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I feel her inside me, beating more quickly when I picture Isaac’s face, responding whenever I say her name mentally. I only thought of her as sister until yesterday. Mom had said her name hesitantly, like a bad word you whisper because you don’t actually know what it means yet.

Like fuck. Except you k(now) what that means.

That’s waiting for me on the Notes app on my phone when I get to first period. I roll my eyes at the parenthetical, but the tingle that I feel all over my body is testament to the truth of Shanna’s statement. When I passed Isaac in the hallway my fingers instinctively clenched Heath’s, earning me a subtle pressure in response that barely registered against the tumult Isaac’s wink sent through me. Her heart reacted, certainly, but I can’t ignore the fact that since I’ve given her some free rein with my body it’s starting to get some ideas of its own, too.

I ignore the blush spreading in my cheeks at the thought of Isaac, the pins and needles rushing through my spine as I remember his naked back in the moonlight, and tell my hands it’s time to prioritize.

Mr. Hunter’s handwriting is sketchy at best, and when there’s a challenge he deteriorates into a first grader with a caffeine buzz. He’s written that word—CHALLENGE—across the white board in red Expo marker, but he was overly excited and made the first letters too large, so the last few are squeezed in like a bowel obstruction. Somebody thought they’d be clever and added a tiny R in the corner, complete with an explosion. Insensitive or not, it’s accurate.

Because somebody is going down.

When there’s a chair challenge, the second- or third- or fourth-chair instrument makes a play for the seat ahead of them. It either ends with someone firmly entrenched in their proper place and an expanding sense of superiority to their immediate right, or a palpable air of embarrassment while the challenged shifts to the left, taking their case, music, and a tucked tail with them. It’s a weird moment, complete with mumbled excuse mes and other pretenses at politeness as the demoted and the promoted switch places, one barely keeping a lid on a victorious smile while the other is probably considering ending somebody’s marching-band career with a solid whack to the back of the knee.

Not that I’ve ever been in that position. I’ve never lost a challenge.

I head back to the cages and spot Charity Newell huddled in a corner with her friends, practicing deep-breathing exercises like there’s a baby on the way. I’ve still got moonlight and back muscles on my mind, so I haven’t put it all together until I spot Lilly standing with the Charity supporters. Our eyes meet and she makes an oh shit face like I just caught her on a couch with Isaac.

I mean Heath.

“Nice,” I say, loudly enough for her to hear. I don’t need Shanna’s foul mouth to shred people; kind words said nastily are sufficiently sharp.

Lilly immediately ducks her head and comes to me as if I called her to heel, but Charity says her name in a way that sounds like she’s half drowned already and needs all the buoying she can get. Lilly stands in between us, a piece of unthinking metal stuck between polar opposites, her eyes loose, swiveling marbles.

“I’m telling you, his dick is the width of my gear shift, and I’ve had my hands on both enough to kn—” Brooke drops the penis lecture she’s delivering to some poor freshman when she sees us, putting together what’s going on much more quickly than I did.

I’m slipping.

I swing my cage door shut at the thought, pinching my index finger hard enough to pop a blood vessel. “Dammit,” I yell, going down on one knee to assess the damage, clarinet case clattering to the floor.

“Not bad,” Brooke says, hovering over me. “You’ve got the tone right, but when it’s pain a nice solid one syllable is the way to go for a swear. Much more satisfying.”

I cradle my hand to my chest, letting the pain sweep up my arm so I can pretend that’s why there are tears in my eyes. Not because I know I’m about to lose first chair, and definitely not because Lilly left with Charity’s entourage. I’m not even going to acknowledge the possibility that tears are pooling because Brooke is still here, offering a hand to help me up, keeping up a steady stream of useful swears for any situation. I’ll pretend the pain is what’s making me cry.

That way she can too.

thirteen

WTF sis? I’m the one who loses things. Your virginity. Your min(e)d.

It’s not funny anymore.

(I never was) kidding.

I close out the Notes on my phone as I walk in the front door. My whole day at school was spent either pretending not to cry or pretending I didn’t want to kill Charity Newell, and do serious structural damage to Lilly as well. Heath did his best to comfort me, which means that he kept rubbing my shoulders in a platonic way that only made me want to drive a pencil in between his ribs just to get some kind of passionate response out of him. Brooke would usually offer to mortally embarrass whoever the problem was, but since Lilly factors into that equation, she was oddly silent about balancing it. Judging by the exchanges with Shanna on my phone, she’s completely unapologetic about her part in making me lose first chair.

The only good thing about my day was when a text came in from Isaac that read, Found a better chair, and had a pic of something designed so that the user could get into all sorts of weird sex positions. I wasn’t even really sure if you were supposed to sit in it or what, but I was smiling when I deleted the text.

Mom is coming down the stairs as I close the door behind me. “Sasha?” she asks.

Usually the question in her voice would mean she’s asking who just came home, and technically I suppose it still does. But we both know there’s more to it.

“It’s me,” I tell her, silencing my phone in case Isaac tries to cheer me up with anything explicit.

“Okay,” she says, but the smile on her face stretches a little too tightly, and I can’t help but wonder if she’s disappointed. “We need to talk,” she says.

I follow her into the living room, ignoring the buzz of my phone in my jeans even though I’m highly curious about whatever perverted furniture Isaac may have found.

“Your dad,” she begins, and I’m already rolling my eyes in reflex. Years ago we silently agreed to ban each other in some way, a revolt of one of the five senses; his ears don’t work when I’m around, and my eyes roll at the mention of him.