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Except he was, once.I wonder what my friends would say if I told them about what happened between Henry and Melinda. I skipped over that part, since it didn’t seem like my business to tell, but now I wonder if I should have.

What if this cold and mean Henry was the real Henry all along?

Chapter Seventeen

IT TAKES A FEW DAYS FOR THE EXCITEMENT ABOUTHenry and me to die down. Even though Portia deleted the original post, a lot of Henry’s fans and even some online journalists had already taken screenshots of it and shared it elsewhere. Gossip articles popped up about how Henry and I are “dating,” with a lot of them discussing how “interesting” of a rebound I am after Henry’s relationship with Melinda.

I lose count of the number of times I’ve rolled my eyes. I hang out with Henryonetime and people are already calling me a “rebound.” And it’s really disgusting how people think it’s “interesting” for Henry to date “a girl like me.” People are so transparent with their fatphobia sometimes.

My first instinct is to uninstall all my social media apps, so I don’t see what the thousands of strangers who shared the gossip articles online are saying about me. But since we only have one other official dance practice before the second elimination round, I keep Instagram. I need it to contact Henry.

But when I message Henry’s account to ask if he wants to meet up sometime to practice, neither he nor Portia responds. They just leave me on “Seen.” After obsessively checking my phone for an hour, I make myself stop. Even though my chances at the dance part of this competition are crumbling into little pieces, I still have the voice portion. And at leastthatpart I can do something about.

Since “Crazy in Love” is such a dance-dependent song, at rehearsal on Saturday I teach Lana a few moves that we can both dance during the instrumental breaks. Despite what Lana says about being “just okay” at dancing, she manages to follow along to the choreography with only a few mistakes. Practicing with Lana is going so well that I almost forget how horribly things are going with Henry. Almost.

During our lunch break, Lana catches me sulking behind the studio. Thankfully, everyone—including the camera crew—is on break now, so I’m taking full advantage of the fact that I don’t have to smile and pretend everything is okay.

“What’s up?” she asks, her eyebrows knitting together with concern.

“Ugh, it’s Henry,” I say. “I wish things were going well with him like they are with us, but he’s avoiding me for some reason. Won’t even answer my DMs.”

She frowns, leaning against the wall beside me. “Why? I thought he was cool with dancing with you. Didn’t he volunteer to be your partner? That’s what Tiffany told me.”

“He did. And he was fine with it for the first practice. Butever since we went out for tacos and the whole Instagram thing happened... well, I haven’t heard from him since.”

“Guys are so strange. I’m so glad I don’t have to deal with them.”

“I mean, it’s not like I’m dating Henry.”

Lana does a double take. “Wait, you two aren’t dating?”

“Nope, those are all just rumors. I literally only invited him out for tacos because he said he hadn’t eaten anything for the day.”

“Skye...” Lana groans. “Henry’s a celebrity. You can’t just go out with him like that without expecting some scandal to break out.”

When she puts it that way, what we did does sound pretty reckless. Still, I can’t bring myself to really regret that day. What happened afterward sucked, but we had a good time.

“Honestly,” Lana continues. “I’ve heard some really strange things about him. To be fair, I don’t know him personally, so I don’t know if any of it is true. But I have a few friends who went to Harvard-Westlake with him, back before his parents pulled him out of school. Apparently, he doesn’t have any friends. Like, at all. He used to, a long time ago, but then something happened.”

“Something? Like, what?”

“I don’t know. My friends got really uncomfortable when I asked, so I didn’t push. Seems like it was a big deal, though.”

I think back to how excited Henry was to just be grabbing tacos with me. He definitely acted like he didn’t get out much,so I can see how the rumors Lana heard could be true. A sinking feeling grows in my stomach. I don’t know whether to be wary of him or feel bad for him.

After a while, Lana says, “Have you tried talking to him about everything? I’ll never date a guy again, ever, but from what I know about my little brother, guys are awfully bad at talking about things. You can’t just expect them to tell you what’s wrong. You have to ask them first.”

Just flat-out asking Henry about everything did occur to me before, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Maybe it’s because he’s a celebrity, or because of what happened after we hung out, but I feel a bit intimidated by him. I know Lana is right, though. I can’t just let this go on forever. And I don’t want this to hurt my chances in the competition.

I make a mental note todefinitelyask Henry what’s up at our dance practice next week. If I message him, he’ll probably only ghost me again.

I’m about to thank Lana for the tip when Barack Obama’s voice suddenly booms out: “KAKAOTALK!”

I give Lana a look, and she grins like a five-year-old.

“I didn’t know anyone actually used that ringtone,” I say as I watch her open up her phone.

Everyone and their mom—maybe even their grandparents—uses KakaoTalk to message each other in Korea, and so do a lot of Korean people who live in the States. Since the only Korean friend I have from school is Clarissa, and she doesn’t really use KakaoTalk, I only message my parents on it. Theapp has pretty hilarious ringtones and stickers that you can’t get anywhere else, so I’m sad I don’t have more opportunities to use it.