By seven fifteen my ribs already hurt from breathing wrong.
"Inhale four, exhale four," I mutter, counting under my breath as I stretch my arms over my head. "Not… whatever that was."
The green room smells like hairspray and instant noodles. Dancers, actors, band kids—everyone is crammed into one overheated space that used to be a classroom before they ripped out the desks and replaced them with a couch that sags in the middle. Someone's speaker in the corner keeps starting and stopping the same song because the Bluetooth won't stay connected.
I switch legs, lunging until my front knee stacks over my ankle the way Miss Perez would approve of. My thighs burn, but it's a good burn. Familiar. Predictable.
Unlike the rest of tonight.
"Alvarez." Lena's reflection appears in the wall-length mirror behind me before she does. Her hair is braided into a perfect crown, not a strand out of place. She holds a clipboard to her chest like a shield. "You're supposed to be side stage in five."
"Warm-up," I say, bouncing gently to keep my muscles from seizing. "You want me to go out there cold and face-plant in front of half the town?"
Her mouth twitches. "I did build the program around you not face-planting, yes."
"Then give me three minutes." I slice a hand through the air. "Seven eighteen, I'll be there. I promise."
She checks the watch on her wrist like she's synchronizing with NASA. "Fine. Three minutes. Don't make me come back."
She disappears. In the mirror she looks tall, composed, like the kind of girl adults trust with keys and budgets. Next to her, I look… bright. Sequined top catching the fluorescent light, eyeliner a little too sharp. A girl people clap for, not a girl they hand clipboards to.
I exhale. One, two, three, four.
The door flies open behind me. "Maya!"
There she is.
Rhea's carrying at least four things too many: a stack of programs, her phone, a roll of tape stuck to her wrist like a bracelet, and a folder wedged under her arm that's bleeding loose pages. Her cheeks are flushed, eyes too wide.
"You look like death," I tell her.
"Thanks, you look like an energy drink commercial," she shoots back, dropping the programs on the coffee table. They fan out, sliding dangerously close to an open cup of iced coffee. She rescues two with a quick grab. "Where's your mic script?"
"You mean the one you said you'd rewrite?" I step out of the lunge and roll my shoulders, working out a knot. "Because the version in the doc makes me sound like I'm hosting a telethon for tax reform."
She groans. "Can we not do this right now?"
"Sure," I say. "We can do it while I'm walking on stage and mispronouncing half the names in the South Asian dance lineup because you didn't print me a new copy."
Rhea presses her lips together. For a second I think she's going to bite back, but instead she exhales and drops onto the arm of the couch, the folder balanced on her knee.
"Hand me your old script," she says.
I tug it out of my bag, the pages already creased from where I've folded them in half to carry around. They're covered in her annotations—arrows, underlines, little reminders like "pause for applause" in the margins. She spreads them on top of the folder, phone wedged under her chin as it buzzes.
"Hi, yes," she says into it. "No, the curtains are supposed to—no, the big red ones—can you just… okay, I'll come look."
She hangs up, scribbles something, then crosses it out.
"What if we cut this entire line?" I tap the second paragraph. "'On behalf of the Lakemont Student Council, thank you to our esteemed faculty and generous community donors…'" I mime gagging.
"We have to thank the donors," she says.
"So thank them shorter." I snatch the pen out of her hand and rearrange the sentence. "'Huge thanks to our staff and everyone who made tonight possible. You're the reason we get to be here.' See? Human. Not a robot."
Rhea watches the pen move, eyes flicking between the words and my face. "You missed the part about them being generous."
"They'll live." I push the paper back. "I need room for the joke about the fire marshal."
"That is not happening," she says instantly.
"Come on, it's funny. 'Please locate your nearest exit in case of emotional meltdown during the pop medley.'"
She laughs, short but real. "You're going to give Principal Shah a meltdown."
"Okay, I'll save it for the second half." I lean in, tapping the bottom of the page. "Here. After the blackout part."
The word makes something in her shoulders tighten.
"What?" I ask. "You're the one who wanted the dramatic blackout."
"I wanted a ten-second lighting cue," she says, rubbing her thumb over a smudge of ink on the margin. "Not… a whole tech experiment."
"It's going to be fine," I say, hearing Aanya's voice in my head from a dozen planning meetings: I have it under control. "You have Aanya. She could time the Second Coming if you gave her a spreadsheet."
"That's what I'm afraid of," Rhea mutters.
I blink. "What?"
"Nothing." She digs in the folder and pulls out a clean sheet. "Okay. I'll redo your segment. But I don't have time to print it and babysit it and hold your hand, Alvarez. I have to be everywhere at once already."
"Who said anything about hand-holding?" I toss my hair over my shoulder. "Just tell me where you're dumping it so I can grab it."
She hesitates, glancing toward the door like someone might be listening. No one is. Half the room is too busy gluing rhinestones to shoes to notice us.
"The desktop in the music room still has a printer hooked up," she says finally. "I was going to use the council office, but the queue's been cursed all afternoon."
"Yeah, it tried to eat my chemistry lab I.OU. form." I shudder dramatically. "RIP our future."
"So I'll sneak in there between sets," she continues, ignoring me. "Print your new script, leave it on the piano. You swing by before the blackout cue and grab it on your way to the wings."
"That's risky," I say, but my mind is already rearranging counts, beats, stage crossings. "What if I don't have time to detour?"
"It's literally on the way." She traces the route in the air, her finger moving from imaginary stage to imaginary hallway. "You come off stage left, cut through the music corridor instead of the back stairs, pick up your script, and then you're right behind the curtain. Two extra minutes, tops."
"Assuming you actually print it," I say.
She levels a look at me. "You begged me about this for three meetings."
"I didn't beg," I protest. "I… strongly advocated."
She raises an eyebrow.
"Okay, I begged a little." I cross my arms, feeling heat creep up my neck. "Because the opener deserves a good intro. This is the first number people are going to see, Rhea. We set the tone or we don't, and if you want them to sit through fifty acts of cultural edutainment, you need me to make them care."
"I know." She pinches the bridge of her nose, then lowers her hand. There are faint crescent marks where her nails dug in. "I do know. You're right."
There it is. The little fizz in my chest when someone admits it.
"So you'll fix it?" I press. "And you'll leave it in the music room?"
"Yes," she says. "On the piano. I'll put your name on the top in big letters so you can't miss it."
"Perfect." I grin. "See? We make a good team."
She doesn't smile back this time. Her gaze drifts to my reflection in the mirror, and for a second I can't read her at all.
"What?" I say, softer.
"Nothing." She looks down and starts gathering the loose pages into a neater stack. "Just… be on time, okay? If you're late, the whole lineup slides and Aanya will have a coronary."
"I'll be on time," I say. "Promise."
Her phone buzzes again, more insistent this time. She checks the screen, and her mouth tightens.
"Who is it?" I ask.
"Doesn't matter." She jams the phone back into her pocket so fast the screen almost cracks against her keys. "I have to go yell at someone about extension cords. Go stretch your legs or whatever you dancers do."
"Rude," I say, but she's already pushing off the couch.
At the door, she pauses. "Hey, Maya?"
"Yeah?"
"If someone gives you a hard time about the new script," she says, hand on the handle, "tell them I signed off on it. Okay?"
I could say, Why would they? I could say, You're the queen of this whole stupid night, no one tells you no. Instead I hear myself snap, "They're not going to care what I say if I trip over my words and sound like an idiot."
Her eyes flash. "You're not an idiot."
"You know what I mean." I look away, focusing on my own reflection. On whether my lipstick looks too dark under the fluorescent light.
"You're not." Her voice is firmer now. "You're the one they'll remember when they think about tonight. That's… kind of the point."
My throat goes tight in a way I don't like. Compliments from Rhea feel dangerous, like stepping onto a stage you haven't rehearsed on enough.
"Whatever," I say, shrugging it off. "Just print the script."
She nods once and slips out. The noise from the hallway rushes in for a moment—voices, a distant drumline warm-up—then muffles when the door swings shut.
My three minutes are up.
I yank my hair into a higher ponytail, twist it until it pulls at my scalp, then grab my duffel. As I head for the exit, I pass the corner where the full-length mirror reflects the whole room. For half a second I catch my own eyes and think: This is it. This is the night people stop seeing me as just the "pretty dancer" and start seeing me as… more.
I shove the thought away before it can turn into pressure. I have counts and formations to think about, not existential crises.
The corridor outside is cooler, air-conditioned hum louder than the chatter. I slip into the flow of students heading toward the stage—costumes glittering, someone dragging a cello case that bumps every tile. My sneakers squeak faintly on the linoleum.
At the junction, I should turn left toward backstage, like Lena told me to. Instead, I slow down, biting my lip.
The music hallway is to the right.
"Two extra minutes," I murmur, echoing Rhea. "On the way."
If I go now, I can check the route, see how long it actually takes. My brain likes to know what a path feels like before I have to sprint down it in show shoes. I can count steps, mark visual cues, figure out where I might collide with some freshman hauling a tuba.
I glance left. The door to the wings is propped open, a stripe of bright stage light spilling into the darker hall. Someone is calling cues in a too-loud voice that makes the mic crackle.
I glance right. The music corridor is mostly empty, fluorescent lights buzzing.
"Screw it," I mutter, and veer right.
The shift in noise is instant. The further I walk, the more the general roar of the auditorium thins out, replaced by smaller sounds: a trumpet noodling through scales behind a closed door, the squeak of a folding chair, the distant hiss of the ventilation system switching on.
I count steps automatically. Twelve to the first practice room. Seventeen more to the trophy case with the broken hinge. Eight to the corner where the hallway turns and the light falls slightly dimmer because one of the overhead bulbs has been flickering for weeks.
That's where I see it.
A white square of paper lies just shy of the music room threshold, like someone dropped a folded note and never picked it back up. It's not crumpled, just… abandoned. The kind of thing you only notice if your eyes are trained to scan floors for stray tape and spilled water.
My first stupid thought is: Drama. A secret confession. A love note.
"Seriously, Maya," I mutter, but I'm already slowing.
The music room door itself is closed, a fresh memo taped at eye level. Rhea's handwriting in the header, Aanya's tidy block letters in the body. I recognize the phrasing from meetings: DOOR TO REMAIN LOCKED DURING ALL PERFORMANCES…
Someone's taken this very seriously. There's a little box at the bottom with initials scribbled in: AS.
I roll my shoulders back, suddenly hyper-aware that I'm alone in this hallway. Everyone else is either already backstage or still in the green room gluing their costumes together.
Drop of sweat slides down my spine.
I bend to pick up the paper, curiosity buzzing. It's heavier than a Post-it, more like a square torn from a notepad. My fingers itch to unfold it.
Then a voice crackles down the corridor from the overhead speaker—Aman, sounding half-panicked. "All performers for the opener, please report backstage now. Repeat, opener cast to stage left now. And if anyone sees Maya Alvarez, tell her I'm going to murder—uh, very gently remind her to get here."
I snort despite myself. "Drama queen," I say, but my heart rate kicks up. I'm not late yet, but I'm flirting with it.
I straighten, the still-folded paper in my hand. For a second, I imagine opening it and finding my own name inside. Trip, and everything falls apart. Or worse: someone else's secret, written in Rhea's rounded script.
The thought makes my stomach dip.
"Not my business," I tell the empty hallway.
I tuck the note onto the little metal ledge under the music room window, where the memo corners curl slightly from the tape. It's out of the direct line of sight, hidden by the edge of the notice. Safe for whoever dropped it. Safe from me.
As I turn to go, a sound comes from inside the music room.
Not music. Not scales or someone tripping over a chord progression. A dull, solid thump, like something heavy hitting the floor or the side of a cabinet.
I freeze, one foot already pointed toward backstage.
"Hello?" I call, immediately hating how small my voice sounds.
No answer. The hum of the vents fills the silence, joined by a faint metallic rattle, as if the door's lock has just settled into place.
The door is still closed. The memo flutters slightly at the top where the tape didn't fully stick. The small box with Aanya's initials looks back at me like a dare.
It's probably nothing. Someone dumping an amp case, or dropping a music stand, or kicking something by accident. The room gets used for everything; there's always junk in there.
I check my watch. Seven seventeen.
"Opener to stage left, now," Aman's voice repeats, more urgent. The echo of it bounces weirdly down the corridor, like it's coming from farther away and closer at the same time.
My muscles twitch with the need to move. Dancers who are late don't get solo spots. Dancers who poke their noses where they're not invited get branded as problems.
"Probably nothing," I say again, louder this time, like that makes it true.
I force my feet to turn away from the door, away from the folded note and the humming lock and whatever made that sound. I count my steps back toward the main hall—ten, twenty, thirty-two—until the music swells again and the stage lights spill across my path, washing the hallway in gold.
By the time I reach the wings, my lungs have settled into the rhythm they know: eight counts in, eight out. I shake out my arms, slot myself into formation, feel the familiar press of bodies around me.
Someone tugs on my arm. "Where were you?" one of the other dancers hisses. "Lena's freaking out."
"Route check," I say lightly, sliding into my starting mark. "Relax. I'm here."
As the curtain rustles and the opening notes of our song tremble through the floor, I let the hallway fade from my mind. The note, the memo, the muffled thump behind the door—those are problems for later.
Right now, there is only the stage, the lights, and the way the whole room's attention tightens when the music hits.
I lift my chin, paste on my brightest smile, and when the curtain rises, I step into the glare without looking back.