I sniffed.

We got up off the floor and danced around the bathroom while we sang. I did a little jig and a few spins. Berry did this very classic step-to-the-left, step-to-the-right dance that was just adorable. For just a few minutes the world was sherbet stained and hopeful, and it was just me and Berry and the feeling music gives you when it fills your lungs.

Joy.

“I think you were right,” Berry said, when, exhausted and out of breath, I plopped back down on the floor.

“About what specifically?”

“About why you should audition,” Berry said, giving a very small wiggle.

“So they have another reason to come for me?”

“Maybe they don’t need another reason, maybe there’s nothing you can do about them coming for you and it has nothing to do with anything you’re actually doing.” Berry sighed. “I mean, in my experience, I can keep it down but they’ll always have something to say. But maybe you have something to say, too.”

“I mean, I definitely always have something to say. Like so much. To say.”

Berry grabbed her stuff. “Plus I think we should go to the next class so they don’t tell your mom you’re skipping school to sing ABBA songs.”

“Good call.”

After school, I watched Jerry Maguire, even though Berry told me later that it really is a terrible movie and she picked it because it was the first horrible basis for a musical that she could think of. Because every movie with Tom Cruise would make a terrible musical.

I actually think you could make Mission: Impossible into a musical if you wanted to.

Speaking of Mission: Impossible, was it worse that I believed Gilly when she pulled a high-school-prank-101 on me on the soccer field, or that Gilly thought I was a person who both deserved that and would fall for it?

Plus she called me Car rots?

Maybe it wasn’t even Gilly’s idea. She was kind of an. . .enigma. I ate three bowls of popcorn trying to decide which was worse, them underestimating me, or not caring about me. And decided both options sucked equally.

That night Lucy came home for dinner looking like I felt: like a dishrag that needs to be washed, but people keep using it because it’s there.

“How was today?” she asked. “Little better?”

“Sure,” I said, because it was weirdly true.

Millie carried the pot roast over to the table and took a moment to look over my shirt. “You were not built to wear white, kid,” she said, handing me a napkin.

“Don’t worry, it won’t happen again,” I said. “Me and this T-shirt are breaking up.”

“Wash it before you give it back.”