How It Feels to Fly(8)

Sure enough: “I wanted to tell you I’m sorry, again.”

“It’s okay,” I say, waiting for this moment to be over. For us to move on.

“I’m gonna make it up to you. Getting off on the wrong foot like that.”

“You don’t have to—”

“Yeah. I do. I want to. I will. So . . . friends?”

I say, brightly, “Friends! Great.” My smile is on full wattage. And it does its job. Andrew looks relieved.

“So do you want to be blindfolded first? Or do you want me to start?”

“Um. You go.” I want—I need—to see what he looks like, so I’ll know what to expect when it’s my turn. So I can glimpse what he’ll see of me. I wish I could go a step further. See what my body looks like through outside eyes. Without the filter of my own head, and without the inner voice that mocks and shouts and hisses.

Andrew ties the blindfold around his head. In the sunlight, his wavy hair is the color of wet sand. It falls over the blue blindfold like one of those sand-in-a-bottle sculptures you can make at a kiosk in the mall. But not ugly.

Frankly, nothing about Andrew is ugly. He’s not my usual type—if one serious boyfriend counts as a type—but I like what I see. He’s taller than me, and while he’s not made of muscle, he looks like he takes care of himself. Last night he was working the farm-boy thing in a T-shirt and faded jeans, but today he’s a little more dressed up—I guess because he’s in “peer adviser” mode. He’s wearing a deep-green polo shirt tucked into a pair of khaki pants. And he— “Uh, Sam? You have to say something.”

I feel my face flush.

Nice. You’re checking him out, and he just wants to get on with it.

“Sorry!” I say, with a little laugh that rings wrong in my ears. But thinking about how Andrew is cute in a different way than Marcus is cute has me doing exactly what I don’t want to be doing—thinking about Marcus—and now I’m feeling wobbly. Wobblier. It’s like I’m walking a tightrope, and on one side is outer me and on the other is inner me, and if I fall, the whole circus tent is going to collapse.

Everything’s already collapsed. You’re delusional if you think otherwise.

“Sorry,” I say again fast, almost to myself. I look in all directions and then choose the sidewalk that cuts around the side of the house, past the row of pine trees, heading toward the campus woods. “Turn to your right.”

Andrew swings right and almost walks into the lamppost at the foot of the stairs.

“Whoa, stop!” I run to his side, grabbing his arm. His bicep tightens under my grip like he’s surprised I touched him. I let go and step back, feeling even more flustered. “Um. Turn back to the left.” Andrew inches left. “A little more. A little more. Now walk straight.”

He takes a step, arms extended in front of him. Another step. And another. Like each time, he’s not sure whether the ground will rise up to meet him. When we get into a rhythm, he starts making conversation. “So, where are you from?”

“Outside Chattanooga,” I say. “You?”

“North Georgia. Small town. You won’t know it. Trust me.”

We turn the corner and I start describing what’s in front of us, like Dr. Lancaster instructed. “We’re going around the side of the house. By the woods. There’s a big grassy field, and then a bunch of redbrick campus buildings. You can see the mountains in the distance.”

Perform at Your Peak is in North Carolina, which means my home is on the other side of those mountains. So is the ballet intensive I’ll start three weeks from today.

If they don’t kick you out the moment they see you.

“There’s a greenhouse to our right,” I continue, trying not to let my inner voice derail me. “With a vegetable garden. And there’s a gazebo in front of us. Set back in the woods a little. Looks like no one’s gone over there yet.”

“Oh yeah, the gazebo. Let’s go check it out.”

His words make me pause. He’s been here before. I’d forgotten. “This is weird,” I tell him.

“What’s weird?”

“I’m describing stuff to you that you’ve already seen.”

“It was three years ago,” he jokes. “I barely remember.”

“Still.”

“It’s not really about the landscape, Sam,” he says, his voice growing earnest. “It’s about learning to trust each other.”

“Right. Okay.” I guide him off the path and across the lawn. Andrew keeps his arms held stiffly out in front of him. That, plus his polo and khakis and his slow progress forward, makes him look like a preppy zombie.

“So, what year are you?” he asks.

“I’ll be a junior. What year are you?”

“I’ll be a junior too. But in college, obviously.”

“Oh. Right.” The age difference between us: another thing that separates Andrew from Marcus.

Stop thinking about Marcus. He dumped you. Get over it.

“So, do you like college?” I ask Andrew, wincing right away at how young the question makes me sound. “I mean, do you like the University of Georgia?”

“Yeah, it’s great.”

“Even after you quit football?”