A deafening bark pulls me from my morbid thoughts. “Split up!” I yell, pulling Eva with me off the main road and onto a sandy path leading into the woods. A quick glance behind me shows Luca and Kimber, hand in hand, running toward LuMac’s. That quick glance also shows that Sugar has chosen Eva and me as his conquests. Foamy drool drips from his snout.
“I’m pretty sure this is a scene right out of a horror movie,” Eva says.
“Just run!”
A little chuckle bubbles up and escapes Eva’s mouth as I zigzag us through trees.
“I can’t believe you’re laughing,” I say, gasping for air. “We’re about to get eaten.”
“Hey, this was your idea. Besides,” she says, barely winded, “I grew up in New York City, I can handle a damn Doberman.”
We carve a path across the sandy floor as Sugar’s bark reverberates through the blue-dark. It’s not long before I feel him nip at my heels. Literally.
The pull on my pants makes me lose my footing and trip over a root. Sprawling on the ground for the second time tonight, I mutter a thanks to the gods of teenage stupidity that Sugar seems startled by my fall and stops in his tracks instead of taking a chunk out of my leg.
Before I know it, Eva is pulling me to my feet and shoving me toward a huge and gnarly oak tree. Then she’s pushing me up, pushing my waist, my ass, my thighs. Good god, her hands are everywhere, but we’re moving up and away, one branch at a time until only barks trail behind us. Sugar has two paws on the tree trunk, blinking up at us like he’s sort of sad the game is over.
“Holy shit,” I say, my lungs gulping air. We’re both perched on a thick branch at least ten feet off the ground. Sugar whines for a few seconds, but then starts sniffing around the trunk.
“I can’t believe you wanted to do that for fun,” Eva says.
“Oh, come on, that was totally awesome,” I say, laughing. My tone is sarcastic, but this is exactly what I wanted. Not to get chased by a rabid dog exactly, but this. Heart pounding, fingertips tingling with adrenaline, an energy lighting up my veins that has absolutely nothing to do with paying rent or freaking out when my mother won’t pick up her phone.
Or lasagna verde cooked for a girl who’s not me, nails that aren’t mine coated in aubergine.
I push the thought away and take another deep breath. Beside me, Eva only sips at the air, barely out of breath and clearly in amazing shape from years of ballet. Like I couldn’t tell from her sleek calves and plank-like stomach.
Not that I’ve noticed.
Okay, I’ve definitely noticed.
Below us, Sugar lies down under the tree. He yawns and then rests his massive head on his paws. He looks pretty damn comfy for a bloodthirsty beast.
“Great. Now we’re stuck up here until he goes home,” I say. The tree, however, is not pretty damn comfy. The branches are gnarled and barely thick enough to hold my butt without lopping me over the edge.
“Sorry about earlier,” Eva says. She shifts around, scooting until her back is pressed against the trunk. At first, I think she’s talking about my mother, the dinner and the nails and the storming out, but then she goes on. “All the”—?she circles her hand in my direction—?“groping.”
“Oh.” I release a single laugh. “I think I can forgive a little ass grab. At least I still have an ass.”
“Good point.”
A silence settles over us. The air has turned even cooler, stars blinking in between the tree’s leaves. It’s quiet, the normal summer night noises hushed, giving me an unwelcome chance to think too many thoughts. Tonight has been one giant cluster.
Eva exhales and it sounds so content, I feel it relaxing me too. “Actually, that was really fun,” she says, smiling. “Just what I needed, really.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, just . . .” She waves a hand. “Distraction. Forgetting.”
“Is that what that was earlier?” I ask before I think better of it. “With my mother? Forgetting?”
She turns to look at me, her expression turning almost unbearably sad. “No. That was remembering.”
“Oh.”
“Does that bother you? Me hanging out with your mom?”
I don’t know what to say. What can I say? This girl next to me is sad and lonely. How can I begrudge her comfort, even if it’s found in my own mother?
And if I said, Yes, back the hell off, what then? Because, god help me, I don’t want to be a mess with Eva. I just want to be me.
“No,” I say, forcing my eyes on hers, forcing the tremors out of my voice, forcing myself to mean it.
Her shoulders visibly descend, relief clear in her exhaled breath.
“Good. That’s good,” she says softly, rubbing a hand across her forehead. She doesn’t look at me, but I watch her as a few tears bloom and slip down her cheeks. I’m aching to hold her hand, press my fingers against her back, anything to help. Surely my mother’s not the only one who can. Surely, Eva’s and my big world is still out there, waiting for us to slip back into it where we belong.
“Are you okay?” I ask instead, lacing my fingers together in my lap.
She nods and looks down, picking at a hangnail.
“Tell me something about her,” I say. “Something good. Anything you want.”
She lifts her head, staring into the tree branches cocooning around us. After a few moments and a few deep breaths, she starts talking. “There was this café on Sixtieth Street. It’s pretty famous and sort of a tourist trap, but it’s near the dance studio and my mom and I would go there after class every Tuesday and get frozen hot chocolates.”
Her eyes mist over with the memory. “I miss those stupid overpriced drinks. There was usually a huge line outside the café, but it never mattered to Mom, even though she was always tired after teaching. We’d stand there for an hour, talking about everything and nothing. Even when it was freezing outside, we’d wait. I miss that. Just . . . standing there with her, you know?”
I nod, even though I’m not sure I do know.
“I miss ballet,” she goes on. “I miss the movement, the line my arms would make with the rest of my body. The smell of resin and varnish that coated the hardwoods in the studio. I miss New York.”
“Do you really hate it here?”
She shakes her head. “I don’t know. It’s where I need to be. I miss home but I can’t be there, you know? It’s not New York without her. It’s not anything.”
“Eva—?”
“I want to go back. I just don’t know if I can. New York, ballet, any of it. I used to want to teach ballet like my mother did. She loved it so much.”
“Do you love it?”
A line creases between her eyes. “Mom made me try out different things when I was little, but I always came back to dancing. It’s in my blood. I loved that I could forget everything and anything. Or remember it. Whatever I wanted. I was in total control when I danced, but I also wasn’t, like something bigger than me, bigger than everything that made me anxious inhabited my body, moving my arms and legs. I wanted to help other girls feel like that. Especially girls like me.”
“Wow.”
She laughs. “You mean, Wow, that sounds ridiculous.”
“No. Not at all. I get that.”