“Hey.” The word is garbled up with the bread in my mouth. We haven’t really spoken since San Francisco, and I’ve been completely happy with that situation. But now she’s standing next to my table, her mouth neither a smile nor a frown. I wait for the taunts, the comments about being like the white girls, avoiding the Korean rice porridge the chef set out.
Instead she sits down. “Glad you’re—”
“Yeah.” I cut off the word eating.
“You look better.” It isn’t mean or bitter or vicious, like it usually is. It sounds sincere. Like someone who actually cares. She smiles. “I mean, you look stronger. Like you’re doing well.”
I sigh. “I’m feeling better.” I look down at my plate, at all the food still on it. “It’s not fixed. But—”
She nods, and I think she’s going to get up and walk away, but then she stays. I must look startled, because she grins. “I—I wanted to say I’m sorry. I mean, I know I started it. But—”
She leaves it dangling, like a loose ribbon on a slipper, and I wonder what she might have said then—that she was too scared? That she thought I’d give her secrets away? That she couldn’t trust me, or anyone? That it was better to protect herself, even if it meant giving me up, hurting me?
“I get it,” I say. Not that it’s okay or that I forgive her. I do understand, in a way. We all do what we have to in order to get by here. Even if we have to hurt others in the process.
“Gigi told me you didn’t ruin my shoes. She did it.”
“She did?” I can’t quite believe it. I look across the room to where she was sitting, but she’s gone now. It adds up, the way she’d been hanging with Henri and Cassie. I can see it.
“Yeah, I didn’t think she had it in her. But I guess she was getting back at me for the glass in her slipper.”
I nearly choke on my yogurt. “You did that?” I thought that was Bette for sure.
“Yeah, that was me.” She’s looking down at her fingernails, the same familiar mauve as her lipstick.
“Why?” I ask. I can see her messing with me, but not Gigi.
“She just came in and took everything, all at once. When the rest of us were here all this time, working so hard, trying to—I don’t know. It just made me so mad. Like, how is that fair?”
“I was mad, too.” We all were. “And we all did things we aren’t proud of.” I think about the butterflies, and my hands fly to my hair with a will of their own.
“I didn’t cut your hair.” Even as she says it, Sei-Jin looks worried, apologetic. “I wouldn’t do that. Not to you.”
I’m surprised, but I try not to look it. When did I start expecting the worst in her, in myself, in everybody?
“But I am sorry about Jayhe.” She picks at her nails, a nervous habit I remember all too well. “I didn’t mean for anything to happen. I was lonely. I was scared.” She swallows hard. “You know him, so funny, so sweet. He was just there for me when I was having a hard time. He brought me little presents, and we’d go off in the van.”
I wonder how many times they made out in his van, the way he and I used to. The jealousy stabs me hard. And it’s like she can tell, because she looks me straight in the eyes for a moment, completely serious.
“I know it was different for you guys. More real. You should call him. I know he misses you.”
She’s really going at her cuticles now, and they’re frayed around the edges. I want to ask her how she knows. But I know I can’t.
When she looks up again, she’s wearing a bright smile. “I’m going to college in New Jersey. I decided last week. They offered some scholarship money, and it’s near my sister Ji-yoon. She’s pregnant.” She’s beaming now. “So I’ll have a little niece or nephew.”
I smile back. I make one last note in my food diary, pick up my tray. “I have to go,” I say, but take her hand before I do. “Thank you, though.”
My heart pounds when I finally make it out of the café. I feel like a heavy, lumbering weight has been lifted off my shoulders—one that I’ve been carrying now for nearly three years. Maybe Sei-Jin and I won’t be friends again. But at least we don’t have to be enemies anymore.
I walk down the hall to the mail room, finding myself hopeful for a second. Maybe, if Sei-Jin’s managed to figure things out, I can, too. I’ve been waiting for notices from the dance companies I auditioned for—the New York auditions for Salt Lake, Miami, DC, and the Los Angeles Ballet. Inside my mailbox are a couple of envelopes, all skinny.
I tear them open, one by one. DC says my dancing is promising, but there’s lots of competition, so please try again next year. Miami tells me I’m not quite ready yet, but I’m welcome to pay them five thousand dollars for their intensives with their artistic director, Rafaelo Diego. No thanks.
The defeat washes over me like waves crashing, and suddenly I feel like I’m drowning. I’ve worked so hard now for nearly a decade. It makes me want to cry. Or worse, go and throw up all the yogurt and eggs and anxiety.
I find myself staring in the direction of the first-floor bathroom. I can see the shiny plaque on its door, swinging open and shut with moms waiting for their petit rats in morning ballet class.
I take a deep breath and pull out my tablet, recording my thoughts. I’m locking the mailbox, balancing my tablet, when I drop the letters. But before I can pick them up, another hand is reaching for them. It’s Riho’s.
“Hi.” Her voice is low, muted, like it hurts her to say hello.
I take the mail from her hands, say “thanks,” and start to walk away. I don’t want to be near her. Not when I’m facing rejection and she’s probably never been rejected a day in her life. But as I shove the envelopes of doom into my bag, I realize that Riho is still standing there.
“What?” The anger drips from the word like acid. She comes in here, steals roles, then stands around to gloat about it? I want to smack her for a second.
“I just—I wanted to say thank you. You know, for being so kind to me here in my first weeks.” I try to hide my surprise as her face lights up with a smile. I instantly regret all the rude things I said to her under my breath, thinking she was just one of Sei-Jin’s minions. “I know that you’re graduating soon, and I know we haven’t talked much, but I thought I’d make you something to show my appreciation.” She pulls a small box from her bag.
I open the box. Inside, there’s a pair of pale lavender leg warmers, with sequins sewn on by hand. I’ve seen Riho in a similar pair in pink, and wondered where she might have gotten them—even mentioned them to my mom, who said she’d look into it.
“I made them. My grandmother taught me how to knit.” She smiles again, and it’s sweet, the kind of little lift that makes you want to protect someone. “I thought you had an eye on mine. So maybe you’d like a pair?”
“Thank you.” I’m surprised at how quiet, how grateful my voice is. Ever since Gigi and the butterflies, I’ve felt even more alone here than ever. It never occurred to me that others might be having the same experience. In that moment, I’m glad—for Mr. K and his stupid mentor program, for Riho and her gift, for Sei-Jin taking the first step toward repairing what we had, even if it won’t ever be the same.