“She treats you like shit. It’s not right. The girl might be going through something but she’s blazing through life with a fiery path following her. If you don’t watch, she’ll scorch you without you even realizing it’s happening. It’s what people like her do.”
“I’d never let that happen to myself.”
“Yeah, well, neither would I.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
VIOLET
Violet:One of the kids stomped on my foot yesterday.
Violet:I was wearing open toed-sandals and now it’s bruised.
Colson: What a bully.
Violet: Right? I think a massage would fix it right up.
Colson: That’s where I draw the line in this friendship. Feet gross me the fuck out.
Violet: First off, I wasn’t going to ask you.
Violet:Second, you didn’t seem to mind when I was barefoot during your yoga lesson or when you held my foot that one time before that.
Colson: I thought the foot rub would get me back into your good graces. As for barefoot yoga, I was more concerned with other stuff…like your flexibility.
Violet: And here I thought you were paying attention to my directions.
Colson: I was paying attention to a multitude of things that day.
Violet:Care to elaborate on those things?
Colson:I could butI’d rather show you.
“How’s the program going?”I ask Olive after she finishes showing me one of her newest dance routines. The choreography isn’t perfect, but by the end of the year she’ll have it perfected for the academy to judge.
She bends her knees, then extends them forward again, wiggling her toes against the wall where we’ve been lying on her bed. With a bag of Sour Patch Kids, our all-time favorite candy since we were kids, propped between us.
“It’s everything I thought it would be.” She says it with a dreamy look on her face, which is expected since she’s been dancing since the moment she learned how to walk.
“Yeah?”
“It’s challenging in the best ways. I can tell that it’s shaping me into a better dancer. My instructors are super nice, too, so that helps.”
I pluck a little red candy out of the bag, my face not bothering to screw up at how sour it is. “I’m so happy for you, Olive Garden.”
She sighs, and I pinch her arm. “What’s the sigh for? Did something happen?”
“Nothing. I love being there but it’s lonely sometimes.”
“What do you mean?”
I wouldn’t call college lonely. People are always around. There’s always something to do. Then again, I’m not attending a prestigious dance academy, either. What goes on there could be completely different than what happens at Chatham U.
“Remember when I was looking at the academy and had that stack of pamphlets in my room?”
“Yes, you’d stare at them night and day.”
It was the only thing she wanted; to get accepted into the best dance school on the east coast.
