Page 11 of Second Position (Astor Hill #2)

“Nutcracker season’s coming up.” He clears his throat and the need to change the subject pulses off of him so I nod, beginning to pick through the rack in front of me. “You're gonna get sugarplum this year—I can feel it.”

I roll my lips together in an attempt to hide my grin at his blind faith in me, the one he’s had since we were young.

It became sort of a tradition for us—him waiting by the stage door with flowers, whispering, “You would’ve done it better,” in reference to whoever got the highly coveted role.

But this year is different. The past two years at the Boston Conservatory have been like a never-ending ballet boot camp and I’ve gotten better—much better.

I’ve noticed my posture move from good, great even, to impeccable.

Plus, my choreographers may have let it slip that I’m a shoe in for a principal role this year.

Landing the Sugar Plum Fairy would be a dream.

“Don’t jinx it,” I quip, but do nothing this time to hide my smile. Will stares at me for a second too long, a look I’m familiar with because I’ve caught it before, sliding across his face. Like he’s seeing me for the first time. I blush and look back down at the rack.

A text from Grant comes through again and I welcome the distraction.

Grant

hope you’re sitting

I click the link beneath the warning, gasping when I read that my favorite cast-mate on the best reality television currently on air is leaving the show.

I’ve ranted more than a few times over text while I watch at night , and I’m partially shocked to read the news and shocked that he paid enough attention to know I would care about this.

“What?” Will’s voice cuts in, somewhat impatiently.

I consider explaining, but decide it’s not worth watching his eyes glaze over .

“Nothing, just TV gossip.” I give him a brisk smile, slipping my phone into my back pocket.

“From who?” He reaches over in an attempt to grab my phone and I yank my arm out of his reach before he can see.

Frustrated confusion flares in his eyes the way it did at the bonfire, after I lied about losing my virginity.

I can’t tell if Will just hates being left out, hates feeling like he’s in the dark, or if he hates that there’s yet another part of my life he isn’t privy too.

I scrunch my brows, like the question is intrusive. Because it is. “A friend?”

“A guy?” He crosses his arms, almost paternally, his chastisement imminent and I say nothing.

“So I guess we are just not telling each other shit now? Thought we didn’t do that Gen.”

“We don’t.” Frustration laces my tone.

“Then tell me who’s texting you.” His jaw hardens as he reaches for my phone again and I push past him, moving to the other side of the rack, the hangers of clothes like an ocean between us.

“Why are you hiding this?” His jaw is clenched and he’s clearly pissed, maybe even jealous. My eyes flare, the sentiment incensing me more than I would’ve expected.

“I’ve always kept secrets Will, they’ve just been for you—not from you.”

There's an unmistakable shift between us, a small crack in our friendship that we both just felt at the mention of the secret. The one we’ve both been hiding the past few years.

Echoes of that long ago sadness now shadow Will’s features.

Thinking about Lily makes me sad, too, but it also makes me angry.

It reminds me that he’s been doing what he wants with whomever he wants long before I started to.

“I am talking to a guy. And it’s none of your business. ”

His jaw grinds before his face softens, he runs a hand through his hair almost in defeat. “That’s fine, Gen. I was just wondering.”

The nonchalance of it pulls a huff out of me, but what did I expect from him?

I sure as hell didn’t expect honesty or vulnerability, for him to tell me why it clearly bothers him so much.

There was a time when we were honest with each other.

A time when I felt like he could tell me things and he knew I would listen and vice versa.

When we met Lily Newhouse the summer before freshman year, that changed a little bit.

Which made sense—he was in love , or whatever.

But I accepted it: we stopped cuddling in bed until we fell asleep, stopped holding hands when we walked through a crowd, stopped brushing invisible hairs out of each other's faces.

I understood that, even if it hurt. He was with someone.

But then they broke up, we all got to Astor, and she wanted us to act like we didn’t all spend the summer together.

Everything was awkward, and he wanted to win her back.

When she died so unexpectedly, it was like the air was permanently ripped from his lungs.

I was so ready to be there for him, ready for us to grieve our friend together .

Instead, he closed up. Met Olivia and draped himself in his ex-girlfriend’s grief, like it would drown his own. Shoved that summer into a grave right alongside Lily. And now, it’s like I can’t get a foothold with him. He treats me the way he did before Lily, but now there’s Liv.

He’s always had a thing about people leaving him; he has deep rooted issues with his mom, his dad, especially with Ben; and then Lily left him, in a way. That’s why I can’t leave him but waiting for him to come back to life is a lot .

He rounds the rack we’re at, pulling an especially slutty dress off and holds it toward me.

“Absolutely not,” I laugh, grateful to move on from our little standoff. I hate fighting with him.

“It’s not for you.” His smile is more of a jeer, like he knows I’m in on this joke, even if it’s at my expense. “Hold it up so I can send it to Liv.”

My eyes burn, embarrassment and shame blanketing me almost instantly.

Why am I here? Why am I standing in the middle of this mall with a boy I’ve always loved but who’s never loved me?

Why am I helping him humiliate his girlfriend only so he doesn’t have to face his own anger?

His own grief? I want to throw the dress at him.

I want to curse in his face. Tell him that if he just talked about everything, he would feel better.

Wouldn’t use me to make Liv jealous. I want to tell him that I don’t know how much longer I can do this with him.

But I know that walking away would mean something and the fear that this is all that I deserve, that he will always be the only boy who made me feel this much sits like a constant weight at the base of my stomach.

The only thing worse than this is him knowing, in plain terms, how I feel, but still not choosing me.

So I grab the dress from him, the brush of our fingers nostalgic amid this new found animosity, and hold it up.

I look at him, putting forth a bored expression.

“Got it?” I ask.

“Yeah. Thanks, Genny.” His eyes rake over me, sad and tired, as he heads to a check out counter.

“We should head back so we’re not late,” I tell him after he pays for the sad excuse of a dress he picked out for his girlfriend. “But you can just drop me at Jean’s so I can grab my duffel. ”

“We can stop by yours and pick you up?” he offers.

Will knocks a second paper shopping bag against my side, a small grin on his face as if to say truce .

I open it and see the purple dress, the one that barely will cover my ass: a consolation prize, maybe.

I don’t know. It’s an olive branch I don’t want.

“No. It’s fine,” I tell him. “I’ll just meet you there.”