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TWENTY-ONE

DANNI

I’m shocked by how quickly Rose and I settle into something called “us.”

Obviously, there are rules to “us.” Rule one, no one can know about us. That’s easy enough, because I’m only out to Rachel, and Rose is only out to her parents, so it’s not like either of us are exactly racing to announce we’re together. There’s a little weirdness there on my end because the media—and half the people we know—still seem convinced Rose and Alfie are a thing, but Rose insists that there’s never been anything there with Alfie past the one kiss, and I believe her. I just wish the rest of the world knew that.

Rule number two, which sort of ties into rule one, is that we more or less act the same around each other as we did right before our first kiss. That means I hang out with Molly, and Rose with Eleanor. During the days, anyway. Rose points out that it’ll be easier for us to hide that there’s “something between us”—her words for “I don’t really know what we are, but we sure as hell aren’t platonic”—if there aren’t too many eyes on us.

Rose is not wrong. If I’m even in the same room as her, I find it hard to wrench my eyes away. Whenever she’s close enough to touch, but I can’t reach out and brush her hand, or her shoulder, or her perfect, perfect collarbone, I find it hard to form a coherent thought. I don’t think I have it in me to be subtle.

To be fair, I can’t help it if nothing else in the room is ever as interesting to look at as she is.

Rule number three is, every door is always locked. And if a door can’t be locked, we don’t risk it.

Or at least, that’s what I thought rule number three was. Except right now, I’m in the ballroom practicing piano, and Rose has abandoned her makeshift homework station to hover very, very closely behind me. I ignore her until she sweeps my hair to one side and kisses the exposed skin where the base of my neck meets the top of my spine.

Jesus Christ.

Obviously, I can’t be expected to focus on piano under these conditions, and I let my hands fall into my lap as I swing around.

“Rose,” I say, and she gives me an innocent look.

“Yes?”

“We’re in a public place.”

She steps closer to me, placing a leg on either side of my knees, letting her long waves hang around my face. It takes superhuman strength for me not to hook my hands around the back of her thighs and pull her down to me. “We’re in a room with the curtains drawn and the door closed,” she says.

Luckily, I do have superhuman strength, but it’s being tested. I wriggle backward with a pointed look. “A door that could be opened any second.”

“It’s heavy. We’d have warning.”

“Not enough warning for you to climb off my lap and make it back to your own seat.”

“Is that an invitation?” Rose asks with a mischievous grin, and I swivel back to face the piano before I break and decide to risk it.

With a dramatic sigh, Rose stomps back to her textbooks. She studies a whole bunch of languages—at the moment, she’s focusing on Italian and Mandarin—and her tutors bury her in exercises for them pretty much every day. And, given I practice piano just about that often, Rose figured we could do those things together up here and snatch some extra time together. She insists the piano doesn’t make it hard for her to concentrate, and so far she hasn’t complained, so it’s part of our new routine now.

Honestly, these late-night hangouts are my favorite things in the world. Rose dresses down for them in a way I never used to see, in yoga pants and oversized sweaters and even the odd pair of sweatpants. And even though I’m pretty sure they cost more than the most expensive thing in my whole wardrobe, there’s something so normal feeling about it. Like we’re an old married couple doing our chores in the living room after a long day.

Usually, we stop by my room afterward to hang out for a little while before bed. Usually, Rose can wait. But usually, we’re out of here by this time of night.

“I’ll finish soon,” I tell her, and she brightens right up. “Just let me play this through from the top, okay?”

“Okay, sure.”

I go to play the same tune I’ve been working on for the last half hour, but I think Rose’s restlessness rubs off on me, because suddenly the thought of hearing that one more time—and stumbling over the second half yet again—makes me want to snap my fingertips off.

So, instead, I wrap things up by playing an old faithful, a song my fingers know better than my mind does. Maybe a part of me wants to show off for Rose, the way she showed off when she took me skating. And so what if I do? I want her to be impressed by me. I want her to admire me.

I don’t think I’ve wrapped my head around the outlandish fact that she likes me just yet.

All those feelings, the excitement and the awe and the hope, come out easily through this song. I don’t miss a single note of it—I haven’t in years—but it’s hands down the most I’ve ever enjoyed the tune. It used to be pensive and pretty. Now, it’s a song about falling hard for someone you used to think would never see you as anything but a friend. The tempo’s faster now, and it swells where it used to pull back, and I even bring the melody up an octave for part of it.

I’m having fun, and when I finish, I’m proud and satisfied. At least, until I look around to find Rose holding her phone up and filming me. “That was amazing,” she says.

“Delete it,” I say automatically.

She holds up her free hand and drops the phone into her lap. “Hold on. I will if you want me to—”

“I do.”

“But I had a thought while you were playing. Maybe you could put it online? Or Molly could, or something. You have to get used to playing in front of people, right? Could this be an intermediary?”

Put up a video of me baring my soul for strangers to judge and critique? Is she serious right now? I open my mouth to say no, absolutely not, but then I catch myself.

Rose notices my hesitation, and places a gentle hand on my knee. “If you never take the first step toward where you want to be, you’ll stay right where you are,” she says. “You can’t teleport yourself to your destination.”

I’ve never thought about it that way. But maybe Rose has a point. I’ve been so preoccupied by where I want to be one day—an orchestra member in my realistic dreams, and a soloist in my wildest—and how far away from those dreams I am, that I’ve let myself get totally overwhelmed. But I don’t have to become that person yet. The only thing I have to do right this second is a single step.

I can take a step, can’t I? It’s a terrifying one, and the thought of it makes me want to bury myself under my bedcovers and never come out, but it’s not impossible. And, yeah, maybe people will make fun of me in the comments, or in a private chat. But maybe they won’t. Maybe Maddison and her friends were a blip. Maybe it’s time I find out for sure. After all, so far, the Bramppath girls don’t seem to hate my guts. Even if they do kind of hate my clothes.

I’d have to review the video first, obviously, to make sure it sounds as good on camera as I thought it did in real life. But at least this would be controlled. I wouldn’t have to worry about messing up the notes, or panicking, because I’ve already played it.

“Can you send it to me?” I ask finally, and she does.

It’s really late by the time I gather all my stuff and we leave the ballroom. Late enough that we should be calling it a night. In the courtyard, we pass Harriet doing her rounds—every RA is responsible for clearing out and locking up one area of the school each night, and she told me once hers is the library. Even the hallway is empty, which means everyone’s done brushing their teeth and using the bathroom.

But when I go to tell Rose I’ll see her tomorrow, she looks so disappointed, I swallow my words. Besides, it’s not like I’m in a rush to say goodbye. So, looking as innocent as we can, we head upstairs to her room together. I’ll say I lent her my laptop charger if anyone asks why I’m up here, I decide. But I don’t have to use the excuse, because we don’t run into a soul.

“We’ll have to be quick,” I go to tell Rose, but she kisses the words away. I think she’s been waiting for this the whole time we were in the ballroom. We hit her bed and fall backward together, still kissing.

“I can’t stay long,” I say around the kisses. God, I wish I didn’t need sleep. What a waste, to lie there unconscious all night, day in and day out, eating into perfectly good make-out time.

“Mmm.”

“We’ll get in so much trouble if we’re caught.” God, I wish there wasn’t a curfew.

“Shut up, then, and we won’t get caught,” she says, her eyes glinting with amusement.

I open my mouth, and she kisses the words away until I forget what I was going to say to begin with.

By the time I leave Rose’s room, it’s not “a little past curfew” late. It’s “immediate detention” late. It’s “get your ass handed to you by the headmaster the next morning if you’re caught” late. And I should care, I really, really should. But I just don’t.

I pull her door closed as gently as I can and slip down the hall and to the stairs, taking them slow and steady to avoid creaking.

So, of course, I manage to run right into Harriet as I reach the bottom of the staircase.

I freeze, wincing, and brace myself for whatever she’s got to say. She might be my friend, but she’s tough on curfew. I’ve overheard her doling out detentions through the walls more than a couple of times.

“And what time do you call this?” she asks, looking me up and down, and sounding… amused? Amused is a good start. Much better than pissed off.

“I accidentally fell asleep watching a movie with someone,” I lie in my best pleading tone.

“So you weren’t gallivanting?”

“I promise, zero gallivanting on my end. And it won’t happen again,” I add.

Harriet rolls her eyes fondly. “Hurry up and get in your room before someone sees us,” she says, and I clasp my hands together to thank her. “Hey, Danni,” she says, just as I turn to go. “I heard you playing tonight, when I was heading out to my rounds. I haven’t heard you play that song before. It was beautiful.”

I touch the back of my neck self-consciously. “Oh. Thank you.”

Maybe I will get Molly to put that video up. If two people think it was that good, then I should probably believe them.

Still, I’m nervous. Nervous enough that it takes me hours to fall asleep that night. The memories of being mocked—and the urge not to give people any possible ammunition to use against me—have been stirred up enough that it feels like a present threat instead of just a really shitty thing I went through over a year ago now.

But, I remind myself, that was an entirely different school. At Bramppath, the people who know I exist are decent, and for everyone else, I don’t even register on their radar. I’m nobody to them, for better or worse.

I just have to trust that becoming aware of my existence won’t be enough to put a target on my back. That just knowing me isn’t a good reason to hate me.

Maybe that sort of trust is something that only comes with time, though. Time, and proof. And the only way to get proof is to do something scary like this, and have it be fine.

It’s going to be fine.