“And it wasn’t very fun.” Berry shook her hair out (an act that practically came with a sound effect, she had so much hair). “It’s, like, they want you to be good, but they don’t want you to be as good as their kids, or if you are, they want you to play like exactly how they want, but no matter what, you’re not them.”

Suddenly I could just see little Berry in her adorable soccer uniform, like, sitting alone with her soccer balls and her giant water bottle.

“If you lose, they freak out so bad. Like, someone yelled at my mom once in a grocery store when we lost a game and I was like ten?”

“So, then. If all THAT sucked, why do you think I should do the play? Don’t people care about theater here?”

“Yes and no. The play is different. It’s not their lifeblood. Like, they care if it’s pornography or, like, too gay, but they don’t live and die by it.” Berry pulled on her boot. “Which is why you could still do it and be, you know, blending. Maybe? A little. Plus, mostly, I think you’d be really good.”

“Hmm.” I pulled on my white shirt which was, let’s say, kind of a mess. How did I get red pen on a shirt when I didn’t even own a red pen?

Berry looked up from tying her laces. “What did Gilly want?”

“Gilly,” I said, throwing on my not white but very plain sweatshirt, “also thinks I should sign up.”

I peeked my face out of my sweatshirt in time to catch Berry picking her jaw up off the floor.

“Really?”

I pulled my head out of my shirt. “What?”

“Oh, I just—” Berry’s eyes searched for something to look at that wasn’t me.

“What? Say it.”

“I mean she’s pretty tight with Sarah and Tanner and John. You know, she’s a Forever.”

I sank down to the bench. “Right.”

Berry did a little wiggle. She was thinking again.

“Look,” she said. “Okay. I don’t trust Gilly. Okay. But. I mean, if YOU really want to do the play, you know, you should. And Mr. Davidson is cool. And. . .yeah. Do it, like, because you want to.”

My brain felt like a ball pit at a playground. “Why don’t you trust Gilly?”

Berry shrugged. “It’s a long story. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try out for the play.”

Millie says sometimes when things feel like too much you should try and find the one thing you’re sure of.

That one thing was this, if I audition, I would be amazing.

Like, in two weeks at Greenville, that was what I knew; that I could kick ass in an audition, even if I didn’t get it.

“Can we go now?” I asked, standing. “And sign up?”