Page 16

Delores

CLASS CANCELED

My jaw drops as I stare at the sign on the door to the backstage area. I risked having my ass and the secret tattoo I got over the summer flashed all over campus to make sure I didn’t miss seeing this professor, and he fucking ditched!

Of all the bullshit…

I look around in frustration. My tardiness means Cori and Rufus are long gone, but I’ll have to stay to make certain whether the set design block—also taught by Professor Chess—suffers the same fate. If I head back to my room, I’ll just have to haul cottontail back here again in… damn. Forty minutes. I’m really fucking late. I’ll need to remember next week that I can’t shower or change after Dance I don’t need to repel him with my stench, too .

Ugh.

What am I going to do? I can’t hang around in the hallway; it’s too exposed. I don’t think the Heathers would be caught dead in this building, and the Todd bros are too stupid to attack without instructions. Unfortunately, with what happened in the gym earlier, I can’t trust that anyone in the student body, regardless of their year, isn’t working for my enemies. I’ll be a sitting... rabbit… everywhere I go.

I wrinkle my nose as I pull out my phone and look at the Apex app. The prey modifications the nurses helped me add show a lot of options if I want to sneak away without being seen. Since that’s not what I want at the moment, I have to find a place in the building to hole up in until I can confirm Professor Chess is avoiding me like a severe case of the clap.

He won’t cancel class for the entire year, will he?

I tense as I hear footsteps approaching, waffling for only a second before I sprint down the hall toward the closest stairwell. Once I’m through the door, I hop onto the railing, sliding down in my borrowed joggers like a frat boy at a kegger. Three minutes and a few close calls with gravity later, I’m at the bottom adjusting my enormous boy-clothes wedgie.

Not the most graceful exit, but it’ll do in a pinch.

Scampering across the lobby, I ignore the gaudy Angry Bird statue in the center and slip into the brightly lit Shirdal Memorial Theater. There aren’t any students or professors in here, but there’s an enormous amount of space. There are at least ten hidden exits; the nurses had me mark them on my app. The best part is the piano, which makes me smile. I can work on my songs while I wait and won’t need to worry about being trapped like a rat. It’s the best option, given the circumstances.

Plus, I haven’t had a lot of time to practice since I arrived. I’m not ready to share my compositions with my friends, and while I know Fitz would listen, I don’t want him to feel obligated to praise me if I suck. Lucille was so critical of my music that I learned to keep this piece of my heart sheltered because, if it broke, I don’t know if I’d have survived it. I can’t imagine how bad it would hurt to have someone I’m coming to value tell me I’m terrible—or worse, pretend I’m not just to save my feelings.

If that happened, I’d have to enter the Predation Protection Program like a stool pigeon, so I could start an entirely new identity. I couldn’t bear having the one creative outlet I’ve used to combat my loneliness and depression become the thing that drives anyone else away.

My vision narrows as the bunny fights its way to the surface again, and I groan. I just don’t have the spoons to figure out what the hell it wants with me. I’m still coming to grips with being here at Apex with a campus full of enemies. Closing my eyes, I give in briefly, using the ingrained senses of my inner prey animal to listen, scent, and feel if there’s a presence in the theater I can’t see. When it passes muster, I push the bunny back in the box and head to the piano on stage.

My eyes take in the majesty of the instrument like a child in a toy store. The Steinway D-274 concert grand is one of the most expensive models they could purchase, and it glistens like a crown jewel in the bright stage lighting. I’ve never played something so rich and luxurious looking, and I’m a little intimidated, to be honest. I slowly walk around the curve of the piano, trailing my fingertips over the lacquer case as I go.

Am I worthy of something so valuable?

I don’t know, but nothing good comes from being scared. I learned that lesson the hard way last spring. If I’d made a stand with Lucille, the Heathers, or even Todd sooner, maybe my emergence wouldn’t have been the catastrophe it was. Maybe I would have found someone who actually gave a shit about me before my animal appeared, rather than a bunch of assholes who used the event to destroy me .

Maybe I’m not that girl anymore…

Deciding not to let a beautiful hunk of sugar pine, maple, spruce, and Swedish steel scare me, I plop down on the bench and use my phone to pull up my sheet music. I’d rather have my notebook since this screen is small and I won’t be able to make notations, but I didn’t bring my messenger bag to the Leo this morning. That’s probably good, because I bet those bitches who stole my clothes would have done worse with my personal items.

I lift the cover off the keyboard, gliding my fingers over the enameled spruce lovingly as I do. One day, I’ll own something as beautiful as this, even if I suck rocks at songwriting. When I’m in a proper home, no one will care if I stink or if I’m a T. Swift in the making. That’s how real love works, right?

Geez, Dolly. Get a grip.

Me and my infinite sadness will attract none of the sexy professors I’m lusting after. No one likes a bitter bunny, I tell myself as I stretch my fingers. A few more internal admonishments and warm-up exercises later, and I have the feel of the strikes and the balance rail—ready to play more complex pieces now that I’ve got the mechanics of this baby down.

The intro to my latest piece is a lilting sonata, and I close my eyes, my body swaying while I follow the rhythm of the prelude. When I reach the first verse, I sing softly along with the rich sounds of the piano echoing off the acoustics.

Torrents and waves crash every day

carrying me out to sea

Don’t know the way

Don’t know what to say

For you to be kind to me

I sigh as I play through the pre-chorus, sadness enveloping my heart again. I hate them all, but can’t help wondering why it was so easy to cast me aside. Am I so worthless that even the people who are supposed to love me—like my own parents—can’t? Is that why I was cursed to be prey?

My heart is my guide. I wear it outside,

but I hide what you do to me

The words you say

The thoughts they convey

Pain makes it hard to breathe

If that’s true, if I’m truly such a burden to bear, then why did Luc help me by giving me a job and financial freedom? Why did Mattie always try to protect me? Why was I able to make friends this summer and why has Fitz followed me around since I arrived at Apex? Some obviously think I’m worthy of their attention, so why couldn’t my former friends and family?

Apologies sweet, the cycle complete

I’m drowning in misery

You bruise and you scrape

There is no escape

I don’t know why you can’t see

I don’t understand what I did to deserve the chaos my life has become, but I know I can’t wallow in my own tears forever. I have to stand up for myself, and that starts with making the people who hurt me pay for their misdeeds. It doesn’t matter why they treated me poorly or what reasons they thought they had—there’s always a choice, and they chose wrong. Even if it destroys me, I’m going to make every single person who has broken my heart into pieces pay for their crimes.

I’m floating away… floating above the fray…

The only way I can grieve…

The ache in my lyrics echoes that of my soul as I finally release my desire to change the past. As always, my music helps me process my overwhelming emotions, and I breathe a little easier as the melancholy notes of the outro ring through the empty theater. I think I might have this song almost finished—it needs only a little more work before I can add the chorus.

Just like me.