Which it will.
“Hey, you going to help?” He rushes around to the front of the building with the first batch of stuff. His too-long hair falls into his eyes and his forearms flex as he lifts the heaviest boxes first.
“In a second.” I breathe in the scents of dogwood trees, the fountains, and even the pretzels sold at the food truck on the corner, so familiar, so comfortable, like a second skin. Jayhe pauses all his hauling and pulls me into a deep kiss. It makes me want to leave those boxes on the stairs and get back into the van, to let him drive us off somewhere. It erases the world around me until I’m forced to take a breath.
As I open my eyes and see the school buildings rising behind his head, part of me aches for the daily tedium of school, like muscle memory. I crave the countless ballet classes, the endless rehearsals, the control that comes with calorie-counted cafeteria meals, and even Nurse Connie’s scales.
I stay with the van as he finishes unloading. I spot other girls—ones with moms and dads—lugging boxes inside. A father teases his daughter about the rocks he claims she filled the boxes with. “Dad!” She giggles, her eyes lighting up with love and laughter. The word dad thuds inside me like an anchor, and I think of Mr. Lucas, even though I shouldn’t associate that word with him. My dad. A flush of embarrassment zips through me when I think of the email I sent him this summer and the voice mails I left on his phone that went unanswered. I won’t make that mistake again. I can’t even remember why I tried to talk to him.
I hear a giggle again and see one of the younger Korean girls point in my direction. I stare right back at her until she walks up the school stairs. I look left and right for Jayhe, but he’s still MIA. I wonder if Sei-Jin’s here already, if her aunt dropped her off early like she usually does. Her texts popped up on Jayhe’s phone this summer, and I know he didn’t respond. I checked. I feel bad for a second, but I have to look out for myself, even with him.
I’m afraid to ask him about the exact details of their breakup. What did he tell her? How did she react? How did they leave it? He probably let her down easy, with his usual diplomatic touch. But did he mention my name? Deep down, I don’t really want the answers to those questions. I shouldn’t want to know. I shouldn’t care. It doesn’t matter. But it does.
His cheeks are rosy when he comes back down, and there’s a bit of light sweat running down the side of his face. The old June would think it’s gross, but I kind of think it’s sexy. Everything about him is sexy—the depths of his eyes, the charcoal on his calloused fingers from his hours of drawing, the way he says my name—especially when he’s annoyed.
“There’s only a small box left.” Jayhe sets it on the curb. “You got it?”
“Yeah.” I want to be in two places at the same time: here on this curb with him and upstairs in my new single, unpacking.
Jayhe’s phone rings and for a tiny second, the paranoid place in my heart and brain thinks it’s Sei-Jin. He speaks in a flurry of Korean, but I hear the words restaurant, grandmother, and busy. I’ve learned more Korean from hanging out with him these past few months than my mom taught me in all of my sixteen years. He would cup his hand under my chin and make me speak the words back to him—wouldn’t kiss me till I got them just right. I always had to ask him in Korean—kiss-jwo. No Korean, no kissing. The thought makes me smile.
He hangs up. “I left your stuff in the foyer,” he says. “They wouldn’t let me upstairs. Something about no boys on the girls’ dorm floor even on move-in day.” The irritation must show on my face, because he touches my cheek and grins. “Parent volunteers are taking it up.” His hands wander to my waist. “I’m really glad you got a single this year.”
“Me, too,” I whisper, suddenly feeling embarrassed. Gigi got a single this year because of her injuries, and that means I get one, too, by default. It’ll finally give me and Jayhe some space. Part of me thrills at the idea of sneaking him past the RAs and anyone else who’s watching, at the chance of getting caught, at the possibility of people knowing that a boy wants me. That Jayhe wants me.
I grab the last box, the one with my teakettle, and my rolling bag. I give him one more kiss and head around to the front of the building.
Ten minutes later, keys in hand from the front desk, I’m ready to make myself at home. I take the elevator up to my new floor—twelve—where only the senior girls live. But when I finally get up to my room, the door is wide open—and someone else’s stuff is sprawled all over it. Well, most of it. A pink frilly comforter covers one of the beds, ballerina posters hang on the wall, and postcards from Paris are already lined up on the bulletin board above the pair of desks. When I look across to the other side, there, entangled on the bare mattress, are Cassie and Henri, sweaty and giggly and flushed like little pink pigs.
Henri nods, acknowledging my presence, and tries to get back to nuzzling Cassie’s neck. But she shuts him down cold, sitting up straight and readjusting her deep V-neck sweater.
“About time you got here,” she says, perfectly content and casual, as if she was expecting me. I was most definitely not expecting her. “Nurse Connie came looking for you. You missed dinner. Apparently she thinks I’m your keeper.” Her voice is as cold as those ice-blue eyes.
“What are you doing in here?” I ask.
“I was supposed to have the single, but I gave it up, you know, because of Gigi’s situation. I don’t want to make things harder on the poor girl.” She frowns at me.
“But—”
“Look, I’m not happy about it either. But it’s not like you’re entitled to a single.” Her words are clipped, sharp, with a hint of a British accent popping up now and again. “Anyway, it’s too late to do anything about now, right, E-Jun?” She stretches out my name like it’s a heavy, foreign thing she has to carry. A burden.
“Everyone calls me June,” I say, which she should know because we’re not strangers.
“Cute,” she replies flatly. It makes me feel like I’ve said my American name is Star or Poppy or Rainbow.
Then she lumbers off my bed, as if it just occurred to her. When she catches me frowning, she shrugs. “He knows I hate messing up my covers.”
Henri smirks. “Among other things,” he adds, then winks in my direction. Gross. He gives her a deep, grabby good-bye kiss before he slinks off. I shudder at the thought of him. Something about that boy has always been off to me, and I hate the idea of him being here, in my space. Well, our space, I guess.
I seethe in silence as I start unpacking slowly, mentally willing away Cassie and all her stuff. There’s just so much of it. The closet is two-thirds full already, and she’s got stacks of books—Machiavelli, Marx, and other political things, along with all the major ballet books—lining her shelf. In the corner, a small cube is filled with dance gear—dead toe shoes, leotards, ribbons, warm-ups. My side of the room—what’s left of it—is stark in comparison.
When Cassie started at the conservatory in tenth grade, she’d take half her ballet classes with us in Level 6 and the other half in Level 7 with the junior girls. No one really knew her. No one really wanted to know a girl who was too good of a dancer. She was Alec’s cousin—my cousin, I realize with a start—and everyone knew that she’d been specifically recruited from the Royal Ballet School. She was that good. But then, after what Bette and the girls did to her—the hair, the shoes, and especially the lift accident with Will—she disappeared. Now here she is, completely invading my space.