Was that what I was doing? Moving on? Yeah, I was talking about ballet in ways I never had before. I’d had fun at Winter Formal. I felt all warm and glittery whenever I thought about my conversation with Jude. But part of me was still a mess. I still missed ballet desperately, even though it was far from the perfect thing I’d thought it was.

I didn’t know what that meant about me.

Mom smiled warmly, and then, never forgetting my original question, went back to it. “Well, so, the longer we lived here, the more this place became ours. First mine and your dad’s. And then our family’s. Everything felt so different at first, but then, after all the confusion and change, I found my footing again.”

I must have looked skeptical, because Mom sighed. “If I were inclined to be literary about it, I’d say it was like all the pieces of myself had shaken up and flown in different directions, flipping and spinning and rearranging themselves. Like confetti. But in the end, after the whirlwind, all the pieces were still there. Every single one. Just in different places.”

The words pulled a surprising memory from my head, one I hadn’t thought about in a long time. When we were fourteen, Colleen and I became obsessed with learning the tour en l’air, a step that meant “turn in the air.” You started with an unassuming plié, but then you pushed straight up into the air and revolved once, twice, or even three times before coming back down and landing in plié again. It was usually a boy’s step, which was why Kira never taught us. But together, Colleen and I studied online tutorials and critiqued each other’s form until we could do it.

The first time I did a double tour en l’air, the only thing I felt was my own body revolving through space. And when I came down again into plié, I was shocked. I’d done it. I’d done it without Kira. I remembered staring at my reflection in the mirror afterward. I looked the same, but inside, I felt different. Like all my pieces had settled back in different places, rearranged.

After a bit, Mom stood up, pointing to the other mug on my nightstand. “Will you bring that to Josie?”

“Sure,” I said, giving Mom a small smile as she left my room. A few minutes later, I dragged myself from under my covers. When I stood up, my leg felt stiff, so I rolled my ankle a few times, hearing it crackle. I picked up Josie’s mug and headed down the hall to her room. Music radiated from her laptop—a hypnotic piano melody. Her door was slightly open, so I peeked inside.