“Nooo, staaaay!” Lynn was drunk now and leaned on him heavily. “Who was that hottie you were talking to?”

“Just another reminder of my horrific life choices.”

“Archer…” Lynn threw her arms around him and squeezed. “I love you. I’m so glad you answered my roommate ad.”

“Me too.” She was, after all, the only good thing he had going in New York. “But I gotta get out of here.”

“Okay. Don’t wait up.”

He kissed her forehead and waved at Sasha. “I won’t.”

“Liar.”

Each audition had gotten harder over the months, as the desperation grew. The pressure, then the panic, layer upon layer, hunching his shoulders, tightening his muscles, wringing the air from his lungs. The audition the day after Sasha’s birthday was a no, as was the one the day after that. His mom sent him a link to available accounting jobs in Dayton.

The night before the callback, a foreboding sense of It All Comes Down To This hung over him, and he barely slept. If he failed again, on a gig this lowbrow … surely that would be the final sign that this whole attempt was ridiculous. He’d have to go back to Ohio, tail between his legs, back to the place that had never really wanted him to begin with. Dancing was the only thing that had given him comfort growing up, that had made him feel like he had gifts to offer the world. The only time he really felt like himself. He definitely did not feel like himself drowning in tax forms and spreadsheets. He could not go back.

It was cliché, but it was true. The big city. The freedom to be unapologetically yourself. In some ways he had never been happier, dedicating himself to dancing. But how long could he keep pretending he belonged here? He needed a yes.

The callback was nothing to write home about, that was for sure. He certainly hadn’t. He was almost embarrassed to admit he even went to the audition in the first place, but, well, something about desperate times … The show was not Off Broadway, or even Off Off Off Off Broadway. It wasn’t even a real fucking show. It was a summer cabaret at an LGBTQ+ resort in the Catskills called Shady Queens. But it was a gig, and at this point he had no business turning one down, no matter where it was. In fact, it was his only hope.

He might have slept a little, finally, slipping in and out of restless dreams, then dragged himself out of bed at eleven, equal parts dread and exhaustion. Lynn had long since left for work, but she propped a note next to his granola. YOU’RE GONNA KILL IT, ARCH. He stared at it while he crunched, holding his bowl at the counter.