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  “I can’t wait,” I say.

  Our twenty-member dance team is pretty much run like boot camp and we work harder than most sports teams at school. There are plenty of times when we complain about how tough it is having two-hour weekday and four-hour Saturday practices all school year. But the truth is, whenever we rock a performance or win a competition, we know without a doubt that it’s all worth it. Still, I’ve been counting down the days until this vacation, and I’m relieved that it’s finally almost here.

  We finish a few more laps, and then Ming, Dia, and I sit on the floor for stretches.

  Dia and I both turn at the waist and look over our shoulders, facing each other. “Don’t you want to hear what Ming and I were saying about you?” she asks.

  I’m not sure I do, but I twist the other way toward Ming and say, “You know it.”

  “Well,” Dia says. “We were talking about you and Noah, of course—”

  “There is no me and Noah,” I say, for probably the three billionth time since seventh grade.

  “And that’s good,” Ming says, “because you and Noah hooking up would be practically incestuous.”

  “Eww,” Dia and I say together.

  Ming goes on. “I’m trying to figure out what exactly is going on with you and that certain someone you’ve been eating lunch with in the band room.”

  My heart jumps, but I try not to let on. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “No?” Ming smiles slyly. “True or false? A tall, super-skinny tenor-sax player is going on vacation with you and your family.”

  I can’t even try to deny it; Ming’s boyfriend, Xander, happens to be friends with Reece, and is the likeliest source of her information.

  Keeping my legs straight in front of me on the floor, I lean over my knees and reach to hold on to my feet. “You know, I could probably answer your question better if I had any idea what a tenor sax even is.”

  Dia snort-laughs. “It’s the instrument that Reece Kinsey plays. But something tells me you already knew that.”

  “Oh, right. The answer is ‘maybe true.’ But jeez—he isn’t that skinny.” I lift my head in time to see Ming and Dia exchange grins. If my arms were long enough, I’d give them each a push. “He might meet us up there for the last couple of days,” I say. “It isn’t a big deal.”

  “Maybe not to you,” Ming says.

  I want to ask her what she means—she thinks it’s a big deal, or Reece does?—but Coach Laine chooses that moment to get things started. “On your feet, everyone.”

  We split into our squads. Like always, Alejandra frowns when Ming, Dia, and I come over to her and Hannah, but it isn’t like we have any more choice in this than she has.

  Piper stands in front of us with her hands clasped behind her back. In her squad-captain voice, she says, “I think I have fixes for the kinks in our new routine. Let’s try it out today, okay?”

  So we do. We spend two hours synchronizing arms, legs, bodies, heads, hands, feet, props. Two hours mixing in the right kicks, high kicks, leg lifts, splits, jump splits. Two hours stopping and starting, stopping and starting, trying this and trying that. We work it, and we work it, and we work it some more.

  Five. Six. Seven. Eight. One. Two. Three. Four.

  Clap, clap, clap, clap. Clap, clap, clap, clap.

  Just when I’ve had too much, when I’m sure that my legs will give way if I have to do one more high kick, Piper tells us to “Keep going!”

  Don’t stop. Let’s go, let’s go. Get it right, get it right, get it right. Higher, higher, higher, higher. Kick, kick, kick, kick, kick.

  I do everything she says, when she says it, how she says it. She knows what we’re capable of better than we do. She knows how to make us push through and never stop until long after every wrestler has cleared out, until we’ve given everything we can, until the end of practice finally comes.

  “All right, chickadees,” Coach Laine yells. “That’s that. Now grab your water and let’s have a seat.”

  “Time for another inspirational circle time,” Ming says, panting a little.

  Everyone on the team drags themselves to the center of the gym and plops down—red-faced and sweaty—in a half circle around Coach Laine. I hold my metal bottle against my cheek to cool down. Next to me, Piper smooths back a few of her auburn strands, which came loose during our workout.

  Coach gets right to it. “This winter break is going to be a vacation in the sense that no practices are scheduled. But it is absolutely not an excuse to take a vacation from taking care of yourselves. Competition season is on the way, and starting in January, practices are going to get even more intense. So eat right, do your daily stretching and workouts, and don’t get soft. And for those of you going on ski trips”—she looks straight at me—“there will be no pulling, spraining, or breaking of any body parts. We need you. Understood?”

  I smile. “Understood.”

  “Good. And there’s one more thing. This is huge, so listen up, everyone. In some cultures, the start of a new year is the time where everyone who has wronged another person has to apologize before the Day of Repentance. Have any of you ever heard of that?”

  I haven’t, but a few other girls nod.

  “All right,” Coach says. “I’m implementing this concept. The deal is that there will not only be apologizing going on, but there will also be forgiving. I don’t care why anyone is holding a grudge against anyone else on this team, but it’s going to stop.”

  Ming rolls her eyes, just enough for me—and not Coach—to notice. I give a small shrug and sip my water.

  Coach Laine looks around at all of us. “If you think I’m talking about you, I am. Get it together, ladies. Your last chance for repentance will be the first day back after the break. If you haven’t found a way to make peace before practice that afternoon, you’ll be running laps until your legs fall off and dancing in the back row for the rest of your high school careers. Hate to say it, but I’m not kidding. So get a little R and R—but not too much—keep in shape, and come back here in seventeen days as a team with one hundred percent unity, ready to work harder than you’ve ever worked before!”

  All four of the team captains set down their water, push themselves off the floor, and clap and scream like cheerleaders. I can feel the stares of several of my teammates as they stand as well, but no matter what any of them might think, this Day of Repentance isn’t my problem to solve.

  I jump to my feet, pull Ming up, and cheer the loudest of everyone.

  • • •

  At the dinner table, I spoon my big brother’s homemade salsa onto my tacos, while wanting more than anything to reach across the table to knock my little brothers’ brown-haired heads together.

  “It just doesn’t add up,” Zach says loudly. “I still don’t believe it. I refuse to believe it.”

  “It happened,” Jacob says even louder. “You saw it. Get over it.”

  “But Anakin wouldn’t turn to the Dark Side of the Force. Not the way they showed it. I think they made a mistake.”

  “It doesn’t matter what you think,” says Jacob. “The people who made the movies got to decide. You can’t change it.”

  Tony sets his margarita at the head of the table and takes his seat. “Sure he can. It’s called ‘fan fiction,’ right?”

  “Hey, guys?” Mom says, coming in from the kitchen. “I’m ready to enjoy a relaxing meal. Which means that effective immediately, two mouths are going to zip it about Star Wars. Capisce?”

  Tony chuckles. “Which two? Because I’m interested in hearing Zach’s ideas.”

  At the end of the table beside me, Bryan gives me a kill-me-now look from under his blond, bedhead hair. I push the salsa his way and hand him the spoon. Bryan and his girlfriend broke up right before the start of their winter break. He arrived home this week from college as the most depressed, making-all-of-our-lives-miserable version of himself imaginable.

  Mom pulls out the empty chair between Emma and m
e. “I’m sure Zach has great thoughts, honey,” she says to Tony as she sits, “and you can ask him all about it after dinner. Nicole, what time do you need to go to your sleepover tonight?”

  Other than a few of my teachers, Mom is the only person who uses my real first name. She says that if she’d wanted to call me “Coley,” that’s what she would have put on my birth certificate.

  “I’m fine for whenever you’re ready to drop me off,” I tell her. “I think everyone else who is going went straight after practice.”

  “Well, la-di-da,” Jacob says.

  I bite into my taco without responding. It isn’t worth it.

  “What happened to your neck?” Mom asks me.

  I resist the urge to cover it as I finish chewing. “My curling iron fell out of my hand.”

  She leans in for a closer look. “Good grief. You need to put some burn gel on that. And when it scabs over, you better make sure not to pick at it or you’ll give yourself a scar.”

  “Mom, I’m not going to pick at it.”

  “Let me see, Coley,” Emma says.

  “Why?”

  She gives a big shrug and her blond curls bounce.

  I lean in and tilt my head to expose the side of my neck for a couple of seconds—it’s easier than making a thing out of it—but I can’t bring myself to look anywhere except at my plate while I’m doing so.

  “Does it hurt?” Emma asks.

  “I can’t even feel it.”

  “Yuck,” Zach says. “I bet that burn’s going to turn all blistered and super pus-y.”

  “Yuck,” Jacob says. “Zach said, ‘super pussy.’ ”

  Emma laughs.

  “I said, ‘pus-y!’ ” says Zach.

  Mom scoops refried beans onto her plate. “Watch your mouths, all of you.”

  “I can’t,” Jacob says, pulling on his lips. “My mouth isn’t big enough.”

  “Guess what, everyone,” Tony cuts in. “I picked up the boards and skis from the shop today. They’re all tuned up, waxed, and ready.”

  “Yes!” Jacob pumps his arm. “I’m gonna go on so many jumps this time.”

  I’ve been thinking all day about how to tell Mom and Tony about Reece joining us in a way that won’t make them mad. I wish I could just not tell them until he shows up at the vacation house, but that would make it awkward for everyone—especially Reece. Anyway, his mom could call here at any time, so I have to get it over with.

  I take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and then smile big, hoping my enthusiasm will be contagious. “Oh, hey. I wanted to tell you all. I found out that one of my friends is going to meet us up at Whistler for the last couple days of our trip. So that will be fun, right?”

  “Which friend?” Mom asks. “Alejandra, I hope.”

  “No,” I say, still smiling, even though, seriously, when is she going to accept that Alejandra and I don’t go anywhere together anymore? “It’s Reece. You met him, remember? He’s in the marching band, and I introduced you when you came to watch me dance at Homecoming halftime? He’s in jazz band, too.”

  That last part was for Tony’s benefit, since he also likes all that old music.

  Mom shakes her head, frowning like she can’t keep up. “Your friend is a boy named Reece?”

  This is already going in exactly the direction I’d hoped it wouldn’t. The corners of my lips are threatening to slip downward. “Yes. He loves to snowboard. He’ll drive himself up the day after Christmas, and it’ll be great.”

  Tony raises his eyebrows. He and Mom exchange a long look, and then Tony says, “That kid doesn’t think he’s going to be staying with us, does he?”

  “Where else would he stay?”

  Mom rubs her temples. “Nicole, you can’t invite a random boy to our town house whom we met once at a football game and you know that. Plus, we’re so rarely all together these days. I’m sorry, but I think it will be better if this trip is for the family only.”

  My excited approach didn’t work, so I have to switch tactics. “It’s for one night. You were going to let Bryan bring Heather for the whole trip, and when you think about it, you hardly knew her, either.”

  Bryan shoots me a how-could-you-say-that-name-in-front-of-me look. I feel kind of bad about it, but I have to use any and all ammunition.

  “Your brother happens to be twenty years old,” Mom says. “Not fifteen.”

  “I’ll be sixteen next month. Anyway, Reece is looking forward to this. It would be really mean to tell him he can’t come now.”

  Tony shakes his head. “You should have thought about that before you invited him without permission. Besides, I can guess what that kid has on his mind and it isn’t snowboarding.”

  Whenever Mom and Tony talk about What’s on Boys’ Minds, I want to scream.

  “Is Reece the guy with the blue truck?” Zach asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “He’s very, very nice and does a lot of favors for me.”

  “Oh, him,” Jacob says. “He always stares at your butt when he drops you off.”

  “Jacob!” Mom says.

  “He does! When she’s walking away, he watches her—”

  “That’s enough,” Mom interrupts.

  I want to go off on Jacob, but I need to be calm and rational now. “Reece’s mom is planning to call you soon. And I can have Reece come over so you can talk to him in person, too, if you want. You’ll see that there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I don’t know,” Mom says.

  I can tell that she’s totally wavering, though. Just a little more convincing and she’ll agree. “Please, Mom,” I say.

  Bryan slams his hand on the table. “Mom, what the hell? Why are you forcing her to beg? Quit making a big deal out of it and just let the guy come.”

  “Can you please not speak to your mother like that?” Tony says, tightening his jaw.

  Mom sighs. “We didn’t let you bring girls on vacation when you were your sister’s age. It’s not appropriate.”

  “What do you think could possibly happen?” Bryan asks. “We’re all going to fucking be there.”

  Then, without another word, he stomps out of the room.

  Mom pushes her chair back as if she’s going to go after him, but she stops just as quickly and scoots back in. Tony gulps his drink while Emma, Jacob, and Zach stare at one another. I take another bite.

  Bryan and I have been on the same team forever and ever: Us versus All of Them. When he’s like this, though, it doesn’t do me any good at all.

  CHAPTER 4

  Half an hour later, Mom drives me to the sleepover in silence. She isn’t not speaking to me in an angry way; she’s just lost in her own thoughts. I want to ask if she’s made up her mind about Reece—if she’s at least willing to think about it—but I know her well enough to wait this out.

  We pull up in front of Piper and Noah’s house. It’s only a few blocks away, but Mom is paranoid and doesn’t like me walking anywhere after dark. She puts the minivan in park and leaves the engine idling while I reach back and pull my stuff from the seat behind me.

  “All right, he can come,” she announces.

  I don’t pretend this hasn’t been on my mind or start a new argument with her by asking “Who?” or “Where?” or, above all, “Why?” I just say, “Thank you.”

  The darkness and streetlights make her face glowy and shadowy at the same time and her dark brown eyes—which all five of us kids inherited—look almost black. “I have to tell you, though,” she says, “it disappoints me that with you and Bryan, it’s always everyone else who comes first. The rest of us would love to have time with you too, sometimes.”

  I hate it when she acts like we’re some kind of Brady Bunch. We aren’t two families who came together to form one big, happy family. Instead, when I was five and Bryan was nine, Mom moved us here to where she’d grown up in Washington State, divorced our father, married Tony, and had three children with him in one shot. Bryan and I were half of her original family; now we’re the leftove
rs.

  Mom pushes a blond curl behind her ear. “And truthfully, I wish you wouldn’t let your brother influence you so much when he’s home. Especially concerning Tony. He’s a good dad and he doesn’t deserve the attitudes.”

  Before I can stop myself, I mutter, “He isn’t our dad.”

  “But he wants to be. He tries. I know you don’t even remember living in New Zealand, but believe me, Nicole, we are a million times better off now than we were with Patrick.”

  She’s right that I have no recollection of our lives before, but she’s wrong about Tony trying so hard. His own kids come first with him. They always have and always will. “I guess I should go,” I say, gesturing toward the house.

  “Say hi to everyone for me.”

  “I will.”

  I carry my purple overnight case and matching sleeping bag across the sidewalk, and let myself in. My family has been close with the Crownes for almost as long as I can remember. Mr. Crowne and Tony are law firm partners, Mrs. Crowne and my mom are good friends, Piper has had a hopeless crush on Bryan for years, and, of course, Noah and I hang out all the time.

  In the front room, rolled-up sleeping bags and backpacks are piled up all over, and I can hear voices, laughter, and music coming from farther back in the house. I set my things down and make my way to the living room. Tonight is pretty much guaranteed to be a typical Piper party where we’ll all sit around talking, and nothing even remotely wild will happen if she has anything to say about it.

  “Hey, everyone!” I call out over the music as I breeze into the room.

  About half the girls from our team are here, lounging on couches, chairs, and the floor. They turn to look up at me, and in that instant, their faces become a blurry background for the stare that my former best friend is aiming my way.

  Alejandra’s here. She’s on that chair right in front of me, even though Piper specifically told me that she wasn’t invited. At least, I thought that’s what she’d said.

  I was sure of it.

  I look away quickly. From the sofa, Piper’s eyes meet mine. “I’m so glad you’re finally here, Coley,” she says, standing to give me a quick hug.