“Actually…it’s theater. Singing and theater.” He tugs at the neck of his dark gray shirt, mockingly bragging about himself. “On my way to being a celebrity.”

  “For a reality show, maybe,” Henry snickers. His friend flips him off and hazes his eyes before returning his attention to me. His body shifts so his legs turn toward me, our knees touching briefly; I move an inch to my left—closer to Henry.

  “Despite what my new roommate thinks, no…I’d like to be a serious actor, and I know that being able to sing well opens up the theater scene, so…” He shrugs, waiting for me to give him a stamp of approval. I should be impressed. It’s just that I’m stuck on that other thing he said—roommate.

  “How about you? Henry here says you can shred on the piano.” He grins, and I basically spit out a laugh at his description.

  “I wouldn’t say I’m Elton or anything. I’ve only really been playing seriously for a year.” Henry’s hand finds my knee, stopping me.

  “She’s being modest. She’s a bit of a genius because in one year she can already play everything in Elena’s library.”

  “Wow!” Caleb leans back with what I think is honest awe. My cheeks burn from the compliment on one side and attention on the other, but mostly, I’m flushed because of the slow drag Henry’s fingers make across my kneecap. I force myself not to look at either his touch or his face, and I wonder if he feels like he crossed some line.

  I wonder how I’ll feel about it when I can think and breathe again.

  “I just put in the time, I guess.” I snap my purse a few more times, working through the jitters tingling their way down my arms and fingertips now. By the time our car pulls onto the main road, I start to feel normal again.

  “You didn’t come to many races this year. Elena has her own box area. You should make her set you up. Fans make all the difference out on the water,” Caleb says.

  “Oh…yeah. I went to one, but I just got busy with freshman-year stuff…ya know?”

  “She’s lying,” Henry interjects. I turn to face him and scrunch my face, wondering what version he thinks is the truth. “I made her mad; so she was protesting.”

  His gaze settles on mine, challenging me to say he’s wrong. The longer he stares, though, the more emotions I see fill in all of the empty spaces. Anger, frustration, smugness—it’s all part of his cocktail. The feeling I drown in most, though, is regret. He’s sorry, and I think maybe so am I.

  “I wasn’t mad. I really was busy,” I say with a shake of my head. My eyes blink wildly to make my lie convincing, and it seems to work on Caleb. Henry’s gaze stays exactly the same, though—a dare to tell him he’s wrong.

  The tension eases as the miles pass, and by the time we’re weaving through the city, Henry and Caleb are talking across me about other guys on their crew team and their plans for their dorm room in a few weeks. I’m a little jealous that they can talk to each other over the summer. Nicki is in Costa Rica with her dad, and Anya got into some academic program down in DeKalb. I suppose I could visit Ava, but there’s still a weirdness when it comes to Henry, and I guess I’ve just been more invested in spending my spare moments with him over the summer.

  Phillip slows to the curb in front of the theater, and Caleb gets out first, waiting to take my hand. A little confused, I slide my palm over his, and a second later, Henry’s chaperoning me from my other side. Sandwiched between two boys that both tower over me and look like male models in their formal clothes, I start to giggle to myself. Not that there’s a crowd gathered or anything, but there are people waiting to enter the theater, and almost all of them have turned to see who this mystery woman is walking up with two boys who are so far out of her league.

  “Here, let me,” Henry says, slipping away from my side and moving to hold the door open for me. One of the theater hosts rushes over to take over the job, and as Caleb leads me inside, Henry’s fingers brush against that same bare spot on my back. It’s as if they’re competing for me, only I know better than that. I can pretend, though. I indulge the fantasy all the way through intermission, asking one to get me a program and the other to fetch me water. By the time the lights go down for the second set of performances, I have started to feel a little entitled.

  Henry slips me an envelope, one he’d been carrying with our tickets and program, and I glance up at him curious what he wants me to do with it. I motion to my purse as if he wants me to hold onto it for him, but he leans close to whisper.

  “It’s for you.”

  My gaze hangs on for a few extra seconds as he looks away, back up to the stage, and I spend a brief moment watching the lights come up in the reflection of his eyes. He glances my way once, and quickly, just long enough to nudge toward the envelope and smirk anxiously.

  My lips pucker with bashfulness, and I slip open the end of the yellow envelope, feeling a few sheets of paper inside. I slide them out, but just enough to see. It’s sheet music. Old sheet music, like the kind that’s been handwritten and marked on by someone who’s played—someone who wrote it. It’s thoughtful, and probably well beyond my ability, and definitely rare. But it’s the thoughtful part that sits like electricity in my chest. I look at him and catch his smile on me, and for a tiny window, he’s this sweet boy who brought a girl her favorite present.

  The whispers are soft at first, picking up one person at a time until the small glow of the flashlight catches my eyes from the right side. One at a time, the people in our row stand, letting someone pass, and when she reaches the man next to Caleb, I recognize the black-rimmed glasses and the perfectly sculpted nails.

  “Pardon,” Elena says. It’s clear that the performers are actually waiting for her to get to her seat. My power was all pretend, but Elena Alderman owns a room for real.

  “Henry,” she whispers, encouraging him to move over a seat so she can sit down sooner. I stand to let her pass, but she grabs my arm and nudges me to follow Henry and sit between the two of them. I tuck the music away, somehow knowing it isn’t for her to see, and fold my program around the envelope.

  Even with her slight frame, the space around us suddenly feels tighter. It’s the air that she sucks up when she enters a room.

  “I didn’t want to miss your experience,” she whispers at my side.

  “Mmm,” I hum, my experience suddenly a whole hell of a lot more stressful than it was forty minutes ago.

  The audience begins to clap as a man in a long, black, tailed tuxedo glides across the stage to the piano sitting in the very center. Soft lights begin to glow with a warm orange, and Elena reaches for my hand, squeezing it in some sort of rehearsed anticipation.

  “Mischa is wonderful. You’re going to love him. I’ll introduce you when it’s done.” Her focus stays on the man sitting before the black and white keys, and mine drifts to her face as I try to read her. Her mouth puckers into an aged smile that shows the thin lines colored red by her lipstick, and her eyes dazzle like a schoolgirl with a massive crush.

  He begins to play, the song a familiar one. It’s the music Henry gave me. The exact music—already memorized by this great artist and passed along for me. I glance to Henry and catch the slight lift on his lips, pleased that I’m pleased, then I turn my full attention over to the man on the stage. His performance is beautiful, but my reaction pales to Elena’s, and I can tell she’s disappointed I’m not on my seat’s edge just like she is.

  “You have to admire the way he uses his entire body…the thrust and pull of his hands, it’s as if he’s speaking words on those keys. It’s something you need to work on. You’re so…frigid when you play.”

  I lick my lips and bite on the end of my tongue. She said that a little louder than a whisper, and she purposely waited for the applause to die down. A man behind us coughed to cover up his laugh at frigid. She meant it as an insult for so many things—for my naiveté, I suppose.

  The music starts up again and I’m relieved at first, but my spirits are crushed when Elena leans into me to give me literal play-by-play throughout the entire eleven-minute final movement. I’m sure it was breathtaking. The little I can bring up from my recent memory of Mischa—Micah? I can’t remember what she called him—is that his hands massaged every note, as if his fingers were moving delicate dough into a perfect crust, then thrashing it to break it into a million bits.

  The rush and the slow, and the long pauses allowing the draw of the violin accompanying him to power through, were like a ballet, where the lead male pulls the female up and into a lift. It’s every moment between me and Henry—push and pull.

  I missed out on really getting to listen, though. Elena had much to say.

  We all remain in our seats as the gallery empties out. I’m thrilled that Elena has started to drill Caleb with questions, though her interests in him are superficial. She asks about his family, his studies and what organizations his parents belong to. His answers must bore her because she’s back to schooling me after only a few minutes.

  “Now, we’ll only be able to visit for a few minutes, but I would love for you to meet Mischa. Come,” Elena says, standing and staring down at Caleb who sits oblivious in his seat until she clears her throat and raps the back of her nails against the outer edge of his knee. He startles to his feet and hurries out of the aisle, grabbing onto my arm after he lets Elena pass.

  “That woman scares the hell out of me,” he says, his voice a little too loud. I wince before it happens.

  “Good,” Elena tosses over her shoulder.

  Henry doesn’t speak, but I can feel him walking close behind me. We wander through a few people mingling near the front of the stage and Elena walks up to a man guarding the side door. She waves us up a second later, steering us inside quickly before others notice. The back hallways look strikingly plain and sterile. If someone spun me around and told me I was now in a hospital, I’d believe it. There are a few people gathered outside the door closest to the stage entrance, and we follow behind closely as Elena excuses herself and us through them all.

  “This is how you groupie in classical,” Caleb jokes. I turn to him to laugh silently, but when I glance at Henry, now more than a few steps behind us, his expression is unamused.

  We all break through the well-dressed crowd and clanking sounds of expensive drinks and cocktail plates. I expect Elena to break through the small intimate group surrounding the man we just saw on stage, but she holds back with pause, suddenly uncertain in her own skin. It’s…strange.

  “I don’t want to interrupt,” she says, leaning back to me to whisper.

  I look to Caleb and he arches a brow. I turn a little more to catch Henry’s gaze, but he’s no longer paying attention to the world in front of him. He’s palming his phone, flipping through various pictures of pretty girls on vacation and crazy, drunken college boys doing stupid tricks on skateboards. He’s detached from this moment, pulling the typical teenager move when their parent figure is embarrassing them.

  Elena is embarrassing him. But why?

  She lifts her hand, her program clutched in her palm, rolled tightly from nerves, and Mischa finally notices her waiting behind the group of people who seem to be close friends of his. The men peel back slowly, one taking a long sip of his drink, draining his glass then handing it to me as he walks by. I stare at it for a beat then cock my head to look at Caleb with a stunted laugh.

  “He thinks I’m the help,” I whisper with a lifted chin.

  “Well then he should have tipped you,” Caleb says. I smirk in agreement, but I’m stuck with the glass. There’s nowhere convenient to discard it.

  As the other two gentlemen leave, the only person left is a surprisingly familiar face—Ms. Manning. She doesn’t see me until after she leaves a soft kiss on the pianist’s cheek, smudging away the tiny print left behind from her deep maroon lips. When our eyes connect, she flashes through two emotions in one breath, falling from delight to trepidation in the matter of a blink.

  “Lily,” my name leaves her mouth nervously and her eyes flit to the woman who brought us here—well, whose tickets we used. “Elena.”

  The second name comes out with illness.

  “Rebecca. Always lovely,” Elena says, her nose tipped upward. Her hands wring the program she’s already twisted until it looks like a fat blunt.

  “If you’ll excuse me…I’ll let you and Mischa talk.” My counselor hurries herself from our small circle, following the same path we took to get in and leaving the room entirely. I’m compelled to follow her, but before I can, Elena grabs hold of my wrist and drags me to stand next to her.

  “You were stunning tonight. Just…amazing,” she gushes. Mischa regards her with a polite smile, but I can tell his mind is on following the woman who just left his side as well.

  “Elena, I wish I knew you were coming,” he says, taking Elena’s hand in his and kissing the top, but only because she gave it to him and encouraged it toward his lips.

  “I never miss your first performance of the season. You know that.” She’s flirting with him, in her own, very odd way. Mischa nods with a tight-lipped smile, and his shoulders rise and fall with a heavy breath, relenting. His eyes move to me and widen, and I think maybe he’s grateful he’s not with Elena alone.

  “You brought a student?” His brow lifts on the side closest to me and moves his open palms to take mine. I follow Elena’s lead and let him kiss my hand as well. He seems to mind this less, and our touch is brief.

  “This is Lily. She’s studying at Satis,” Elena says. It’s almost a brag, the way she says it. Mischa’s smile softens, and a tiny laugh breaks through.

  “Of course,” he says. I suddenly feel like I’m a missing puzzle piece, lost somewhere in the depths of shag carpet. I have no idea what my entire picture is supposed to be. I’m not even a corner or an edge.

  “I’m sorry, I mean…nice to meet you, Lily. Did you enjoy the concert?” Mischa’s body turns in a way that almost blocks Elena from our exchange, and I can see the frustration in her flexing jaw and squinted eyes.

  “I did…very much,” I say, answering him.

  “Henry,” Mischa says over my shoulder. I turn in time to see Henry nod his hello. They’ve met before.

  Mischa’s accent is hard to read with a few words, faint but heavy. It’s thick when it says my name, and Henry’s. But Elena slipped out as if it’s been practiced several times. An uncomfortable silence starts to build, and just as Elena’s eyes twitch, the man we came here to see excuses himself.

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it, and I’m sorry, but there’s something…” He motions with his chin toward the door, toward an escape, so I step to the side to give him a clear path.

  “Thank you,” he nods, moving away from us without giving Elena a final goodbye. Her eyes sear into his back as he leaves, and she remains still and speechless several seconds after he’s left the room. With a slight shake of her head, she snaps awake from her angry trance, turning her focus to Caleb.

  “Shoot, I didn’t introduce you. You weren’t essential, though, so I hope you understand,” she says, tossing the now-ruined program to the floor before guiding us out of the room.

  I blink with wide eyes and my mouth slowly falls open as I stare into Caleb’s eyes, but all he can seem to do is laugh at being insulted.

  “Better to be unessential than frigid, I guess,” he tosses out, taking the glass I’ve been babysitting from my hands and setting it on one of the small cocktail tables along the wall on our way out.

  I scrunch up my shoulders and shake my head, lost for words. We get to the front of the theater and Elena has already amused herself with a work phone call that has her lecturing whoever the poor soul is on the other end of the line. A small part of me wonders if she’s faking the call, but I quickly decide I don’t care because it means that she’s not interested in talking to us anymore either. Stepping close to the curb, she holds up her free hand as Phillip pulls the car close. She climbs in first and Phillip waits for the rest of us to join her. I let Caleb in so I can share a brief moment out of the car and alone with Henry, just long enough to ask him what this was all about. Like Elena, though, Henry’s busied himself with a phone call, too. Only his, I’m sure, is real.

  “You guys head back without me. I’m going to meet up with some friends. I’ll see you at move-in, and Lily…maybe Monday after my internship.” He covers the speaker end of the phone and holds the door open for me, and as much as I don’t want to leave without him, I also know that I can’t very well invite myself to join him either. I scowl, not on purpose, and his head falls a little to the side. It’s a gesture that doesn’t say “I’m sorry” but instead begs me not to make this a big deal.

  “Monday,” I repeat. He nods, returning to the phone and asking whoever is on the other side to give him the address. His hand is wrapped around the edge of the car door, so as I get in, I purposely cover it with my own, my fingers painting down his knuckles until my touch leaves the tips of his fingers.

  Henry closes the door for me as soon as I climb inside, and his phone is still pressed to the side of his face as we pull away. But before we turn completely, he draws in every individual finger on his free hand, forming a tight fist that squeezes at the ghost I left behind.

  CHAPTER 11

  The first two days at Satis House are my favorite. As a freshman, they were spent wandering the campus and trying to sort out where my classes were. Henry was my guide. This year, though, I am a sophomore. I know my way.

  I moved in with the same two suitcases of belongings I did last year. Very little about my material life has changed.

  No classes for two whole days means Satis House becomes a coed party with covert sleepovers. Boys dorms and girls dorms are separate. Hours are posted and enforced. No boys in the girls dorms after ten o’clock and vice versa. Henry says the rule used to be eleven, but the guardians who patrol the halls to make sure everyone is where they are supposed to be didn’t want to stay up that late.

  It’s 10:02 pm right now, and Henry has wrapped himself in my winter coat and pushed himself into the farthest corner of Nicki’s and my closet. While my roommate is calm and cool—seemingly able to pretend that Henry doesn’t even exist—I cannot get my knee to stop bouncing while I sit at the end of my bed. I’m not sure what I’m more nervous about, though, the fact that Henry wanted to stay here for the night or that the guardian is on our hallway, making her final check on the rooms.