We talk about what to talk about until we’re just talking, all through getting food and finding empty seats and eating sandwiches that we barely notice, too focused on each other to care about something as trivial as lunch meats.

He walks me back to my dorm, where modern American literature waits for me. (“I love The Bell Jar,” he says. “Of course you do,” I say.)

“Can I talk about seeing you again soon?” he says, taking both my hands.

I don’t want to stop talking to him. I do want to kiss him, and he blushes when I do.

“Oh yes,” I say.

This—our hands together, the brief kiss he brushes over my lips, the smile, that little part of my heart that’s cheerleading, somersaulting, doing splits, and throwing confetti instead of worrying. This is coming dangerously close to dreamy. It’s a new thing on top of the pile of two more shows, and sneaking through the dark, of midterms, of our senior recitals, of the future racing toward us, however that’s going to look. Of deciding what I want—me. Not my mother and not Carly. Angles. My bad Italian.

I want it all. I want to wrap my arms around it and jump up and down. I want to see what’s next.

20

The following week is nonstop: study for midterms, rehearsal, go to class, inhale food, rehearse showcase, brush glitter out of everything, ignore Gavin’s increasingly flirty messages, even when I can’t make myself delete them. They make me smile, and they shouldn’t. I should block him, and I don’t know why I haven’t yet. Why every time my finger hovers over the button, I stop.

Text all day with Jack, though (his contact name is still a poo emoji, but Taylor has added a heart), rehearse more, study more, fall into bed and sleep for way less time than I want to, wake up, repeat. Gavin is still teasing me about wanting a private show, proposing more and more ridiculous places for us to be alone, making me laugh. But Jack and I text about all the things that are real. He’s still worried about his math midterm and hates that he’s bad at it; he wants to be a photojournalist and wonders whether he’s good enough. We talk about imposter syndrome and that feeling when you’re onstage and killing it, and Angles. He tells me how he only started talking at four, and in complete sentences. I tell him about losing my first dance competition and more about my mom. When he hears a rumor I love puns, he is relentless.