At some point, a crack of thunder startled my eyes open. Downstairs, I heard Josie and my parents laugh as they covered the patio furniture and hurried back inside. My right leg, where the metal was, throbbed with an ache that took over my whole body. It happened every time it rained. I curled into the fetal position, reliving the horrible split second that had changed everything.

I’d been practicing fouettés after class at KDBS. My arms had been hyperextending when I pliéd, and I didn’t want to leave until I’d corrected it. Maybe I hadn’t put enough rosin on my shoes. Maybe I was exhausted from class and should have taken a break. All I know was that one second, I was whipping through the air, and the next, I wasn’t. A sickening crack echoed around the walls of the studio. My bones were in pieces. And nothing would ever be the same.

And now, I felt out of place in my peachy-pink room where I used to have sleepovers with Colleen, staying up all night fantasizing about being professional ballet dancers in New York. We’d be company members in the American Ballet Theatre. Roommates. Regulars at fancy sushi restaurants and romantic cafés. We’d dance our favorite role: Giselle.

I pulled the comforter over my head and dragged my laptop inside. Harsh light filled my sad little blanket fort as Marianela Núñez danced on-screen, the second-act score of Giselle radiating weakly from my laptop’s speakers.

In the ballet, Giselle dies of a broken heart because the man she loves betrays her, and then she turns into one of the Wilis—ghosts of jilted girls, doomed to haunt the forest forever, killing men who wander in at night.

I wasn’t dead. And nobody had jilted me. But something had. I still loved ballet, but it didn’t love me back. All I could do was linger on, like a sad, rejected ghost, hurting people who didn’t deserve it.

CHAPTER THREE

I FELT A LIGHT SLAP on my arm and turned to face Margot. Thank God we both had last names starting with K. It meant I had a distraction in the bleak place known as homeroom.

“I’ll text—” Margot started, but was overpowered by a huge yawn. I yawned, too, and not just because Margot did. Between late-night Giselle viewings and the slurry of memories that kept me awake (highlights included the God-awful sound of my bones breaking, the searing pain I felt after I got to the hospital, and the doctor pointing at my X-ray and saying, “You shattered it good”) I never got enough sleep.

“Jesus, I’m tired,” Margot said, tapping her pencil on a half-finished geometry work sheet.

“Wild night?” I asked, rubbing my eyes.

“If watching Little Shop of Horrors with Ethan is wild, then yes.”