My eyes well up with tears. But this time it’s anger. It’s all anger. Because my mother thinks some thin girl is living inside me when the truth is, I am right here. I am the same Millie inside and out. I want to believe that. I want so badly for it to be true. But I have to confront the possibility that maybe my mother is right. Maybe it’s too much effort to change the world. Maybe the only way to survive is to change myself.

I have an awful taste in my mouth at the thought.

Mom interprets my angry tears as self-resignation, and when she hugs me, it takes everything in me not to roar at her to get away from me.

In the end, she was right and I was wrong.

Callie

Thirty-Two

I’m in San Francisco. The whole team is buzzing with energy. Of course we all want to win the big prize, but at this point the fact that we’ve even made it all the way to Nationals is a dream so surreal none of us can quite believe it.

I groan into the carpet.

Except I’m not in San Francisco. I’m lying facedown on my bedroom floor, counting carpet fibers with my eyelashes. I have literally nothing scheduled for the foreseeable future. No dance practice. No loser sleepover party or whatever the hell it was. No job.

I’ve even studied. FOR FINALS THAT DON’T START FOR TWO MORE WEEKS. I have a research paper on natural selection due next week, and I turned it in nine days early. My teacher asked if it was a prank. I assured him it was not.

“Callie!” my mom calls from downstairs. “You’ve got company!”

“I don’t have any friends,” I call back, but my voice is muffled by the carpet.

After a moment, there’s a faint knock on the door. “Come in.”

The door creaks open.

“Whoa,” says Mitch. “Quite the situation we have here.”

I flip over onto my back.

I’m wearing a holey T-shirt, my most stretched-out sports bra, and paint-splattered jean shorts from when my mom decided she wanted to redo the bathroom but took nine shades of blue to find the perfect shade. Basically, I’ve sort of ghosted Mitch since he gave me a ride home, because I just have zero will to be around anyone right now.

“Well, I saw the national dance-team competition was on ESPN 2. You weren’t answering my texts, and I thought you could use some company.” He pulls a bag out from behind the door. “And as many obnoxiously flavored chips as I could find.”

I sit up. I still don’t really feel up for hanging out, but I’m not going to send him home and ruin the only decent friendship/unlabeled sort of romantic thing I have going. “You got any Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in there?”

“If they sell it at the Grab N’ Go, I’ve got it.”

I squint at him for a long moment. “How do you feel about hate-watching this dance competition?”

“You’re looking at a Guy Fieri hate-watching pro here.”

“Well, let’s hope we get ESPN 2.” I hop up and swipe the bag from his hand and race down the stairs as he follows me.

I stop abruptly halfway down the stairs and spin around. He stops short just a step above me, and my nose is practically pressed into his chest.

“Sorry,” I say. “I just wanted to say thanks for coming over.”

“Why be miserable alone when we could be miserable together? With chips?”

I smile.

“Baby,” Mama calls from the kitchen, “Kyla and I are running some errands. Y’all okay by yourselves?”

I look up to Mitch, our bodies pressing together with every exhale. “Yeah,” I say. “We’re good.”

Yeah, if we don’t kiss pretty soon I’m going to explode.

Which is why it makes no sense when the two of us settle on opposite sides of the couch, just about as far away from each other as we can manage. My first physical interactions with Bryce were usually lubricated with alcohol, so these skittish butterfly feelings I’m having right now are not something I know how to combat.

I flip through the channels until landing on ESPN 2, which is definitely not part of our basic cable package, but something Keith must have snuck in when my mom wasn’t paying attention.

I dig through the bag of chips and pull out some pineapple-and-ham-pizza flavored ones. “I want this to be my job,” I say. “Coming up with ridiculous chip flavors.”

Mitch laughs. “I can’t believe someone gets paid to do that. I would want, like, holiday-themed chips. Like Thanksgiving dinner or hot dog with all the fixings for the Fourth of July.”

“Oooh! Or like pumpkin-spice chips for Halloween.”

“Oh, gross. You lost me there!”

I toss the Grab N’ Go bag to him. “You mean you can fathom Thanksgiving dinner chips, but pumpkin is just too much of a stretch of the imagination?”

He shrugs. “It doesn’t suit my palate.”

I shake my head. “Well, just you wait. When I’m lead chip scientist or whatever, pumpkin-spice chips will reign supreme.”

I turn up the volume a little as the announcers talk about their top contenders for first place. A team from Harlem, another from Southern California, one from Miami, and the current title holder, a team out of Savannah, Georgia. I take way too much satisfaction in the fact that Clover City doesn’t even get a brief mention when they discuss possible upsets.

“So they just dance?” asks Mitch. “How do you judge something like that? Like, objectively?”

“Well, there are two major categories: technical ability and artistic presentation. And then in each of those categories, they judge things like technique, difficulty, precision, creativity, use of space, and the elusive energy. Which is actually frustrating as hell.”

We watch a few routines in silence. I glance over to see Mitch’s gaze wandering as he studies a not-at-all-interesting painting of a desert landscape above the television. Yeah, even for someone who’s into dance, this is pretty boring.

I scoot across the cushion that divides us so that I’m sitting right next to him. “Okay,” I say, snapping his attention back to me. “See that kick line they’re doing? It’s actually super hard, because I bet they’re all going to land in the splits like a domino effect, but there’s always one girl who’s gotta go and screw the whole thing up.”

We watch as the team on television in their multicolored neon glittering costumes do one last fan kick as each dancer falls into the splits one by one.

“Ow, that does not look comfortable.”

“Anyone can do the splits,” I say. “It’s just about stretching the right muscles.” I point to one girl in the middle as she lands into the splits. “Look. She’s the one who threw them all off. Bye-bye, perfect score.”

“They’re barely off, though!” says Mitch.

“Doesn’t matter. When other teams are perfect, the smallest mistake comes with a big price tag.”

“So anyone can do the splits, huh?”

I chuckle and bounce up from my seat, sliding right down into the splits and then rotating on my hips effortlessly. “Voilà!”

“Whoa. If the whole team is half as limber, I think the Shamrocks might be more athletic than the basketball and football teams combined.”

I throw my hands up. “This is what I’ve been saying for years!”

He nods. “Teach me something.”

“Seriously?”

“Hell yeah!” He stands up and holds a hand out for me, pulling me up from the splits with one quick yank.

“Okay. I’ll teach you how to do those kicks,” I say.

He shakes his head. “No way. I can’t kick that high.”

I shake my head. “Kicking high is impressive, but it’s about kicking in unison.” I start pushing on the coffee table. “Let’s get this out of the way.”

He comes along beside me and helps push the table to the wall.

“Okay!” I take his arm and loop it around the back of my waist. His hand curls around the front of my stomach. My breath hitches.

“Is this okay?” he asks.

“Perfect.” I cross my arm behind his.

He gasps. “I’m ticklish. Embarrassingly ticklish, actually.”