The Brokenhearted (22 page)

“You are so out of it,” she sighs after a beat. “Zenithin is a stronger, illegal version of Accusolve.”

“The study drug?”

“I heard Roderick bought a huge stash of it from some Syndicate dealer. Guess Duffy wanted an edge.” Zahra says all this while texting someone on her phone. I get the message. To Zahra, I’m an afterthought at best.

“She’s been amazing in physics class,” I tell Zahra, feeling awkward about standing and trying to decide if I should pull up a chair. “Practically answers the question before the teacher finishes asking it.”

“Roderick told me Zenithin turns you into a machine,” Z says, now watching a replay of the arrest video on her phone. “You feel brilliant and godlike and unstoppable. But it has a comedown from hell—no sleep, uncontrollable rage. Not my thing,” she says with a shrug. “I’m too raged out already.” She looks up at me at last and gives a half smile.

I notice she’s wearing eyelash extensions and feel a pang for how it used to be between us. We used to help each other glue them on for special events back in freshman year. Before I wrecked everything and lost her. “Which reminds me . . . why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be at the power table with his highness Sir Suckwad?”

I look down at my crumpled lunch bag in my hands, suddenly losing my appetite. “I’m sorry, Z. That’s what I came over here to tell you. I know this thing with Will doesn’t make sense to you, but . . . but I miss you,” I say.

She nods tentatively, her lips pressed into a thin line as if to say
I miss you, too
.

It’s time
, I decide suddenly. I’m telling her the truth about Will, the blackmail, my surgery, everything.

My hands shake as I pull a chair out to sit down with her, the prospect of finally confessing everything so close at hand. But just as I’m about to sit, I hear Will’s voice beside me. “
There
you are. Come sit with us, babe.”

He puts his both hands on my shoulders and squeezes them, hard. It’s all I can do not to scream.

“What about the student council?” I shrug his hands off me and turn to face him even though I’d rather look anywhere else.

“It got postponed. The VP broke her leg skiing or something,” Will says.

“That’s too bad,” I say in monotone. Inside, I’m crestfallen.

“So come on.” He’s getting impatient, looking over my shoulder to see who’s watching us.

“I’m sitting here today.” My eyes meet Zahra’s. She looks disgusted and a little ill watching me and Will, like she just got a whiff of someone else’s fart.

“Anthem, are we back together or not? Because if not, I’ll just turn around and walk away. Maybe spend lunch in the computer lab, uploading some old movies . . .” Will chuckles a little, but his threat is anything but funny. Behind him, I see a few people watching us, Olive Ann Bang and Clementine Fitz among them, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

“Fine,” I say icily. “I’m coming.”

“Seriously, Anthem?” Zahra calls, shooting me an incredulous look.

“‘Seriously, Anthem?’” Will cuts in, mocking Zahra. “You’re choosing Will over me?” he continues, his voice high and girlish. His eyes bulge as he turns on Zahra. “Just sit here by yourself and enjoy your irrelevance, okay, Zahra? Nobody cares about your opinion.”

“Don’t talk to her like that,” I say quietly, my face burning as more of Will’s admirers turn to watch the fight. “Apologize, Will.”

“Or you’ll what? Break up with me?” Will laughs. “Sorry, babe, not worth the oxygen.”

I stare miserably down at the floor, the black and white tiles smearing into gray. When I look up, Z’s eyes meet mine, radiating shock and hurt.

“Wow, Anthem. Thanks for the support.” Zahra says in a tight voice. “I’m done here anyway.” She pushes her chair away from the table and walks past Will, slamming into his shoulder as she goes, and heads outside to the patio.

“Problem solved!” Will chirps. “Coming,
dear
?”

“I’ll be right back,” I mutter, then I take off after her.

I catch up with her on the patio and barely touch her shoulder, but she whirls around and shakes me off. “What?” she says tightly.

“Just give me two minutes,” I say. “I’m sick about what happened at lunch. That was . . . beyond horrible. I’m so sorry.”

“Apology not accepted. How can you be with such a prick, Anthem?” She’s whispering, conscious of kids at nearby tables watching us.

“I realize how it looks,” I say in a low voice, grabbing her hand, the hand I first held in kindergarten, when we were paired as buddies on a field trip to the Bedlam Hall of Science. “Just bear with me and soon I’ll exp—”

“I think I’m just about done waiting,” Zahra snaps, wrenching her hand away like I’m poisonous. Her eyes swimming with hurt tears, she walks backward away from me. “Have fun, okay? I hope he’s worth it.”

Then she spins around and walks toward the courtyard.

I swallow a howl of frustration as I walk back to Will, my breath coming in short little puffs. Then I almost trip over an empty wrought-iron chair. “Damn it!” I mutter as I shove it out of my way. But I’m out of control and I push too hard. Way too hard, actually. The heavy chair flips and skitters ten feet, clattering off the edge of the patio and onto the half-dead grass that borders it. Everyone turns to stare at me, all lunchtime conversation ceased, all eyes on me.

“What?” I yell. “Haven’t you ever seen a chair before?”

I move faster toward the cafeteria doors, my heart ricocheting around my chest like a pinball. Thick black clouds have blotted out the winter sun, and before I get back inside, the dark sky starts to spit fat drops of water. I stand still, fingering the heart pendant at my clavicle as my chest whirs, relieved to be fading back into the background as a dozen kids push past me, pandemonium unleashed as everyone tries to get out of the rain.

Now it’s official,
I think.
I’ve lost everything. Even my best friend.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

.....................................................................

CHAPTER 27

“From the top,” says Madame Petrovsky in her heavy accent, whipping her delicate arms overhead and sending her sheer black scarf floating to the polished wood floor in the process.
“Un, deux, trois, quatre!”
On Madame’s count, the twelve of us level sixers take our places for the start of the crucial scene in
Giselle
, the part where Giselle returns to protect her lover, Duke Albrecht.

We dance the routine in silence, as we do most days. Madame believes that we should hear the music inside, take our cues from our body’s muscle memory, not from the swells of the violins. All I hear is the
thump-thump
of our toe shoes when we land, the hushed symphony of our collective breath.

A few weeks ago, I was dancing the prima role of Giselle. But after all the rehearsal I’ve missed, I’m lucky to be in the performance at all. Somehow, I’ve managed to convince Madame that I can handle dancing in the corps de ballet even after my “sprained ankle” and my “flu,” and now it’s my job to get every move perfect so she doesn’t change her mind. It helps that my new heart allows me to perform better than I ever have.

My first day back in rehearsal, I talked her into giving me a chance to dance the opening act with the other girls, and I managed to nail the routine. Madame gave me a strange look and nodded slowly, then shot me a tentative smile. “I don’t know how you did it, Anthem. Beautiful work. You can be in the corps, but Constance will still dance the prima part.” The old me would have been devastated to lose the role of Giselle, but all I felt was relief at the chance to return to the normalcy of ballet.

Now the performance is less than a month away, and rehearsal has left all of us with broken toenails and sore muscles. But my body recovers faster now.

“And
pointe
. And
pas-de-jambe
. And
tourne, revele, turne, releve.
” Madame recites calmly as we do the group number, all twelve of us leaping and turning in unison, forming a circle that spins out into a line and back again. Blood thrums in my ears, and I feel my heart pumping from the exertion. My limbs are elastic and warm, and even though I returned to ballet only because my parents expected me to, for the past few rehearsal days I’ve been able to lose myself in the physical release that ballet has always given me. Ballet and my nights training with Ford are the only times I feel like the faintest shadow of my old self is still inside me, buried beneath all the layers of pain.

I grab hands with Nina Chase and Liberty Sewell as we circle up, vaulting ourselves onto our toes for the grande releve, then spinning away from the group in a series of fouettes, feeling airborne when I triple-pirouette into my next mark.

“Anthem, too fast, too high!” Madame looks at me quizzically after I land. “Stay with the group, please. No—what is the word?—pyrotechnics.”

I nod and refocus on the mirror, hoping my reflection will help me match the speed and strength of my fellow dancers, reminding myself that just because my heart makes it possible to do things faster and jump higher doesn’t mean I can allow myself to do them. At least not right now.

As I dance, hearing only breaths of exertion, gentle thuds of landing after a leap, and the muted tapping of my fellow dancers as we toe-step through the routine, my thoughts move to Zahra, then to Ford. We’ve sparred every night since I first pinned him to the floor, and each time I beat him easily. Last night, he brought in a cardboard dummy and a switchblade, and taught me how to throw a knife. The flicking motion of the wrist, the arm—it’s not so different from ballet, really. I landed the knife in the center of the dummy after a few tries, and then sparred with Ford, bringing him to the mat again without much trouble. Each time I beat him, he laughed.
You’re a machine, Green!
he said, and high-fived me.

A machine with a machine-heart
, I think now as I land the final triple-pirouette with my feet within an inch of where I want them on the floor, satisfied that I’m able to mimic the biologically normal dancers in the room.

Just then, across the room, I hear the crunch of bone, followed by a loud scream. Constance Clamm crumples ungracefully to the floor and is clutching her right ankle in pain.

I join the rest of the girls in crowding around her, but Madame shoos us away and runs to her office to get an ice-pack from her mini-fridge. “Another ankle,” she mutters when she returns. “I cannot believe our misfortune.”

“Anthem!” When she returns with the ice pack, Madame’s kohl-lined eyes land on me, and I know without a doubt what she’s thinking.
No, no, no,
I want to say, widening my eyes and turning scarlet.
It’s not fair. Pick anyone else. Anyone but me.
She motions me closer, then leans over and whispers in my ear.

“You are Giselle again. Take your old role back for now, and we shall see how Constance is doing.”

“No!” Constance is crying, having figured out what’s going on even as her ankle is swelling to twice its normal size. “I’ll be fine tomorrow, I’m sure of it,” she whimpers, pressing the ice pack gingerly against her damaged leg.

“Let’s wait and see what the doctor says,” Madame says consolingly. “For now, Anthem will reprise Giselle.”

Constance looks at me miserably, and I can’t help but share her misery. There was a time when all I wanted was this role, but that time has passed.

“It’s all yours, as soon as you can do it again,” I say, trying to be comforting. Constance looks glumly at the ground, nodding, but I can tell she doesn’t believe me.

I stay after class to work on the solo, pulling on a pair of tattered sweats over my legs to stay warm now that the rest of the body heat has left the building. The character Giselle is a young girl with a weak heart, ironically. She falls in love with a man who is betrothed to a princess. They have a passionate love affair, and then Giselle dies. But her ghost cannot rest until she knows her lover, Duke Albrecht, is protected against those who want to kill him.
And Giselle protects him,
I say in my head, staring into the mirror.
And then her soul can rest.

I run through the sequence of the first and second solos a few times each, taking care not to leap too high or spin too fast, modulating my speed to what I used to be able to do. It takes focus not to go too fast.

But my heart revs inside my ribs like an engine thrown into gear, encouraging me to go faster, faster. I stop dancing and look around me. The sun went down over the river long ago, and a starless, foggy night has blanketed the studio in darkness. Madame has gone home. Nobody’s here to see me.

I think of the spin-kicks I’ve been practicing with Ford. The punches and hits, the way he’s taught me to throw a knife. And then I break out of the routine from
Giselle
and start pirouetting across the room, first doubles, then triples, faster, faster, my heart whirring, until my feet seem to barely touch the floor. I look in the mirror, eyes wide—and see that I’m actually
spinning in the air
. Two, three inches above the floor, hovering in one spot as I spin and spin. A second later, the impossibility of it hits my brain, and I come crashing down, landing ungracefully on my rear end, feet splayed out in front of me.

I shake my head at the mirror.

“No way,” I say out loud. “No way is this happening.”

“You read my mind,” a voice says behind me. In the mirror, I see Ford step out of the shadows at the edge of the room. His sneakers squeak on the polished floor.

“What are you doing here?” I turn around to face him, alarmed. “Is everything okay?”

“Can’t a guy sneak into a ballet studio once in a while just because?” Then, more quietly: “I wanted to tell you I can’t practice tonight. Jax needs some stuff delivered.”

“You could have texted.”

“Sometimes I run past here, and when the light was on I figured I’d take a peek. I’m glad I came.”