Tears prick my eyes. I fight them back and glance at Danny, offering him a silent apology. I’ve got to get Mom away before she embarrasses me more.
Danny gives me a faint nod. He lifts his fingers in a salute and backs off the steps. “If you see Alex before I do, tell him hi from me.” He says it so quietly, I’m not sure Mom heard him.
Mom’s heels stamp onto stone as she makes her way down to me. If lightning bolts could come from eyeballs, they’d be shooting down every single person around us. “Who was that?”
“No one. Just a friend,” I answer.
“Is he a dancer too?”
“No. Just someone I met.” I almost make the mistake of adding “on the subway.”
She’s glaring at Danny and the guys who are slapping his back and the top of his head. One of them yanks off Danny’s cap and races away. Danny, laughing, takes off after him.
“You can’t be friends with him. I don’t want you talking to him or spending time with him again.”
I swing back to my mom. “What?!”
“You know what he is, right?”
I stare at her, wondering what word she could possibly be thinking. A cheater, like her papi? If she says it, I’ll scream.
“Those bandanas. They’re all wearing them.” Mom tracks the flash of red tied around Danny’s arm. They’re almost at the corner.
I frown at the implication. She thinks Danny’s in some gang? Because of how he dresses and how he looks? A white-hot fire sears my chest.
“Boys like that are dangerous. Do you hear me? You’re forbidden from seeing him again.”
I nod. To let her know I heard her. I’m not agreeing to her ridiculous demand.
“Good,” she says.
I stop breathing. Suddenly I’m terrified she heard what Danny said about Alex. I don’t want to have to lie about him; I hadn’t thought that far. But I don’t see an alternative after this.
Mom digs in her bag for her cell. She squints at her screen. “I’ve got to go. I’m meeting a broker back home.”
“Broker?” The word comes out as a croak. “We’re selling the apartment?” I lean on the railing, clutching it so I don’t fall. You’d think I’d be used to Mom’s emotional whiplash by now.
“Yes,” she sighs. “Your father doesn’t think we need to, but—don’t get me started. I’ll see you later.” She air-kisses my cheek as if we’re girlfriends instead of mother and daughter. As if we were talking about shopping instead of leaving our home. As if we weren’t just talking about innocent boys and racial profiling.
She clops down the steps. “Oh, and I meant what I said. I don’t want you near that boy or anyone like him.”
She doesn’t wait for a response. Which is good. I can’t say anything. I feel like a hand’s closing around my throat. I sink down on the steps and take out Alex’s poem. I lay the paper flat on my thigh and smooth out the creases. I read it until my tears dry. Until all I can do is smile.
SATURDAY, APRIL 8
ISA
I wait in my regular spot, under the ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL sign, right where the fifth car will stop. My stomach feels like Mother Ginger’s skirt from The Nutcracker, squirming with children ready to leap out and dance. I bend to touch my toes, stretching the backs of my legs. The digital readout says 3 MIN. Three more minutes to wonder. I never know if the train I’ll get will have one of Alex’s poems.
He’s been writing a lot, he says. It helps him focus for his games. I love finding the secret notes meant just for me. Whenever Alex gets on the 1 train, either to or from Brooklyn, he leaves me a poem. If there’s already one there, if I haven’t found it yet, he gets off and waits for the next train. The other week he sent me a DM showing him in front of three different cars. He wanted to know if I’d stopped taking the subway. I told him about our rehearsals for the spring performance. Chrissy, Kevin, and I have been riding home together, and I’m not about to look for Alex’s poems when they’re with me. I’ve been spending time with Mom too, looking at apartments. But Alex doesn’t need to know that.
The shriek of steel announces a train. I count the cars that pass, just to be sure.
Students crowd the entrance. They’re singing “You Don’t Know Me,” Leo Xiao’s hit single. They’re probably going to Leo’s free concert in South Street Seaport, the one Alex suggested we meet at since he only has a Sunday game this weekend. But I have rehearsal.
“Excuse me. Pardon me.” My heart is doing its own sautés as I push into the car. I make my way to the bench by the MTA poem poster. Two ladies, one with white hair, one with magenta, are having a full-body conversation. They’re Dominican—I can tell by their accents. They don’t look like they’re getting up anytime soon.
I have a plan for this. I take out my tiny notebook, along with the fancy pen Dad brought me back from a business trip years ago. I pretend to write. I drop the pen. It rolls under their seat.
“Oh, oops! I’m so sorry. Lo siento. May I?”
It’s an odd request and the women regard me with weak smiles. One moves her shopping bag, and I squat and peer behind their legs. The pen is way back there. The other woman’s leg is blocking where the note would be.
I straighten and ask, in Spanish, if they wouldn’t mind standing for a moment at the next stop. They give each other a look but nod and then go on complaining about their hairdressers.
At Eighty-Sixth Street, the women rise. I duck under the bench, murmuring apologies. I snatch my pen and feel behind the hard border of plastic below the seat. My heart pitter-patters as my fingers press against tape. I rip off the note, tuck it into my palm.
“Thank you!” I show the ladies the pen and wedge myself into the corner, where fewer people can see me. I unfold the note, careful not to tear the paper.
“Would you like me to read it to you?”
I crumple the poem to my chest, stifling a gasp.
Alex is in front of me, lips lifted in that half smile. His eyes dance with amusement.
I thought he had practice this morning. I want to ask how he got here and why he didn’t text he was coming. Something inside me shifts. The stress of Dad always in the apartment on his computer, of furniture being appraised and marked for sale, of our car being sold—it all just goes away, like it no longer belongs to me, like it was never there in the first place.
Alex steps closer, and tugs the paper from my fingers. I don’t wait for him to take my hand. I press against him, foot to foot, knee to knee, cheek to his chest. He smells like fresh air and pine-scented soap. I forget about yesterday’s rehearsal, when I stumbled out of the fouetté en tournant and almost fell. I forget about the shouting coming from Mom and Dad’s room as I left this morning.
Alex recites the poem, whispering near my ear.
“Thank you.” I breathe him in.
His hand settles on the back of my head, just below my bun. “For what?” he asks.
“For finding me. For the poem. For this—” I lift onto my toes until my mouth meets his.
Alex kisses me until my hands are sliding under his shirt. He takes my wrists, puts my hands on his face. His smile blinds me. “You’re welcome,” he murmurs. “Creative, by the way. Getting to the poem.”