The nose-breathing didn’t work. I was crying, and so was Diana. Ugly, gulping crying. I thought, You don’t deserve to cry, which only made me cry harder. “I was always going to go. I should’ve been gone already. What’s the difference if it’s for the Manhattan Ballet or not?”
She opened and closed her mouth, then wiped her eyes and put her hands on her hips. “Give me some time to think of a reason.”
I hugged her. It was a kind of lurchy hug because my calves froze up halfway across the room, but it worked—I latched on and wouldn’t let go. I was not a hug person, so I didn’t know the secret of hugs until that moment: They’re not only one person’s effort. You hold each other up.
Maybe it was stupid to leave Diana now that I was finally being honest with her. Part of me thought that would be enough, to lean on Diana and let her get me through this. But a bigger part of me knew that what I needed more than anything was a blank slate—and not from hekame this time.
“I’m afraid,” I said.
Diana let go and took half a step back. “Of Cal?”
“No. I mean in the future—when I lose someone else, like I lost Win. I’m worried it’ll be more than I can handle.”
She nodded but didn’t say anything.
What else was there to say?
I didn’t think I’d choose to forget someone again. Not now, knowing what I did about the costs: to the hekamist to make the spell, with her food, blood, and will; to everyone else, who had to carry their pain alone; and to me—not only the loss of dance but losing the connection between what I was and what I will be.
Until I walked into Waters Hardware for the last time, I’d thought that my parents’ death was safely stored away in the past. But the past isn’t past—it’s who we are every second of the day.
Cal and I both forgot things and became different people than we would’ve been otherwise. So here’s the big question: What would I have been like if I’d kept the memory of my parents’ death? I used to think I’d be broken, damaged goods forever. But maybe I’d have been a better person. I didn’t mean “good” or “perfect.” Better. More whole.
“What are you going to do now?” Diana whispered.
I told her the truth. “I don’t know.”
But not knowing didn’t make me feel trapped or out of control. It made me free.
Jess found us a place on the Lower East Side. It’s tiny and practically windowless and funny smells drift up from the sinks. But the stairs outside our apartment door go up to the roof, where someone left a rusted lawn chair.
I climb, legs wobbling, and settle in the chair. The East River’s right in front of me; across it, Brooklyn. To my left I can see the top of the Chrysler Building, to my right, more river. We’re surrounded by water again.
Tomorrow I start senior year at a new school. A normal high school, no dance, where no one knows me and I know no one. It’s dark out and hot and humid and smells like exhaust and garbage. I’ve been reading a lot—it makes me forget my uncooperative body—and writing to Diana and Kay, but at night I come up here to think. I can’t change the choices I’ve made, or try to piece together the million alternate Aris that might have been. Instead I sit on the roof and try to answer Diana’s question for myself.
What am I going to do?
Who am I going to be?
Would I be Markos, an asshole with a heart of gold—or at least silver?
Would I be desperate but bold like Kay?
Open and sincere like Diana?
Would I give myself away to do one good thing?
I only have the rest of my life to find out. It’s time to get started.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers ..................................................................
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thank you to my family, who hopefully will accept this book as my apology for the many years of leaping in front of the computer to block them from reading what I was writing; to my friends, who are smart, funny, and honestly let’s just say it: the best people in the world; to my agent, Tina Wexler, and my editor, Donna Bray, whose insights were smart and thoughtful and often simply right every step of the way; to everyone else at Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins, including Alessandra Balzer, Kate Jackson, Jordan Brown, Viana Siniscalchi, Bethany Reis, and Maya Packard; to all my colleagues and mentors at Abrams Books, including Susan Van Metre, Howard Reeves, and Tamar Brazis; to my brilliant classmates at Vermont College of Fine Arts, the Keepers of the Dancing Stars, and the incredible VCFA faculty, including my advisors A. M. Jenkins, Rita Williams-Garcia, Franny Billingsley, and Tim Wynne-Jones; to Jen Jude, who didn’t flinch when I asked her about arson and obstructing justice and statutes of limitations (and, I must add, all legal mistakes in the story are mine and mine alone); to Skila Brown, Amy Rose Capetta, Lindsay Eyre, Erin Hagar, Stefanie Lyons, Kristin Sandoval, and Amy Zinn, who read early drafts and gave invaluable advice and encouragement; and finally, to my husband, Kyle Gilman, who, in addition to the daily love and support that helped me to write this book, also solved many plot problems before he even read a word. Who needs a hekamist when you have a Kyle?