Nevaeh’s and Katherine’s coats are still hanging up in the locker room. I hesitate, but I can’t wait for them. I grab my things, stuff my arms into my coat, and hurry out into the quad. The sky is too bright, the frustration too hot, the guilt too sharp. I can’t believe I just ran away from Carly like that. Carly, of all people.

She’s been my adviser since my first semester, back when I thought getting into Lakeshore would be the hard part. When I got here, everything was hard: academic classes that made me feel lost; dance classes ten times tougher than those at home; being surrounded by dancers just as dedicated as me, just as good as me. Smaller than me, and not shy about pointing that out.

But from the start, Carly didn’t give a shit about what anyone said to me, or what I was saying to myself. She’d seen my audition. She knew what I could do. After I skipped lunch the whole first week, she pulled me into her office.

She said: Don’t shape yourself to fit the world. Make the world shape itself to fit you.

I wrote that all over my notebooks the first year. Have always thought maybe I’ll get it tattooed on me one day. It’s already knitted into my bones.

I take a deep breath that hurts my lungs, it’s so cold, and another. I’ve been rushing across campus with my head down, not sure where I’m going. At the fountain in front of the theater, the statue of the school’s founder still wears the knit hat Taylor crowned him with months ago. There’s a wall of notifications on my phone screen from Katherine, Nevaeh, and Taylor. They’ve been messaging me all morning, asking if I’ve gotten news yet, even though they shouldn’t have been using their phones in the studio. They care as much as I do. And now I don’t know what to tell them. I don’t even know what I’m thinking.

The last text from Katherine has so many question marks that the actual message has scrolled off the screen, and I get that little surge of gratitude for her, as always.

I pull off my mitten and stand there with my thumb poised over the on-screen keyboard.

I’ll fix this. Somehow.

Meet at the coffee shop? I type, and they tell me they’re already halfway there; didn’t I read my messages?