I catch Taylor’s eye and slide my palms down the arc of my body to loosen the tie of my wrap skirt, let it slip down my thighs, down to the floor, and then I’m done, when this song slips into the next. I kick the skirt up with one toe, catch it, and take a long, flourishing bow, breathless in my leotard and tights and leg warmers, and my heart is pounding and I am flushed and swarmed by hoots and cheers and my people.

The adrenaline is wild, like lightning. Different from performing onstage. An audience gathered not to admire my talent, my dancing, but to admire me. It’s a strange kind of head rush, and I feel a little too warm.

I get a big smacking kiss from Zoe and monster squeezes from Taylor and Katherine, and I nestle into Nevaeh’s arms, laughing into her shoulder. Around us the dancing is already heating up again, and they melt back into it.

I duck my head, searching for my sweater, and snatch it up off the floor. Then I feel a hand on my arm, tugging insistently. I turn—Christopher and his smirk, too close to me. I don’t want to talk to him, but he follows me to the edge of the dance floor, and I can hear his friends calling and hooting behind him.

“You like to be a tease!” he shouts, too loud. “I can get into that.”

His eyes are pale blue, and he’s squinting down at my cleavage, standing so close.

“Yeah, not interested,” I tell him. I shrug into my sweater and tug it closed over my chest, but he’s still looking at my boobs, leaning closer.

“You know,” he says, pitching his voice under the music. I hate sentences that start with the words you know … and I’m right, because he finishes with “You’re pretty hot for a big girl.”

I stop for a second. It doesn’t matter if I don’t care. There’s always that split second where you’re just startled, when someone just makes a remark like that. I shake it off.

“Great!” I say, pulling my arm out of his hand, looking back at my friends on the dance floor. “Cool!” And you’re an ass, I don’t say out loud, because you’re not supposed to say that kind of thing out loud. I swear I could have invented the cure for cancer if I didn’t have to spend so much energy being grossed out by dudes fetishizing fat bodies, reminding me how hard I have worked to stop caring what people are thinking about mine.

“That doesn’t mean you’re hot enough to jerk me around, though,” he adds.