How It Feels to Fly(6)

“Can you hold on to your questions for Andrew until Jenna has finished?” Dr. Lancaster asks Zoe.

“Whatever,” Zoe mutters, slouching back in her chair.

“Jenna?”

“It’s fine, I’m done,” Jenna answers, voice tight.

“Okay. Zoe?”

“Pass,” Zoe mutters.

Dr. Lancaster waits a beat, but no one else speaks. “Andrew and Yasmin were sitting where you are now, just a few years ago,” she tells us. “They have a lot of insight into what you’re going through. I encourage you to chat with them outside of the group setting, especially if you hear something from one of them that resonates with you.”

I glance over at Andrew to see that he’s looking at me. I look away fast, embarrassed.

“Now, I know it’s not easy to open up to people you’ve just met,” Dr. Lancaster continues, “even with the icebreakers we’ve done so far. So I want to start this morning’s conversation in a way that shouldn’t be too intimidating. I want all of you to tell the group about a time you performed at your absolute best.”

Crickets.

“Don’t be shy. You’re all highly skilled in your fields. Brag a little.”

Go on. Brag, my inner voice snorts. Like you have anything to brag about.

I look around the circle, waiting for someone else to be the first to talk.

It’s not that I haven’t had great performances. I have. There are those amazing days when my body does exactly what it needs to. My spot is solid, so my pirouettes whirl effortlessly and stop on a dime. My jumps are buoyant and my leaps soar. It’s like I’m moving in slow motion and fast-forward, all at once.

On those days, I almost forget what I look like.

The rest of the time, I’m chasing that high. I need to feel that joy, that power, that ease again. Those wonderful days remind me why I love ballet so much, in spite of everything that’s clawing at me.

“I—I have something?” Katie speaks up from my left.

“Yes!” Dr. Lancaster looks thrilled. “Tell us.”

“Um. I guess it was, like, a year and a half ago? At Regionals?” Her voice is high-pitched, and getting squeakier by the moment. She’s turned a deep shade of pink. “I got a personal best on the uneven bars, and I came in fourth overall. So I got to go to Nationals.”

“Impressive!” Dr. Lancaster says. “What did you feel like that day?”

“Everything felt . . . easy?” Katie frowns and bites at her thumbnail. “Not easy, like easy. But I knew my body would do what it was supposed to. So I guess I felt ready. Oh, and my dad was there. He can’t come to every meet, so I wanted him to see me do well.”

“Wonderful, Katie. Thank you for sharing.”

Katie smiles, relieved.

Dr. Lancaster looks around the circle. “Dominic. Tell us about your best game.”

Dominic’s been leaning back in his chair like he’s too cool to be here. I can picture him in a classroom, in the back row, laughing with his buddies and throwing crumpled-up sheets of notebook paper at the nerds at the front. But when Dr. Lancaster calls on him, he startles. Then he puffs out his chest and sticks out his chin.

“My best game—you mean, like, all of ’em?”

“Pick one,” Dr. Lancaster says dryly.

Dominic looks toward the ceiling, making an exaggerated thinking-hard face. “Okay, so at last year’s state semifinal, I threw six TD passes. No incompletes in four quarters. I was game MVP. Again.”

“How did you feel?” Dr. Lancaster asks. “What were you thinking about?”

“I was pumped! And focused. I trusted my arm, and I trusted my team. I knew we could beat those guys. And we did. Obviously.”

“And did you have fun?”

Dominic snorts. “Course I did. Who doesn’t love winning?”

“Thanks, Dominic,” Dr. Lancaster says. “Anyone else?”

With a little nudging, Omar talks about playing George Gibbs in a regional theater company’s production of Our Town last year. “It was my first dramatic role,” he says. He moves as lot as he talks, shifting in his seat and pulling at the neck of his shirt. “Before that, I was just the scrawny, dorky kid who used to be in those cereal commercials. But after Our Town, I guess people knew what I could do onstage.”

Then Jenna remembers the first time she landed her triple-loop, triple-toe-loop combination in competition. “I worked on it for months,” she tells us, smoothing back a strand of black hair that’s come loose from her slick ponytail. “It was exciting to stick it.”

Zoe talks about playing tennis with her older brother when they were both kids. It’s kind of sweet until she says, “And then my parents basically made tennis my job. Flash-forward to me getting stuck here with you crazies. Which is awesome.” She gives us a sarcastic thumbs-up.

I’m the only one left to speak. My mouth is dry. I can feel tension creeping up from my lower back, wrapping around my shoulder blades, gripping my neck. But I push all that aside. This isn’t the time to use my “pass.” Not yet. Not when we’re talking about good memories. I say, “Nutcracker last December. I was alternating Dewdrop Fairy with one of the other girls. A senior.”

“I’m sure you were exquisite,” Dr. Lancaster says.