“Hmm.” He takes the longest pause ever. I swear I can hear the tiny clicks of the clock that sits on his desk.
“Gigi, you aren’t dancing like you’re fine. I spoke to your physical therapist. She says you’ve healed nicely, and are getting the strength back in your left hip. But I can tell you aren’t confident in your dancing right now.”
My head drops down. “I’m working on it every day. I’ll be strong again.”
“You must fight for it if you want it back. It would be easy to just stay where you are right now—a decent recovery of your technique. But you, unlike many of these other girls, have the one thing ballerinas need to have a career. You have the danseur russe flame. It’s why I picked you during auditions in San Francisco. I could see you more than the others.” His words force tears to drop down my cheeks. I try to wipe them away before he can see them, but I’m too late.
He gets up and puts a hand on my shoulder.
“I’m going to work harder. I promise. I’m going to be that dancer you saw in San Francisco.”
“I am confident you will be.”
I don’t return to Studio C with the others like Mr. K has told me to. I take the elevator to my room instead. A headache punches its way up the back of my neck and settles into my temples. I open my room door and fling my dance bag forward. I don’t bother to turn on the lights. My hands find all the origami Alec’s ever made for me tacked on my board. With each rip of the paper, my heart thuds with anger and my monitor beeps faster. I curl up on the bed in the dark and wait for the throbbing to slowly drift away like sad, soft music.
18.
June
I’M IN THE CAFÉ, FINISHING up homework and slurping a bowl of broth, when Sei-Jin and her pack of followers walk in. They carefully inspect the various options in the different food stations, all settling on a dinner of grilled steak and veggies, and gather around a table close enough that I can hear their chatter. Much of it is in Korean, so I only catch bits and pieces. But two words I recognize out of Sei-Jin’s mouth: Jayhe and love.
Ever so casually, she turns her head my way, catching me in the act of eavesdropping. “Oh, June, she doesn’t know yet,” she says with that practiced, lip-glossed smile.
I choke after hearing her say my name. “Yes, yes, I applied to three schools already,” Sei-Jin tells them. “You know, just in case I don’t get a spot here.” She stands and walks over, leaning heavily on my table, bringing her face down close to mine. “I think I want to go to school in Providence. It’s so lovely. The foliage, the artists.” She waits for a reaction.
Stupid. She doesn’t know that Jayhe’s focusing on NYU, on me. She doesn’t know about anything. I gulp down my broth, trying to grin despite the too-hot liquid shooting down my throat. She adds, nearly spitting, “I guess Jayhe and I will just have to enjoy it together.”
Trying not to give her the satisfaction, I focus on the little slivers of onion in the yellow liquid, and pick at the small plate of broccoli on my tray. Eat, I tell myself. You have to. Ignore her.
“Oh, yes, I know. You worry. How will you and Jayhe manage, you here—probably living at home with your mom—and him there, all that distance between you? Especially with me so close by?”
I take a bite of stiff, flavorless steamed broccoli. It scrapes my already raw throat. In that moment, I hate myself for all of it: the undercooked broccoli; the broth; and, worst of all, letting Sei-Jin get to me. “I don’t think you have anything that interests him,” I tell her, my teeth clenched, my jaw tight. “I mean.” I look up, pointed. “Just look at yourself lately. Giving up on being a dancer already?”
She smacks her small fist on the table, but it’s laughable, her lack of strength. She barely makes a sound. “Shut up, June.” She turns on her heel to walk away, her troops already gathering around. “If anyone should be worrying about their weight, it’s you. You think Jayhe will want you? Look at you, with your bowl cut. You look like a little kid.”
I stand up, splattering my soup. Her pack gasps and disperses a bit as the rest of the room stops to stare—Sei-Jin doesn’t move an inch.
“You did this to me.” My hands tug at my hair, and my voice is low, heavy with a threat. “You think you’re going to get away with it? You just wait.”
“Oh, June.” She slams the table again so the hot broth splashes on my arm. “What are you going to do? Shove me down the stairs when no one else is around? You tried that once already, and it didn’t work.”
I pick up my fork, and I want to stab her with it. A slow smile spreads across Sei-Jin’s face, and she knows she’s won this round. She sees it in me, this dark side, and she pokes at it on purpose.
“All right, ladies. Cut it out now.” The lunch RA finally lumbers over to the table, but the pack scurries before she can quite make it, leaving Sei-Jin and me in our standoff. The woman pries the fork from my hands. “End this now, or I’m going to write you both up. And you don’t want that, do you?”
Sei-Jin backs away from the table, but she’s still wearing that stubborn, straight-mouthed expression, so I know this isn’t over. “You’ll see, June. I’ll get back at you for all that you’ve done to me.”
As she rushes off, I gather my soup-soaked notebook and head to my room, taking the stairs. When I get to the twelfth floor, I walk right past Cassie and let myself into the bathroom. I run the water in the shower, letting the steam fill the room. I lean over the toilet and stick my fingers in my mouth. This time, it doesn’t take more than a second for it all to come up—the broth, the broccoli, the anxiety. All the tension swirls away; and the anger, the hatred I feel for Sei-Jin is just a dull ache now, like a muscle stretched a bit too far.
I walk over to Cassie’s scale. I reset it to pounds, and step on. The numbers scramble as they always do, and they settle at 102. That’s with clothes still on.
A wave of warmth washes over me, relief and something oddly close to joy. It’s working—the skipped meals, the extra workouts, the vomiting. It makes me feel invincible.
When I come back out of the bathroom, Cassie’s plopped on her bed, her math book set in front of her, her headphones on—they’re always on when we’re both in the room, so she doesn’t have to entertain the idea of talking to me. She looks completely zoned out. She doesn’t seem like she’s about to go to bed anytime soon.
I click off the overhead lights and climb under my covers, waiting for the impending rage.
Even though her desk lamp provides more than enough light for her to see, she rushes over, and flips them back on.
I get up, walk to the switch, and flip them off again.
She turns them back on.
“Can’t you see I’m working?”
“You can work with your desk lamp on. I’m going to sleep.”
“Oh, is your eye mask suddenly not enough anymore?”
I stand up, and put my hand on the light switch. She rushes forward and puts her hand on my shoulder. “You could probably boss Gigi around, because she’s nice, but I’m not. If you keep messing with me, I’ll let Mr. K and Nurse Connie know that you’re puking up everything you eat. And every time you use my scale, it records your numbers. You’re so obvious.”