are you okay?”
“Stage fright,” I managed, which wasn’t technically a lie. I darted into the greenroom, around the L-shaped room’s corner, and burst through a back door, which led me into a stairwell. My fingers clamped around the iron railing, and I levered myself to the steps, a haze settling around me, an insulating shroud of panic.
Why was he here? How could he be here like this, sprung on me like a bear trap? How couldn’t I have known?
I’d imagined him in college classes, in fancy lecture halls. Or waiting tables, maybe, going to rehearsals at night in New York City or Chicago, walking fast with his coat collar up in a pair of stiff corners, his head down and hands in his pockets. Tiny in the biggest of cities. And now he was fifty steps from me. His knobbly knuckles that he cracked absentmindedly, and the blueberry smell of his aftershave, right there. The memory of him darted across my skin like referred pain.
The call during the retreat, I realized. If I’d picked up, I would have known. This must have been what he was calling about. Maybe he’d wanted to see me when he came back to campus.
And now this. We’d won. I was days from getting on a plane to Europe, days from seeing city after city that I might never see otherwise. I’d gotten all the way to the end, even as my lifelines slipped away, the guys starting to figure it out one by one.
It didn’t matter. He was here now, and he knew, and that was it. I’d run out of second chances.
I shivered. This stairwell bottomed out in an exit, and cold leaked up toward me. I stood. I would grab my coat from the greenroom, run out, and that would be the last of it.
I grabbed the greenroom doorknob, slipped in, and collided with a suit-jacketed torso. Nihal reeled back from me as if burned.
The L-shaped room had filled to the brim.
Heads turned in a unanimous wave. Attention trapped me in the threshold. Aural Fixation and the Sharps stood opposite, and—God, why?—Dr. Graves and Dr. Caskey had appeared beside the television monitor in the corner, near the door to the stage. Dr. Graves looked like it was physically paining him to stand so close to Dr. Caskey. Connor stood at his dad’s shoulder, the button of his sport coat undone, fiddling with his red tie.
I held Isaac’s eyes, the only point of reassurance in the mass of men and boys.
“Are you okay?” Marcus blurted. “What’s going on?”
There was no use trying to deflect it. I stayed silent.
Michael cleared his throat. “We know each other,” he said. “She’s my ex-girlfriend.”
Eyebrows rose. A long moment of disbelieving silence followed.
“Wh-what?” Trav said, his voice a rasp of shock. He peered at me as if I were a bright light.
“Yeah, I’m a girl. I’m just . . .”
“Acting,” said Mama, sounding weak.
Dr. Caskey’s gimlet eyes bulged. A few of the Aural Fixation guys shifted, like they would rather have been anywhere else. Dr. Graves’s gash of a mouth was slightly open, and I wondered if he was reconsidering the whole man up suggestion.
The stares became too much. My eyes found my feet, and I studied the hard, shining lines of my shoes.
“For real, Jordan, what on earth?” said Michael’s voice. The words shrank me. I got the distinct feeling that I’d had a clairvoyant nightmare about this situation.
“Wait, your name’s not even Julian?” Jon Cox said. “Are you also secretly a swarm of bees wearing human skin?”
“Stop it,” Isaac said.
The Sharps turned to him. Disbelief slackened Jon Cox’s face. “You knew?”
“Yeah, but guys, this doesn’t change anything.” Isaac’s voice strengthened. “Nothing’s different, all right? We still won. We’re still—it doesn’t matter.”
Dr. Caskey let out an incredulous laugh. “All right, excuse me,” he said with icy precision. “It matters, Mr. Nakahara, because your group is an historic all-male society intrinsic to the culture of the academy. An unchanging part of the landscape of student life since 1937.”
Isaac lifted his chin, defiant, new president clashing against the old. “Okay, sure, but what does that mean without the rhetoric? What’s the actual reason Jordan can’t sing with us? So she’s a girl. So what? She’s got the tenor range. She worked just as hard as the rest of us.”
He shot an urgent glance at the guys for backup.
Trav cleared his throat. “Yes,” he said. “True.” Marcus nodded along at his shoulder.
Jon Cox and Erik shrugged simultaneously, still looking baffled. “Well, yeah,” Mama said, “but technically she has a contralto range, not a tenor.”
I could barely look at the seven of them. Gratitude drew my throat tight. I hoped they could read it on my face, because if I opened my mouth I thought I might be sick. Was there a chance this could still happen?
To my side, Nihal stayed quiet.
The Aural Fixation guys were murmuring. Michael was bowed into the pack. I felt disconnected from the sight of him, from the knobby crown of his head down to the neon laces of his sneakers. The shock of his appearance had worn off. Now it just felt strange not to want him.
Eventually, Watson cleared his throat. “Yeah, we don’t mind if you guys are coed. The main thing is that it’s weird to tour with sixteen guys and one teenage girl, but we have ladies on crew, so it might be all right, depending on whether your parents—”
Dr. Graves cleared his throat. “Hang on.” He sounded a bit dazed. “Let’s talk through some steps. You just—you can’t do this as the group exists currently. For this tour, this . . . young lady . . . needs to be accounted for under her real name, for liability reasons among others. For her to travel as part of the group, she needs to be formally registered with the group. And for her to be allowed in, you need to get a recategorization petition from Student Life, to change the status of the organization.”
“We can do that,” Isaac said. “All the offices are open until the seventeenth, right? We’re not supposed to fly out for a couple days, so I’ll just stay and—”
Dr. Caskey shook his head, waving Isaac’s words away with a confident hand. “I hate to break it to you, gentlemen, but that switch is never going to happen. Your group has a lot of influential alumni who would be diametrically opposed. Risking their relationship with the academy over this?” He clicked his tongue and shook his head. “I doubt it, guys, I really doubt it. You’re not just going to need Dr. Graves’s signature; you’re going to need the dean’s, too, and I’m afraid I’m just not going to put my name to it.”
Resignation weighted my body. That was it, then. Dr. Caskey had the final say, and it was over.
Caskey finally looked to me. Something malicious was in his eyes. “Besides,” he said, “it wouldn’t be appropriate to reward this kind of behavior.”
The patronizing tone made my entire body heat up a degree. “What behavior?” I ground out, finally finding my voice.
“The Kensington motto: ‘Art through innovation, art through perseverance, and—” he raised one eyebrow,“—art through honesty. Music is nothing without honesty.”
Dr. Caskey looked around at the Sharps. His voice grew an edge. “This event has made you all representatives of Kensington to the public. This is an embarrassment.” He looked
back at me. “And frankly, I’m not sure what’s more immature: the idea that you could conceivably manage an international tour under a pseudonym, or your unwillingness to accept responsibility for months of lying to your community.” His eyes narrowed. “I’ve never seen such a waste of a Kensington education.”
The sentence landed like a blow. I knew everyone felt it hitting me, because the room took on the absolute silence of held breath. In the vacuum, I tried to breathe, and tears needled my eyes. Dr. Caskey’s voice sounded like the one in the back of my mind, assuring me that I would never succeed. I was a waste. I was disposable. I was nothing.
Then a dry voice rang out to my left, clear and confident. “Actually,” Nihal said, “since she’s an acting student, I’d say this whole thing reflects pretty positively on what she’s learned.”
Chuckling broke the silence. I looked up. The Sharps were all glaring murder at Dr. Caskey, except Nihal, who was looking at me now. I met his brown eyes. One side of his mouth lifted, and I read the beginnings of forgiveness out of his expression.
Dr. Caskey’s voice strained. “I can guarantee disciplinary action on this. There’s a Board meeting at the turn of the year; I’ll ask them what they recommend.”
Dr. Graves finally broke out of his stupor. “No. That’s absurd,” he said flatly. “There’s been no technical rule-breaking in the slightest. In fact, if she were doing this as an independent study for a sociology class, I’m sure she’d be getting high grades.” He looked at me, exasperation in the grim lines of his face. “I’d be extremely surprised if you faced disciplinary action.”
“Well,” Dr. Caskey said, turning a glare on Graves, “that’s a matter of opinion. We’ll see.”
I found myself faintly smiling. Confidence coursed through me, dissolving my guilt, rolling a weight off my back. It was strange. In so many ways, I’d failed: I couldn’t tour. I would never graduate from Kensington. I had nothing on paper for these months of effort. But with the Sharps at my back, I felt a little invincible. I stood tall and clear-headed and myself, sensitive and strong, voice unhidden, a mix of everything masculine I’d stopped suppressing and everything feminine I would never let go of. This was finally me, the most perfect me I’d ever been.
“Well, I’m not sorry,” I said, because tomorrow afternoon I’d be on a plane to California, and this sad middle-aged man’s threats would never touch me. “I’m not going to pretend it was a mistake. I would do it again in a second.”
I took a breath. I let it go. I let it all go. “I changed for this. Didn’t you ever want something that much?”
Dr. Caskey looked like he’d tasted something sour. Beside him, Dr. Graves was examining me as if he’d never seen me before.
After a long silence, Dr. Caskey zipped up his coat. “I hope you all have a restful winter holiday,” he said, clipped. “I’ll be in touch.”
He strode for the door and disappeared. Connor hurried after him, his eyes stuck to his black dress shoes.
Nobody could meet my eyes. There was nothing left to do.
“I’ve got to go pack,” I said.
And I left.
I wedged the last paperback in at the edges of the box. Its cover crumpled, and I straightened the aging card stock, grappled the box up into my arms with a grunt, and let it thud onto my empty desk.
The room smelled like Burgess always did in the winter: like the uniformly stale air from the heating vents. It was enough to give you a headache, the close, dry grip of it. I closed my eyes, trying to will away the throb of my swollen face.
I wedged a nail into my key ring and maneuvered my room key into my palm. I gripped it, the teeth bit into my fingers, and with a hard lump in my throat, I walked down the hall to Anabel’s room, wig and makeup on.
“Hey,” she said when I knocked, pulling the door open. “Jordan.” She wore loose gray sweats, her hair in a sloppy ponytail. Cursive on her T-shirt read, Connecticut girls do it better. I wondered what “it” was.
Anabel played with the end of her ponytail. “Look, I went to the a cappella thing, and I heard what happened after.”
My cheeks burned. After a second’s silence, I pulled off my wig. “Well, that traveled fast.”
“Connor’s telling everyone.”
“Great. Awesome.”
She folded her arms, leaning against the doorframe. “I just wanted to say, everyone I’ve talked to thinks you’re kind of a badass.”
I blinked rapidly. “They what?”
“Yeah. Going undercover? Who does that? I mean, every Kensington kid wants to be that kid who breaks the mold, but this is, like, next level.”
I smiled weakly and looked down at my flats, too exhausted to be relieved that the student body didn’t think I was the weirdest person ever to live and breathe. After a second, I held up my key. “Should I give this to you, or . . . ?”
“Reese, probably.” Her smile faltered. “She only told me this afternoon that you’re leaving.”
We stood in the sort of uncomfortable silence you share with people in waiting rooms, not sure whether to discuss what’s next.
“Well, I’m going to—” I gestured toward Reese’s room.
“Right.”
“Okay.” I headed down the hall.
“Jordan?” Anabel called.
I looked back over my shoulder.
“Um, good luck in California,” she said. “You’ll be great wherever you are.”
I found a smile. “You too.”
Her door closed. I let out a slow breath, turned back toward the end of the hall, and found Isaac standing there, looking into my open room, staring at the blank walls and stripped bed. When he faced me, his expression told me all I needed to know. I’d seen the same look on Michael’s face at the end of last year. Goodbye looked like a crease between the eyebrows and a thinning mouth.
“You told me last night,” he said. “You said—but I didn’t get it. I’m an idiot. I thought you meant you were leaving the group.”
“You’re not an idiot.”
“Why are you leaving?” He approached me.
I gripped my room key so tight, it threatened to cut. “Money.”
“That’s bullshit,” he said.
My palms grew warm. “I mean, but it’s not.”
“But it’s bullshit. You shouldn’t have to leave.”
“But I do have to, okay?” My voice rose. I couldn’t keep it down. “So it’s not like some unrealistic, unreasonable—it’s just real life, okay? This is how it works, Isaac.” I swallowed, shaking my head.
I could imagine the novel’s worth of responses piling up in his head, but all he let through was, “Why didn’t you tell us?”
The softness of his voice sliced through me. I heard the real question. Why didn’t you tell me?
“I tried to,” I said. “But if you don’t say it out loud, sometimes it feels like it won’t really happen, you know?” It was hopeless, trying to explain why denial helped, why it felt better to delay the inevitable than to move forward. “Like there’s something at the last second that’s going to dive in out of nowhere, and save you, and fix everything.”
Isaac’s hand found mine. Squeezed. “I want to.”
I chuckled. It sounded horrible, a grinding little sound. “You can’t.”
“I know. But I want to.” His voice was quiet, fierce, earnest. As if the sentiment itself could stitch everything back together. Heat coursed through me, and a second later, gratitude. Sometimes good intentions couldn’t do a thing except make you feel less alone, and sometimes that was enough.
“Why’re you here, anyway?” I murmured.
He tugged on my hand, leading me down the hall. “Come on.”
I headed to Reese’s room, slid my key under her door, and followed him.
The Nest’s red door creaked open, and silence took the tower’s interior, a swell of a hush in the aftermath of voices. We stepped in, the door closed behind us, the flag rippled, and I leaned back against it, taking the
black fabric between my thumb and forefinger.
“Hey,” I said. Six pairs of eyes were riveted on my face. On my makeup, probably.
No—seven. Victoria was sitting beside her brother.
She was the first to speak. “Um, so,” she said.
For a second, I didn’t understand. Then I looked over at Isaac, and it clicked into place. He hadn’t figured it out when he’d seen my empty room. Victoria had told them what I couldn’t: that Kensington’s ivory tower had grown too tall and too narrow, crowding me out.
My cheeks went hot, but I refused to feel shame.
“You’re transferring back to San Francisco,” Trav said, looking severe. “From a musical standpoint, it would have been helpful to know this ahead of time.”
I couldn’t help a bit of a smile. I could have predicted that reaction down to the word. It was sort of comforting, Trav being as unchanging as Prince Library itself.
“Look,” Jon Cox said, “if we can do anything to . . . I don’t know, help out—”
“You can’t,” I said, on gut instinct. But for some reason, I thought of Reese’s eyes as she’d spoken to me in the office that day. We can take this little by little. And I thought, Well, couldn’t I borrow money for a plane ticket back to campus after break? The idea of asking for a loan made a defensive instinct flare in the back of my head, but it was a start, right? Wasn’t there something people could do to help?
But no. Not unless they changed my parents’ minds. They’d wanted to file my transfer application since the day I’d set foot on campus.
The ensuing quiet felt like the moment of silence we took at the start of every meal, that full, reflective hush. “Thanks for having my back earlier,” I said.
“Of course,” Trav said.
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