Maybe One Day Read Free Page A

friend might be falling for my nemesis was more than I could take.
    I rolled my eyes. “Calvin’s the worst, Livs. Don’t be another notch in his belt.”
    She was still watching him and Jake. “I’m telling you I’m, like, bizarrely drawn to him.”
    Thinking a different tactic might be more effective, I got to my hands and knees and crawled toward Olivia. “He’s so handsome and magnetic. And he lives in that big mansion up in the Estates. Beware! Maybe the reason you’re so drawn to him is because he’s really a vampire ! Raarh! ” When Livvie laughed, I growled, baring imaginary fangs, then rolled onto my back and stared into the leaves of the tree. I could barely feel a breeze, but their shimmering proved that there was one.
    “Liv?”
    “Mmm?”
    “What do you think I should do?”
    “About what?” She yawned. “Sorry. I’m so tired. Did I tell you I almost fell asleep in physics? I jerked awake at the last second, but I think Mr. Thomas is onto me.”
    “About my life . What should I do with my life?” I sat up and looked over Olivia’s enormous Victorian house and across the hedges at the edge of her yard. Up and down the block were other houses, and in each of the houses were people. What did they do with their lives?
    “Teach the dance class with me,” said Olivia, and she rolled onto her side and leaned her head on her hand. “The girls would love you.”
    “No dance,” I said shaking my head. It was amazing to me how . . . accepting Livvie had been of our being cut from NYBC. She taught a ballet class once a week, organized the spring recital for her dancers, then led a dance camp for twoweeks over the summer. She even kept the photo from our first dance recital on her desk—the two of us smiling at the camera, our pink tutus squashed because we’re standing so close together. I, on the other hand, in an attempt to escape my failed dance career, had joined (and then quit) the soccer team, ripped the posters of ballerinas off my walls, thrown out all my dance paraphernalia, and forbidden anyone from uttering the word “ballet” in my presence. I couldn’t help envying her a little, but Livvie had always been the one to take things in stride.
    Why should this be any different?
    I watched her face, seeing her make the decision not to push me on the dance thing. “And you’re sure you don’t want to do soccer?” she asked.
    “Positive.” The girls on the soccer team were awesome, but everything about the sport had felt so wrong . I’d gone out for the team because I wanted to get as far away from dance as possible, but instead of making me forget dancing, soccer had only made me miss it more. I remembered standing on the soccer field, all that sky and grass and the feeling that without ballet, there wasn’t enough gravity to keep me connected to earth.
    A leaf dropped onto my foot, and I picked it up and tore a thin strip from the edge. It was incredible how our bloody, blistered feet had healed so beautifully over the past year. My toes shimmered with the pale pink polish I’d chosen whenLivvie and I had gotten pedicures on Labor Day.
    Livvie stretched her arms over her head, then reached for my ankle and patted it. “Just tell me why you won’t do the dance class,” she said sleepily.
    I tried to put into words exactly how I felt. “I just . . .” I tilted my head and studied the canopy of leaves over our head, as if the answer might be written there. My explanation came slowly. “I thought . . . it was going to be my whole life, Livs. It was my whole life. And now it’s . . . what? A hobby? That feels so wrong .”
    Livvie squeezed my foot to show she understood. “You could do something else at the rec center, you know? It wouldn’t have to be dance. There’s the tumbling class.”
    I raised my eyebrows at her. “You aren’t seriously hooking me up with the cheer squad, are you?”
    “The kids in the class are adorable,” she said, not answering my