I pored over glimpses of her. After my performances were over, Aunt Jess kept the camera running when I ran out to meet her in the lobby. So I got to see someone who looked exactly like me do things I had no memory of doing. Because there, in the lobby, was Win.
He was the first person I’d hug when I arrived on the scene, and we’d keep holding hands as I accepted congratulations from Jess and my friends. He was cute in a somewhat rumpled way, light brown hair curling slightly into his gray eyes, shirts wrinkled, shoes scuffed.
But he was a stranger. I’d never seen him talk or move in real life, at least not that I remembered. In the videos he seemed almost shy, though maybe it was the context—he hung back, smiled a lot, but let me interact with my audience.
“Ari, who are you wearing! Turn and smile for the camera, darling!” Jess riffed and zoomed in the camera close to my face; I swatted her away and leaned on Win’s arm to give him a kiss.
“Guys, deceptively youthful parental authority, standing right in front of you.”
The old Ari ignored Jess and casually went en pointe in her sneakers to whisper in Win’s ear, and I replayed the moment a dozen times hoping to make out what I was saying, but I could never quite tell.
“—authority, standing right in front of you.” Lean, kiss, toes, whisper.
“—rity, standing right in front of you.” Kiss, toes, whisper.
“—standing right in front of you.” Toes, whisper.
“—right in front of you.” Whisper.
It was private forever between those two—both of them gone. I couldn’t be nostalgic, though, or sad or wistful. How could I miss a precious moment with someone that, as far as I knew, I’d never met?
Mostly I watched for some clue—a hint—to what on earth made that girl punish me like this, taking away dance and leaving me with nothing.
And maybe somewhere in there, there would be a hint to how I could get it back.
One more thing about Ari. Just one more.
When she was invited to join the Manhattan Ballet junior corps, January of our junior year, she couldn’t stop crying.
No one else knows this. Not Diana, not Kay, not her aunt Jess. I didn’t tell Markos or Kara or my mom.
We sat in her bedroom while her aunt was at work. She had curled into a ball in the corner of her twin bed, back against the wall. I sat in place of the pillow, her head in my lap.
“Wh-wh-wh-what is hap-hap-happening to me?” she asked, taking these desperate, heaving little gasps of breath in between almost every word.
“You’re sad,” I said.
“N-n-n-n-n,” she said, meaning no. “I’m g-going to b-b-be a—a—a prima ballerina.”
“I know.”
“I’m g-g-g-going to l-l-live in New York and take classes w-w-with legends and—and—and—”
“I know.”
“I never cr-cr-cy.”
“I know you don’t. You’re Ari Madrigal.”
She broke down into another sob, and I stroked her hair away from her face. Soft hair, damp from her tears. Her skin was hot and each breath rattled her whole body.
“If I were you,” I said, just loud enough for her to hear, “I’d be scared. Scared to leave home, scared to be around strangers. Scared to mess up. Or scared to not mess up.”
She hiccupped, still crying, but I could tell she was listening.
“But luckily I’m not you. You are. You’ve got no reason to be scared. They picked you because they saw how talented you are. How passionate. They’ll be lucky to have you.”
“But I’m sc-sc-scared, too.”
I sighed, and the breath ruffled the dry hairs around her neck. “Good.”
She stopped crying out of surprise. “Good?”
“We have something in common.”
She lifted her head and swiveled so that she was sitting curled in my lap, legs tucked over one of my knees, head right above my collarbone. I could rub her back now, and I did.
“You probably think I’m an idiot,” she said, with only minimal gasps.
“I will never think you’re an idiot.”
“Never?”
“Never.”
“What if I move away and you forget me?”
“Never.”
“What if I go to New York and root for the Yankees?”
“Not even then.”
She snuggled closer, chin nuzzling my neck. “So you’ll never leave me.”
“Never.”
“You’re mine, then.”
I bent my head so I could kiss her. Salty, warm. “Always.”
“We always go to the bonfire.” Diana opened my closet doors and rooted around violently. “Always. No arguments—we’re picking up Kay in ten minutes.”
I swiveled in my desk chair, wishing Diana would leave so I could go back to watching my dance videos. It had been a month since I took the memory spell, the weeks passing at a crawl, as if I were stuck in a picture, expression fixed. I still couldn’t dance. August first—our move-out date, settled months ago—was less than a month away. Jess had started collecting boxes, which she piled behind the doorways of every room.