I shoved the salad bowl into Josie’s hands and turned the faucet off, so she could hear me loud and clear. “First, that makes no sense. Second, I was never a prodigy. And third, you’re in the advanced class with these people. Don’t they already take you seriously?”

Josie put on her let me educate you face. God, I hated that face. “Freshmen girls are never taken seriously,” she said. “If you’d gone to high school full-time when you were a freshman, you’d know that.” She bent down, somehow finding space for the salad bowl in the too-crowded dishwasher.

“And I just want an equal shot,” she said, straightening up and brushing dark brown bangs out of her eyes. “If Noah and Laurel like Trevor’s concept better, fine. But I don’t want them to ignore me by default. And I would just ask two other people in my class, but they’re the best and I want them. My piece is going to be this super-intense duet about oppositions and contrasts in the world, and how those things can clash but also merge to create strange harmonies—that’s what I’m calling it. Strange Harmonies.”

My heartbeat kicked up as I watched her describe the piece, because I recognized something in her face. A mix of inspiration, ambition, and hunger. The same expression I’d seen reflected back to me thousands of times in the mirrors at KDBS.

Josie turned to the sink and scooped up the silverware. “So will you do it? Be in the musical and impress everyone with your dancing and get Laurel and Noah to at least consider being in my piece?”

And then it was happening. Josie standing there all happy and unbroken and able to do what she loved set off the tick, tick, tick inside me—the jealousy bomb that was about to explode and make me hate her and everyone and myself.

“I don’t know, Josie. And your shitty dance won’t be the deciding factor.” I whipped around and walked upstairs. As I crossed the hallway to my room, I heard Josie shut the dishwasher, no doubt unfazed by my dramatic exit. It wasn’t a rare occurrence these days.

I shut my door and sat at the edge of my bed, staring at my peach walls with their light rectangular patches, the ghosts of pictures that used to hang there. Colleen and me in The Nutcracker. Colleen and me in Coppélia. Colleen and me in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.