How It Feels to Fly(30)

Plus, Katie, Yasmin, and Omar are baking cookies. I couldn’t go into the kitchen even if it was 7:59. Cookies are too tempting. Better to stay away.

“Just make sure you’re not sacrificing your happiness,” Andrew continues.

“I’m not. Why would you say that?” I look at him out of the corner of my eye.

“Caring about something can make you do things you shouldn’t.”

I gasp and then try to hide the fact that I gasped by coughing.

He knows. How could he possibly know about that—

It’s obvious. You’re not hiding anything—

He pats my back, between my shoulder blades, like he’s trying to dislodge whatever’s choking me. “Anyway,” he says, “I’m sorry today was rough.”

I gulp. I breathe.

He doesn’t know. No one does.

“I brought you something. Thought it might cheer you up.”

He holds out a single Hershey’s Kiss, flat on his palm. Its little flag waves in the evening breeze. “It’s dark chocolate. That means it’s healthy, right?”

I laugh, even as my eyes threaten to overflow. “That’s what the chocolate industry wants you to think.”

“No, there are studies about it. It’s . . . science,” he finishes, laughing with me.

“Oh, well if it’s science.” I take the candy from him. I haven’t had chocolate in . . . I don’t know how long. Mom won’t let it in the house. I swear, if I ate some in secret, even here, she could smell it on me. But I don’t want to say no to Andrew.

Instead I say, “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He stands. “I have to get back inside. I promised Dominic I’d talk to him about what college scouts are really looking for. He wanted to watch ESPN with me, but Dr. Lancaster has it blocked, since it might trigger your anxiety.”

“Not mine,” I say, my voice deliberately dry. “Bring on the college football.”

He laughs, softer this time. He squeezes my shoulder. “Don’t stay out here alone too long, okay?” He walks away, leaving me with the chocolate in my hand and a hummingbird in my chest.

Marcus used to bring me gifts.

Little things. Inexpensive—and sometimes downright cheap. But always personal. Meaningful. About me, or about him, or about us.

A flower from the park where we’d shared a picnic at a free outdoor concert—our first official date. He’d tried to dry the flower and press it flat, but it had ended up kind of shriveled and brown. I loved it anyway.

A Pacific Northwest Ballet refrigerator magnet, from when his family went on a trip to Seattle over fall break. He said since he couldn’t take me to see the company, he’d bring a little bit of the company to me.

A tiny Erlenmeyer flask on a key chain. Marcus was in our school’s science club and spent hours helping me with my chemistry homework before final semester exams.

A homemade gift certificate for unlimited concession-stand popcorn at his baseball games in the spring. I never used that one, but I kept the certificate folded in my wallet. I liked imagining him on his computer, picking out just the right fonts.

Marcus wasn’t perfect. It bugged him that I had to spend so much time at the ballet studio, that I couldn’t go out with him and his friends and their girlfriends every Saturday. And he didn’t always know what to say to me, especially when I saw him after something bad had happened at ballet. Comforting words weren’t his thing. But then I’d get a trinket in my locker, or tucked into the front pocket of my backpack, and I’d know he was there for me.

I study the Hershey’s Kiss Andrew gave me. I turn it over and over in my hands.

It reminds me of Marcus, and that hurts. But it also feels like the start of something new.

I tuck the Kiss into my pocket as the last rays of sunshine fade.





eleven


IN EIGHTH GRADE, BIANCA WENT THROUGH A climbing-as-cross-training phase. She got her parents to buy her a ten-class card at the local indoor rock wall for her birthday, and she convinced me to join her for her first session. She was a natural. I . . . was not. But she stayed by my side until I made it to the top of the wall, and she cheered louder than anyone when my feet landed back on solid ground.

I can’t help thinking about that ill-fated climbing lesson on Thursday morning. Instead of starting the day with our usual chat in the Dogwood Room, we hiked across campus to a ropes course. First we did low ropes—like moving a plank between a series of ever-smaller wooden platforms until we’d all reached the other side—cooperative problem-solving activities. Then we jumped into the high ropes. Now I’m dangling from a cargo net, wearing a harness and a dopey-looking helmet. Sweat is dripping down my face and back.

For the first time since arriving at Perform at Your Peak, I wish Bianca was here.

“Go, Sam! You’ve got this!” Yasmin calls from below me.

The net is loose, like a diagonal hammock. It’s taking all my upper-body strength to hold on. Still, I’m doing okay until Zoe starts up behind me, and Katie follows her. Then it’s like the net gets a mind of its own. Taut ropes become slack in an instant. I miss a step and find myself hanging by my arms. I’m surprised to feel, after a second of flailing, a hand under my right foot.

I look down, ready to say thanks, and Zoe grimaces at me. “Can you try not to fall on my head?”