How It Feels to Fly (25 page)

“I heard you crying in here and I thought maybe I'd given you enough space for today.” She looks from me to the toilet. “Are you sick?”

I shake my head.

“Did you make yourself throw up?”

Another no.

“Are you going to?”

I want to, and I don't. I'm not sure which side is going to win.

Jenna gets the saddest look on her face. Then the sadness turns to resolve. She lifts up her shirt. Pulls down the waistband of her shorts. Shows me her scars.

“I used to cut myself,” she says. “I did it when I made too many mistakes on the ice. But . . . I stopped.”

I blink, trying to clear away the tears. And I say, out loud for the first time ever, in a voice like sandpaper, “I used to make myself throw up. But . . . I stopped.”

“But you still think about it?”

I nod. “Do you?”

“All the time.” She drops her shirt. “Do you want me to stay with you?”

The tears well up again. “Yes.”

“All right.” She takes my hand.

SATURDAY.

I get up. I get dressed. I eat a few bites of tasteless breakfast. I sit in the Dogwood Room as Dr. Lancaster introduces Andrew's last-minute replacement, a thirty-something colleague of hers named Ron, and as she gives the day's lecture. Something about excellence versus perfection. Something about achieving our goals. Something about looking for opportunities.

I am neither excellent nor perfect. I am not achieving my goals. I have no opportunities.

I'm crawling through today, waiting for it to end so I can crawl through tomorrow.

I feel the others orbiting me. I don't give them anything. I have nothing to give.

Dr. Lancaster spends an hour with me on Saturday afternoon, and another hour on Sunday morning. I barely say a
word either time. I stare at a spot on the floor between my toes. I run my fingers over the bruise on my wrist, which has gone from blue and purple to green, with yellow around the edges. I melt back into the couch cushions and want to keep melting.

But after lunch on Sunday, Katie approaches me while I'm sitting on the front porch, gazing out at nothing. “Hi,” she says, sitting down next to me.

I nod to let her know I heard her.

“You know we're doing my challenge at the ropes course this afternoon, right?”

“Yeah.” My voice feels creaky from disuse.

“I'd really like you to be there.”

“Oh.”

“I need you to hold my hand while I cross. Do you think you can do that?”

I can walk across a beam. I can hold her hand. I can be good for
something
.

You're not good for—

“Sure,” I say, sighing and leaning back. “Are we leaving soon?”

“In, like, an hour?”

“Okay.”

Katie puts her arm around my waist. “Thank you. This means a lot.” She drops her head onto my shoulder. “By the way, Jenna said to tell you that you should tell Dr. Lancaster about the thing. She didn't tell me
what
thing, but she said you'd know what she meant.”

I go rigid. I was wondering, somewhere behind the fog, when that was going to come up. My inner voice starts whispering,
You can't tell. There's no reason to tell. And anyway, you didn't do anything. At least, not here—

“You know what she means, right?”

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I know what she means.”

AN HOUR AND
a half later, we're standing on the wooden platform in front of the suspended balance beams. “Katie,” Dr. Lancaster says. “Tell me how you want this to go.” Unlike last time, she's harnessed in next to us, wearing khaki shorts, a yellow T-shirt, and white Keds with yellow ankle socks.

“I want another pair to cross first, and then Sam and I will cross,” Katie says, lips set in a line. She looks upset, but it's a different kind of upset from last week. Then she was pale and shaking, on the verge of tears. Now it's like she's staring at a mountain she has to climb. And she doesn't want to do it, but she knows she has to. She knows she
can
.

Looking at Katie—seeing her bravery firsthand—I realize that all of them have changed. I can see Jenna's gradual opening and letting go. Omar's moments of confidence and Dominic's moments of vulnerability. Even Zoe has changed for the better since getting here. I'm the only one who's gotten worse.

Dr. Lancaster stands next to Katie, asking her questions as Yasmin and Jenna cross the beam. I try not to listen in,
but it's hard not to overhear, given that I'm harnessed two feet away.

“How are you feeling?”

“Anxious.”

“How anxious, on a scale of one to ten?”

“Eight. No, seven.”

“Are you breathing?”

“Yes.” Katie gulps in air. “See?”

I look down at the ground, where Zoe, Dominic, Omar, and Ron are waiting. They look really far away. Or maybe it's how far away I still feel. I glance at Katie's determined face, then at her white-knuckle grip on my hand.

I should try to focus. This is important.

Dr. Lancaster extends her hand toward the beams. “Take your time, girls.”

Katie steps right up to the edge. “No rituals today,” she tells me, looking grim. “I just have to walk across, like it's no big deal. Like I've done it a thousand times.”

“Tell me when you're ready.”

“I'm ready.”

We take a step. The beam sways under my foot and I check my balance. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Katie do the same thing. Her fingers dig into my hand, but she doesn't stop moving. We bobble again, then hit our stride. Right foot, left foot, right foot, left foot. My vision narrows to the beam in front of me. All I see is a camel-colored line in space. And all I feel is my feet and my right hand. Three points of contact that keep me from falling.

In what seems like seconds, we're at the other side. Katie steps up onto the platform and stands completely still, looking stunned. Then she lets out a loud whoop. She turns to me and wraps me in a bear hug. She lets go, gives another ear-piercing whoop, and starts jumping up and down and shaking her butt in the happiest happy dance I've ever seen.

Cheering from below. Dominic is pumping his fist in the air. Omar is shouting “Bravo! Bravo!” Zoe gets everyone to chant Katie's name. Next to us on the platform, Jenna, Yasmin, and even the ropes-course coordinator are applauding. And when I look back at the opposite platform, where Dr. Lancaster is still standing, I see her wearing her “proud parent” smile.

Katie hugs me again, and I want to cry. It's not that I'm not happy to see her conquer her fear. I am. If it's possible to be simultaneously thrilled for someone else and devastated for myself, that's what I am.

I don't want to keep moving backward. I want to be where Katie is right now. I want to be the one so full of relief and happiness that my body can't contain it.

She looks like she could fly off the platform. I've been there. I was there the first time I nailed a triple pirouette en pointe. I was there on
Nutcracker
opening night, performing Dewdrop Fairy in front of a packed house. I was there when I received my initial acceptance letter to this summer's ballet intensive.

I know how it feels to fly. I want that feeling back.

And just like that, I know what I have to do.

“YOU'VE GOT MORE
balls than I gave you credit for,” Zoe says after I tell her my plan and her crucial role in it. “I was gonna call another meeting of the Secret Society of Crazy Campers tomorrow, but this is
so much better
.”

“Does that mean you'll help me?”

“Are you kidding? Never mind helping you—which is fine—this is like the ultimate ‘eff you' to my parents, and to this place. I'm totally in.”

“And you can get what we need?”

“Leave it to me.” She heads up the stairs but pauses at the top to look down at me, chin in hand. “My little Ballerina Barbie's all grown up.”

I roll my eyes at her, feeling more like myself. The fog is lifting. I'm putting myself back together, brick by brick. Filling in the cracks. And if this plan works . . .

It won't—

It will. It has to.

I find Katie and Jenna in the Dogwood Room. I tell them, keeping my voice low, what Zoe and I will be doing tomorrow. I also tell them why it has to be Zoe who helps me. “She's been trying to get sent home since we got here. She won't care if it backfires.”

“Don't
you
care if it backfires?” Katie asks, eyes wide.

“Of course I do. But”—I gulp—“I have to do this. So,
um, don't tell anyone where we've gone. At least, not until it's too late to stop us.”

“We won't,” Jenna says. “Be careful, okay? Drive safe.”

There's only one thing left to do after that. I knock on Dr. Lancaster's office door feeling anxious but resolute. When she says, “Come in!” I don't hesitate.

“Sam!” she says, clearly surprised that it's me. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. Can I talk to you for a few minutes?”

The words “can I talk” flip a switch inside her. She beams at me. “Of course. What's on your mind?”

I sit. I examine my fingernails. I poke at my bruised wrist. “There's, um, something I need to tell you. Tonight.” In case tomorrow is a huge disaster.

“What is it?”

“I—”

Stop. Seriously.

I say it fast, before I can change my mind. “I wanted to make myself throw up on Friday. If Jenna hadn't found me and sat with me, I might've gone through with it.”

I don't know what kind of a reaction I was expecting. Horror. Disgust. But Dr. Lancaster's face doesn't change. That's what gives me the courage to keep talking.

“I haven't done that in a long time. I tried it earlier this year, when dieting wasn't working, but—I didn't like doing it, so I stopped. And then on Friday, everything felt so out of control, and I was so overwhelmed. . . .”

Why are you doing this?
my inner voice screeches.

Because this might be my last chance to really talk to her,
I remind myself,
and this is the thing I still need to say.

“Thank you for telling me, Sam. Have you told anyone else?”

“Just Jenna.”

“Not . . . ?”

Andrew.
I stare at the floor. “No. But he—he said something that I can't stop thinking about. He told me that when he wanted to quit football, he thought about letting himself get hurt, badly, so he wouldn't have to tell his dad he didn't want to play anymore.” I look at Dr. Lancaster, wondering whether it's okay for me to be talking about Andrew in here. “He told me he realized hurting yourself to get what you want isn't brave. And I guess I—I've been beating myself up for wanting to make myself throw up, but I also beat myself up for not being strong enough to do whatever it takes to be thin, and I—”

I'm wringing my hands. My stomach is in knots. I keep talking, even though everything in me is screaming
Stop stop stop stop stop
.

“Why is it so hard for me? Why can't I be like him, and say, nope, I don't want to do something that hurts me, and be done with it?”

“Well, first of all, he was speaking to you with the benefit of hindsight. He quit football a year and a half ago. You're still very much in the dance world. You're grappling with your issues in real time.”

“Right, but—”

“Secondly, the fact that you're grappling at all is commendable. You're stronger than you think. And tonight, you took an important step on your journey.”

“I did?”

“You did.”

“Oh. Thanks, Dr. Lancaster.”

“You're quite welcome. Do you want to keep talking about this?”

I check the clock. I have to get to bed early. And I have so much to do before then. “Not tonight. Maybe another time?”

“Of course.” She pauses, looking apologetic. “You know, though, that I'll need to continue to monitor you at mealtimes, given what you told me this evening.”

“I understand.” I'm not exactly surprised. And if tomorrow goes well, it won't matter. I stand up. “Thanks again. And, um, I'm sorry.”

“For what?”

For what I'm planning to do.

“For the past couple days. For getting salad on you, for yelling at you, all that.”

“Apology accepted. I'm glad you and I are on speaking terms again.”

We probably won't be, the next time I see her. If there is a next time. But even that thought can't kill my relief. I said the hardest thing there was to say, and I'm still here. Not only that, I actually feel
lighter
.

I feel ready.

WE TIPTOE ACROSS THE GRAVEL DRIVEWAY IN THE predawn darkness. The world feels hushed, like even if we weren't trying to be stealthy, we'd feel compelled to keep it down. “What if someone hears you start the engine?” I whisper to Zoe.

“Then we're screwed,” she whispers back.

I freeze. “What?”

“I was joking. Mostly.” She makes a face. “I don't know, maybe Dr. Lancaster will think we're the garbage truck or something.”

I've already moved on to my next worry. “And what if they send people looking for us?” We've reached the van we're going to steal—I mean borrow—for the day. It has the Perform at Your Peak logo—a football player in the Heisman pose in one
P
, a pirouetting ballerina in the other—in bright blue on the side. “Our ride's not subtle.”

“We don't need subtle,” Zoe says. “We just need keys and a head start.” She looks at me, twirling the keys she took from Dr. Lancaster's desk around her index finger. She's got them on her new North Carolina State Wolfpack key chain. “You chickening out?”

“No way.” I'm going to my ballet intensive, and I'm going to convince them to let me audition again, and I'm going to get in. That's all there is to it. I am taking control of my destiny. I brought my suitcase and everything. If they want me to start today, instead of next Monday, after Perform at Your Peak is over, I won't even have to come back here for my things.

I stifle a yawn.

“Sooner we get on the road, sooner we can find a Starbucks,” Zoe says, opening the driver's-side door.

The next few minutes are agonizing. We get into the van. Zoe adjusts the driver's seat and puts the key in the ignition. “Here goes nothing,” she mumbles. She turns the key. The sound of the engine starting up is so loud against the morning silence. I brace myself for alarms. To see Dr. Lancaster or Yasmin or even campus security running toward us.

But no one comes.

Zoe inches down the gravel driveway. And again, it's
so loud
. The crunching of gravel beneath our tires is an avalanche. When we kick up a rock, it hits the underside of the van with a sound like a gunshot.

But no one comes.

We make it to the main road. I look back. I can no longer see the house.

“You have the directions?” Zoe asks.

I show her my phone as the automated voice says, “In a quarter mile, turn left.”

Zoe grins. “Then away we go.”

I DON'T TRULY
relax until we've been gone for an hour. Until the sun has come up, and we've gotten some coffee, and no one has chased us down.

Zoe turns on the radio. She finds a pop station and starts singing along with the latest Taylor Swift song, pounding a drumbeat on the steering wheel. When the song ends, she crows, “We did it, Thelma!”

“Thelma?”

“You wanna be Louise?”

Oh. Like the movie. “I don't actually know which one is which. Never seen it.”

“Me neither. But don't they go off on some big road trip?”

“I think so. I think they also drive off a cliff at the end. . . .”

“Well, let's hope it doesn't come to that.”

I still feel strange having this rapport with Zoe. If someone had told me two weeks ago that we'd be partners in crime—that we'd be
bantering
—I'd have laughed in their face.

She echoes my thoughts. “Who would've guessed, Barbs: you and me.”

I laugh. “Seriously.”

“Thanks for giving me a reason to jailbreak.”

“Are you kidding? Thank
you
. I couldn't do this without you.”

“They're gonna kill us,” Zoe says. But she doesn't sound worried. If anything, her smile only gets bigger.

We're quiet for a couple miles. Then, out of nowhere, she says, “Just tell me you're not doing this because of Andrew.”

I take a sip of my coffee: black, the way he always made it for me. “I'm not doing this because of Andrew.”

“Try again, and say it like you mean it.” She gives me the side-eye.

“I'm not—” I sigh. “Okay, maybe it is a little because of him. But I'm not here because he, um—”

“Shot you down?” Zoe inserts helpfully.

Now it's my turn to give her the side-eye. I'm not surprised that she knows. It's only surprising that she waited this long to bring it up. “Yeah, that. But, um, before that happened, he made me feel—”

“Swoony?” There's a snicker in her voice.

I glare at her. “Confident. Like I actually had a chance at, you know, life. Despite how awful the past few months have been.”

“I hear that. So what, exactly, happened between you two the other night?”

“I, uh. I kissed him.”

“Whoa! Way to make the first move.”

“Yeah, well, it didn't quite work out the way I wanted.”

“I didn't say it was a
smart
move. No offense.”

I take another sip of bitter black coffee. “But I really thought he liked me! He talked to me and he listened and he seemed like he cared about me. He was
there
for me.”

“That was his job. He did the same thing for me.”

Hearing her say that so casually—it's like someone's jabbing an icepick into my sternum. It makes me want to argue with her. “You don't understand—”

“Okay, tough-love time. Have you heard of this thing called transference?”

I shake my head.

“It's when you fall for your shrink. It can also be where you treat your shrink like a parent, if you have daddy issues or whatever. But basically, because the person is acting really invested in your life, helping you figure things out, you start to feel like there's a relationship there. But there's not. They're still your shrink.”

I frown. “How do you know about this?”

“My mom had an affair with her therapist a few years ago.” Zoe's grip on the steering wheel tightens. “If you tell anyone else that, I will murder you.”

“Understood.”

“Granted, the guy was a—” She calls him a few nasty names. “He basically set her up. But that's the reason my dad took her back after it was all said and done. She said it was transference—that she was getting something from the therapist she wasn't getting from my dad. One more thing to work out with her next shrink, right?”

I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the concept.
“It's a real thing? People falling for their therapists?”

“Yep.”

“Wow.” I pause. “But Andrew isn't a therapist.”

“He wants to be. He couldn't stop talking about his psych classes. How interesting it all is, learning how people's minds work.”

“Sounds like he talked to you a lot about school stuff. . . .” Once again, I'm a tiny bit jealous.

“I think he was trying to inspire me to find my own passion, once I quit tennis. Spoiler alert: it won't be psychology. Anyway, does that make you feel better?”

It does—and it doesn't. I still feel what I feel. I was still rejected by someone I really liked, only a couple weeks after being dumped by my previous boyfriend. I still have to look at every conversation Andrew and I had through a new lens. One that isn't quite so rose-colored.

“You probably shouldn't take my word for it. Having a messed-up mother doesn't make me an expert.” She looks in my direction, changing lanes. “And I mean it: if you tell anyone about my parents, I will hunt you down.”

My phone rings. Both of us jump. Zoe looks at the phone, where I've dropped it in the cup holder, like it's something alive. And vicious. I pick it up with two fingers and check the screen. It's my mom. I let the call go to voicemail, but it starts ringing again immediately.

“I think they know we're gone,” I tell Zoe.

“Don't answer.”

I let it go to voicemail again.

Maybe Zoe can tell I'm wavering, because she says, “So tell me about this ballet camp. Why is it so important?”

I fill her in about summer intensives and year-round programs and apprenticeships and company contracts. That takes some time. Then we sing along to the radio some more. We stop for a quick breakfast, a bathroom break, and more coffee. We talk about our schools and our hometowns. The people we dance and play tennis with. The best movies we saw recently. And we drive, and we drive, and we drive.

I STAND IN
front of the building, looking up. It's all gray stone and mirrored glass, simultaneously imposing and sturdy and sparkling. The way the morning sunlight is hitting the windows, I can't see in. But I know that the upper floors are all dance studios, built to look out over the city.

Bianca and I auditioned here together back in January. We stood in this spot. We took class in one of those studios. We got consecutive audition numbers so that we'd always dance in the same group. We spurred each other on with our energy and excitement. We calmed each other's nerves.

Today I have to go it alone.

The anxiety rises up in my stomach. I gulp it back down.

I wish I had time to call Bianca right now. I wish I'd thought to call her from the road. With everything that's
happened since Thursday, I never got a chance to write to her. I pull out my phone and shoot off a text:

Auditioning again in Nashville today. Long story—fill you in later. Wish me luck!

“Are you going in, or do I have to carry you?”

I tuck my phone back into my bag. “I'm going in.”

Zoe nods. “Okay. I don't really want to sit and wait for you, so I'm gonna walk around. Sightsee, or whatever. Text me when you're done?”

“Will do.”

She punches me in the shoulder. “Go get 'em, tiger.”

I give her a weak smile in return.

I pull open the heavy front door. I'm hit with a blast of cold air that smells slightly funky. It's that perpetual dance-studio scent. No matter how often you clean, no matter how many air fresheners you use, there's always an underlying odor of sweat and feet.

I walk up to the front desk. There's no one there, so I look around. At the portraits of company dancers that line the walls. At the posters advertising performances from the past few decades. I can hear the tinkling of a piano down the hall. Also the strains of a piece of classical music I don't recognize, a cello's mournful tone paired with a violin, sharp and swooping. And I hear voices. Girls in black leotards and pink tights are heading for the stairs. They look about my age. Which means they must be my
level. Or the level I'll be if I make it through today.

I will make it through today.

“Can I help you?”

I turn back to the desk. A gray-haired woman in a faded black pantsuit is standing there, bustling with some papers.

I clear my throat, which has gone dry. “Hi. I'd like to speak with Ms. Levanova?”

The woman looks me up and down, her gaze lingering in a way that makes me feel like my skin is on fire. “Dear, are you sure you're in the right place? The recreational and community classes are in our other building, across the street.”

That's all it takes. My inner voice starts chanting
Fat fat fat fat.
But even though my stomach is doing entrechat quatres and my heart is beating faster and faster, I stand my ground.

“Is this where the summer intensive is?”

“Yes, but it's audition-only. Orientation was yesterday.” The woman extends an arm back toward the door I came in. “Open classes are—”

“I auditioned. I was accepted. I was supposed to miss this first week, which meant I had to be on the wait list, and I found out on Friday you aren't taking anyone else from the wait list, but since I got in originally, I wanted to stop by and see if I can reaudition. . . .”

My voice is muffled through the roaring in my ears. Did I really come all this way only to get stopped by an overzealous receptionist?

“I'd really like the opportunity to show you what I can do—”

“What's going on?”

I can breathe again. The Russian accent is unmistakable. Ms. Levanova will remember me, because she's the one who auditioned me. After the audition class, she complimented my classical technique. Even if I look different, I don't look
that
different . . . right?

“Samantha? What are you doing here?” Ms. Levanova glides toward us on turned-out feet, like the hallway is a stage. “Did you not get our message? We're very sorry, but—”

“I got it. But I was—I was hoping I could convince you to change your mind.”

She gives me a pitying look. “Is not how it works, my dear.”

“Please. Just let me audition again. I belong here. I know it.” I'm
this close
to dropping to my knees. “Please.”

She stares me down. Unblinking. I try not to blink back. Not to shrink away. So much depends on this staring contest.

“I'll show her out—” the receptionist starts.

Ms. Levanova lifts a hand. “No, Dolores. Is okay.” She appraises me, and I think about the pounds and inches I've gained since the last time she saw me. The curves that weren't there before. This is the moment of truth. The moment I find out how much they really matter.

“One class. No guarantee.”

“Thank you!” I want to throw my arms around her. I want to jump up and down. I settle for squeezing my hands into fists and channeling everything I feel into them. “Thank you!” I say again, as my fists quake.

“Well, go!” Ms. Levanova says, fluttering her hand in a way that's both very Russian and very retired prima ballerina. “It will not do to be late!”

IN THE DRESSING
room, I drop my dance bag next to an empty locker and pull out the two leotards I brought. Black with a pink piping detail, or all-black with a lace back? The one with the pink makes my chest look smaller, but the one with the lace back cinches me in more at the waist. I look from one to the other, unable to make a decision.