Live Through This (2 page)

“I don’t go on double diamonds.”

He motions as if to wipe his forehead. “Phew.”

I turn away and stare at the never-ending grayness outside my raindrop-covered window. My eyes threaten to get teary, but I won’t let it happen.

No.

No.

The truck coasts to the bottom of the hill that separates our town into two sections, through the intersection that leads to school, and finally, into Reece’s assigned spot in the Kenburn High parking lot. He turns off the engine, but neither of us makes a move to get out.

“Is something wrong?” he asks. “You don’t seem like yourself this morning.”

I stare at my hands on my lap, at his hands still on the steering wheel. I breathe in. Out. “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night.”

“Are you sure that’s what it is? Because, I mean, you’re allowed to change your mind about the trip, you know.”

“No, I want you to come with us.” It physically hurts, deep inside my chest, but I look into his eyes anyway. “I mean it.”

And I do. I really, really do. Somehow, someway, I’ll make it happen.

We walk toward the school, umbrella-less. Me, holding my gym bag stuffed with clothes and books. Him, lugging his saxophone case and slouching under the too-loose straps of his backpack.

Over the gray, under the gray, through the gray.

Snap out of it, Coley.

Deep breath.

Last night wasn’t real. It didn’t happen.

Deep breath.

It was a nightmare. Just another screwed-up dream.

Deep breath.

None of it has ever happened. This. Right now. This is what’s real.

Deep breath.

This is my life.

Sloooow exhale.

I lift my chin and put my shoulders back.

Just like always, Reece holds the door for me and we make
our way inside where lockers are slamming and dozens of conversations are in progress. Just like always, I wave and say “hi” as I pass friends. At the second corridor, we pause and Reece looks down at me.

“See you at lunch?” I ask, flashing a dance-competition-worthy smile.

He smiles back—relieved, I think. “Yes, you will.”

This is what I do; it’s what I’m good at. I was voted “Freshman Girl—Best Smile” last year for legitimate reasons.

I go my way and he goes his. But after about ten feet, I remember something important. “Hey, Reece?”

“Yeah?” he asks, turning.

“Have I ever told you that you’re just like an angel and your skin makes me cry?”

He laughs. “That’s by . . . Radiohead?”

I nod and dance away.

This
is my life.

CHAPTER 3

A
t the end of the day, I rush to Gym B and drop my bag and poms by the wall. I’m always the first to arrive for dance practice now that I change in the bathroom between fifth and sixth period. My avoiding-the-locker-room situation isn’t ideal, but it’s necessary to keep peace on the team.

“All by yourself again, Sterling?” Josh calls out as he and three other guys from the wrestling team head toward their mats. “Where are all the other hot cheerleaders?”

Boys who call me by my last name are almost as annoying as the ones who can’t tell the difference between dancers and cheerleaders, but I know that this one is teasing me.

“Cheerleaders in
here
?” I say, looking around. “I’ve never seen such a thing. But maybe you can tell me where the rest of your fellow gymnasts are?”

He shakes his head and we both laugh.

The partition between Gym A and Gym B is still open, and
I spot Noah over on his side with a few of the other basketball players, warming up. It’s loud already with balls bouncing and rubber soles screeching over the floor. I have a couple of minutes before my practice officially begins, so I jog over to him.

Noah’s red-brown hair is flattened onto his forehead from wearing a hat all day. He shoots from the free-throw line and makes it. “Oh, there you are,” he says. “I was just thinking how very sad it is that I haven’t seen you since fifth period.”

I make a run for his ball. “Yes, it feels like an eternity for me, too.”

We’ve never planned it, but Noah and I end up in almost all of the same classes every year. It’s been this way since kindergarten. This semester, we’re together for everything except math sixth period—and that’s just because he’s so much better with numbers than most sophomores.

I try to take a shot from outside, but Noah blocks it easily and stands dribbling beside me. “I was delivered tragic news that my sister’s having one of her girly parties tonight,” he says. “You’re coming this time, right?”

“Unless my mom pulls an unexpected ‘family night’ demand. And she might since Bryan’s home from college and everything.”

“No family night allowed,” he says, shaking his head. “You need to be at my house so that no crazy shit goes down.”

I tilt my head like I’m confused, but I know way more about what happened two weeks ago with Noah and Kimber than I’ll ever let on to him. “What do you mean? Give me an example of something crazy that would happen in my absence.”

“Just be there, Coley. You know you want to.”

I smile. “I’ll see what I can do.”

He shoots and
swish
! “Piper must not know that Bryan’s home because the angsting hasn’t started yet.”

I gaze toward Gym B where Piper—Noah’s older sister, who also happens to be my squad captain—is doing splits. “Maybe she’s finally over him?”

“Doubtful,” he says.

“Hey, Crowne!” the head basketball coach calls out. “Your girlfriend’s joining us?”

Noah yells back, “No way, Coach! She likes being on a
winning
team.”

Coach Hutchinson points to the ground in front of him. “Get over here.
Now.
And your smart mouth just earned you an extra thirty laps after practice.”

“Uh, gotta go,” Noah says, giving me a quick wink before he runs off.

If Coach Laine ever became as mad at me as Noah’s coach gets at him, I’d be a wreck. Of course, I would never give her a reason to.

I rush to my own side of the gym and slip through right before a few players pull the partition shut. Most of my teammates have set their things down near mine to get warmed up. Ming and Dia are running laps, so I hurry over to them. Dia’s curly, dark hair is pulled into a French braid, but Ming’s shiny black ponytail swings wildly left to right with every move she makes.

“Wow, that’s some distracting hair,” I say in a stern voice like Coach Laine’s. “Points off for you, chickadee.”

Dia scoots over so that I can jog between them. Ming flicks at my tight hair bun.

“Coley, we were just dissecting you,” Dia says.

“That sounds gross. I’m glad I missed it.”

Ming nudges my arm. “Don’t look now. Alejandra’s totally giving us the evil eye.”

I don’t look. I never look Alejandra’s way if I can help it.

“Hey, wait a sec,” Ming says. “What’s that on your neck?”

My back stiffens, but I force a laugh. “Oh, this? Just a hickey.”

“What?”
Dia and Ming shriek at the same time.

I laugh again—for real this time. “I’m totally kidding. It’s from my curling iron. Slippery thing.”

“Listen up, girls!” Coach Laine calls out from behind us. “Yes, this is the last school day of the year, but we’ve got a
tough workout today. So don’t be acting like you’re already on winter break!”

We pick up the pace.

“Just two more hours,” Dia says.

“And then two glorious weeks of freedom,” Ming says.

“I can’t
wait
,” I say.

Our twenty-member dance team is pretty much run like boot camp and we work harder than most sports teams at school. There are plenty of times when we complain about how tough it is having two-hour weekday and four-hour Saturday practices all school year. But the truth is, whenever we rock a performance or win a competition, we know without a doubt that it’s all worth it. Still, I’ve been counting down the days until this vacation, and I’m relieved that it’s finally almost here.

We finish a few more laps, and then Ming, Dia, and I sit on the floor for stretches.

Dia and I both turn at the waist and look over our shoulders, facing each other. “Don’t you want to hear what Ming and I were saying about you?” she asks.

I’m not sure I do, but I twist the other way toward Ming and say, “You know it.”

“Well,” Dia says. “We were talking about you and Noah, of course—”

“There is no me and Noah,” I say, for probably the three billionth time since seventh grade.

“And that’s good,” Ming says, “because you and Noah hooking up would be practically incestuous.”

“Eww,” Dia and I say together.

Ming goes on. “I’m trying to figure out what exactly is going on with you and that certain someone you’ve been eating lunch with in the band room.”

My heart jumps, but I try not to let on. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“No?” Ming smiles slyly. “True or false? A tall, super-skinny tenor-sax player is going on vacation with you and your family.”

I can’t even try to deny it; Ming’s boyfriend, Xander, happens to be friends with Reece, and is the likeliest source of her information.

Keeping my legs straight in front of me on the floor, I lean over my knees and reach to hold on to my feet. “You know, I could probably answer your question better if I had any idea what a tenor sax even is.”

Dia snort-laughs. “It’s the instrument that Reece Kinsey plays. But something tells me you already knew that.”

“Oh, right. The answer is ‘maybe true.’ But jeez—he isn’t
that
skinny.” I lift my head in time to see Ming and Dia exchange grins. If my arms were long enough, I’d give them
each a push. “He might meet us up there for the last couple of days,” I say. “It isn’t a big deal.”

“Maybe not to
you
,” Ming says.

I want to ask her what she means—she thinks it’s a big deal, or Reece does?—but Coach Laine chooses that moment to get things started. “On your feet, everyone.”

We split into our squads. Like always, Alejandra frowns when Ming, Dia, and I come over to her and Hannah, but it isn’t like we have any more choice in this than she has.

Piper stands in front of us with her hands clasped behind her back. In her squad-captain voice, she says, “I think I have fixes for the kinks in our new routine. Let’s try it out today, okay?”

So we do. We spend two hours synchronizing arms, legs, bodies, heads, hands, feet, props. Two hours mixing in the right kicks, high kicks, leg lifts, splits, jump splits. Two hours stopping and starting, stopping and starting, trying this and trying that. We work it, and we work it, and we work it some more.

Five. Six. Seven. Eight. One. Two. Three. Four.

Clap, clap, clap, clap. Clap, clap, clap, clap.

Just when I’ve had too much, when I’m sure that my legs will give way if I have to do
one more
high kick, Piper tells us to
“Keep going!”

Don’t stop. Let’s go, let’s go. Get it right, get it right, get it right. Higher, higher, higher, higher. Kick, kick, kick, kick, kick.

I do everything she says, when she says it, how she says it. She knows what we’re capable of better than we do. She knows how to make us push through and never stop until long after every wrestler has cleared out, until we’ve given everything we can, until the end of practice finally comes.

“All right, chickadees,” Coach Laine yells. “That’s that. Now grab your water and let’s have a seat.”

“Time for another inspirational circle time,” Ming says, panting a little.

Everyone on the team drags themselves to the center of the gym and plops down—red-faced and sweaty—in a half circle around Coach Laine. I hold my metal bottle against my cheek to cool down. Next to me, Piper smooths back a few of her auburn strands, which came loose during our workout.

Coach gets right to it. “This winter break is going to be a vacation in the sense that no practices are scheduled. But it is absolutely not an excuse to take a vacation from taking care of yourselves. Competition season is on the way, and starting in January, practices are going to get even more intense. So eat right, do your daily stretching and workouts, and don’t get soft. And for those of you going on ski trips”—she looks straight at
me—“there will be no pulling, spraining, or breaking of any body parts. We need you. Understood?”

I smile. “Understood.”

“Good. And there’s one more thing. This is huge, so listen up, everyone. In some cultures, the start of a new year is the time where everyone who has wronged another person has to apologize before the Day of Repentance. Have any of you ever heard of that?”

I haven’t, but a few other girls nod.

“All right,” Coach says. “I’m implementing this concept. The deal is that there will not only be apologizing going on, but there will also be forgiving. I don’t care why anyone is holding a grudge against anyone else on this team, but it’s going to stop.”

Ming rolls her eyes, just enough for me—and not Coach—to notice. I give a small shrug and sip my water.

Coach Laine looks around at all of us. “If you think I’m talking about you, I
am
. Get it together, ladies. Your last chance for repentance will be the first day back after the break. If you haven’t found a way to make peace before practice that afternoon, you’ll be running laps until your legs fall off and dancing in the back row for the rest of your high school careers. Hate to say it, but I’m not kidding. So get a little R and R—but not too much—keep in shape, and come back here in seventeen
days as a team with one hundred percent unity, ready to work harder than you’ve ever worked before!”

All four of the team captains set down their water, push themselves off the floor, and clap and scream like cheerleaders. I can feel the stares of several of my teammates as they stand as well, but no matter what any of them might think, this Day of Repentance isn’t my problem to solve.

I jump to my feet, pull Ming up, and cheer the loudest of everyone.

•    •    •