Rise to the Sun

by Leah Johnson

  As we walk, my mind begins the spiral it always does whenever I accidentally think about what’s coming next week. If you’re like me, after the breakup to end all breakups, you may never recover. Your life might never be the same.

  Not because you loved them so much or because you thought they were the one, but because you thought that you—stripped down to your barest parts—might actually be good enough to hold on to them. That someone like Troy Murphy could ever really love a girl like me.

  The type of girl who feels too much and talks too much and does all the wrong things at the wrong times.

  “Olivia. You okay?” Toni asks.

  I look up from my phone and realize I’ve stopped in the middle of a pathway and people are stepping to the side to avoid running into me. We’re outside the Core, back on the makeshift gravel streets that lead back to the campsites.

  My stomach clenches. My eyes start to burn a little like I’m getting ready to cry. So I do what I do best. I decide to change course. I need something else, something far away from goals and tasks and that look in Toni’s eye right now that’s dangerously close to pity. I don’t want to be pitied. I don’t want to feel anything at all like what I’m feeling right now.

  I’m itching for the sensation of getting lost in a crowd, absorbed by sound and bodies and movement. The way becoming part of that sweaty, strange mass has always managed to soothe that noise in the back of my mind, constantly buzzing with the refrain of too much too much too much.

  And a part of me, a bigger part than I should admit, is hoping Toni gets it. I grab her hand to lead her back toward the Core and spare a second just long enough to pray that she won’t pull away. I don’t know what I’ll do in this moment if she does.

  I look back at her, her eyebrows raised high, skin shining with the same thin layer of sweat I can sense on my own face. I hope that my gut is right about her.

  I hope she’s ready to get free.

  FRIDAY EVENING

  “I don’t know about this.”

  Her back is to the massive barn in front of us, but everything about her stance indicates that all she wants to do is turn around and run straight inside. In all my years of attending Farmland, I’ve never been in any of the dance barns before—huge wooden structures that used to house horses and hay bales when this was a functioning farm but have supposedly been changed into pretty impressive imitations of clubs—but it looms large in front of us against the near-darkness of the evening sky.

  “What’s wrong? Is EDM not your thing? I think there’s probably a barn that has, like, pop maybe? Or folk?” she asks. She’s close to me, but I still have to strain to hear her over the sound of the bass coming from the barn.

  I take my hat off and run a hand through my locs before putting it back on. I don’t want to go into the giant barn in front of us. This is the one area of Farmland I’ve never dared venture to before because I don’t, under any circumstances, dance. I have a lot of rules that govern the way I move through the world, but this is at the top of my DON’T list in blinking neon letters.

  My rational brain knows that we should go back to camp, knows that we have to rehearse together before tomorrow, knows that if I want to have any shot of winning the Golden Apple and getting closer to that moment of enlightenment on stage that my dad always recollected, then I have no choice. But my lesser self isn’t there yet.

  It’s embarrassing to admit, even in just my own head, but I’m scared.

  But also, the thought of playing my guitar in front of anybody, but especially Olivia, makes my heart beat faster than is strictly healthy. I’m scared to pick up my guitar again and not be as good as I once was, I’m scared that even if the skill comes back, nothing else will. I’m terrified that the passion, the contentedness, the connection that I used to have to the music might be gone for good. And that’s enough of a reason to get me to consider that even though Olivia won’t say why she wants to bail on rehearsing for now, maybe going inside this massive nightmarebarn is worth it to get me out of having to admit that I don’t know if I can do this at all.

  “No, it’s not … It’s not the genre. It’s just that. I don’t. You know. Dance.” I try to sound less embarrassed about it than I am but I know I’m not successful when Olivia’s eyes sparkle a little and she cocks her head to the side.

  “What do you mean you don’t dance?”

  It’s so stupid being embarrassed about something like this, something I’ve never been embarrassed about before, but I am. It’s just that Olivia is looking up at me with those big brown eyes of hers and she is fearless, the type of person who just throws themselves into something and believes the best. And here I am, too scared to be honest about why I don’t want to play my guitar in front of her, but also too scared to buy myself some time by dancing in front of some people I’ll never see again.

  Her face softens and she puts a hand on my shoulder. And it’s almost alarming how fast my defenses come tumbling down. Something about the tenderness of the gesture makes me want to be honest.

  “I just don’t. And with good reason.” I put my hand on my forehead and groan. Here it is, the moment of truth. Time to shatter the illusion of being self-contained and unaffected. “This is so humiliating. Just forget I said anything. Let’s dance.” I try to sidestep her and head inside, but she’s too quick. She moves in front of me and puts her hands on her hips.

  “Nuh-uh. Me and you have a deal going here, Toni. A partnership, if you will. And I’ve been told that no partnership works if it’s not honest.”

  She looks so serious and stern with her finger wagging at me, it’s enough to make me laugh, just a little. “And who told you that?”

  “Teen Vogue, obviously. Right after they taught me how to dismantle the patriarchy.” She smirks. “Now please continue.”

  “You can’t make fun of me.”

  “I would never!”

  “The fact that that’s a lie is written all over your face.”

  She makes a motion like she’s zipping her lips, and I roll my eyes. It feels like before, back when we were sitting in the grass during the Pop Top show. There’s an ease that settles in me when I talk to her, the ability to resist sharing dissolving into thin air without my permission.

  “Okay so the only party I ever went to, I … well, what you need to know is that it’s hard for someone with arms like mine to really move, you know, without committing acts of dance-induced homicide. Anyway I was pretty much alone on the makeshift dance floor in this girl’s basement until this girl tapped me on my shoulder to ask me to dance.”

  “Oh no,” Olivia says, because she must know where this is headed.

  “Oh yes,” I say. “I was shocked, and had definitely just caught a secondhand high from some people in the corner, so when I turned around I didn’t know how close her face was to my elbow and—”

  “You broke her nose, didn’t you?” Her eyes go wide and her voice adds in a whisper, “Oh, Toni, you precious baby gazelle.”

  I don’t even have to answer, because the well of self-restraint that Olivia has been holding in seems to burst at once and she’s giggling uncontrollably. And I don’t know what it is about the way it happens, the way her face looks more than a little sympathetic but also deeply amused, but it makes me want to laugh too. One of those deep, honest laughs that you can’t really help but feel in your bones. I can’t remember the last time I laughed like this, and I don’t even think anything is that funny.

  It’s just something about her, standing in front of me, happy and light, that makes her energy infectious. I don’t know why she even wants to dance with me, why she doesn’t dip out to do her own thing between clues. It’s not like I’m a lot of fun, really. I mean, Peter thinks I’m funny, but that’s because he’s the only straight man on the face of the earth that I think isn’t worth tossing out aside from Paul Rudd and LeVar Burton. But people like Olivia aren’t normally drawn to people like me.

  We finally reach the front of the line, and
the volunteer at the door holds out her hand for Olivia’s wrist. When she stamps her and waves her in, Olivia adds, “I swear to protect my nose. You don’t have to worry about me.” She holds her hand up in an incorrect boy scout salute, grinning. “And I vow to hold your secret with me as long as we both shall live.”

  I sigh once and stick my arm out to be stamped as well.

  “You better watch your face. I’m not kidding about being a menace to society.” I think she might say something in response, but the moment the doors open and we step in, I can’t hear anything else but the pulsing sound of the bass.

  The barn looks surprisingly club-like, despite the dirt floor and the lofted beams that still hold hay bales as if an animal could trot in here at any time, looking to graze. There are about a hundred people in the barn, dancing to whatever it is the DJ is currently playing. They’re moving together, some with more rhythm than others, but everyone seems wholly unconcerned with what anyone else thinks. I don’t want to move, but that seems out of the question as Olivia grabs my wrist and pulls us to the center of the dance floor.

  There is a disco ball above us that casts prisms of light across her face as she turns it to the ceiling. We’re close, but not close enough to touch. The back of my brain is screaming retreat! but I can’t bring myself to listen to it. All I want to do is watch Olivia move as she allows the music to take her. It’s everything.

  When she opens her eyes and sees me staring, I don’t look away even though I want to. I want to be honest, like she said. And my most honest self just wants to watch her get lost in this right now, whether I know how to dance or not.

  But she doesn’t let me get away with it that easy.

  She reaches for me, softly wrapping her fingers around my wrists and tugging me closer. It’s so slow and gentle it’s completely at odds with the way people are moving around us, the mass of bodies pulsing and crashing together like atoms. But in the center of all the chaos it’s just me and Olivia, my hands barely grazing her hips as she sways. She smiles and my heart feels like it’s in my throat. I’m not sure what to do, how to catalog this sensation.

  Only one person has ever let me down, because I’ve refused to care enough about any of the people who’ve come into my life to give them that much power. I’ve backed myself into a corner, watched the people around me group up and pair off, and until I met Olivia, I hadn’t realized just how lonely that existence had been. Sure, I’d had fleeting thoughts of what a relationship might be like before, but those thoughts had never been enough for me to want to pursue one—for me to take the chance at what it would feel like when that relationship failed.

  I’m a runner. My dad was a runner. He never learned how to stand in a feeling for long enough to pick it apart. But all Dad’s running ever did was carry him further and further away from the people who loved him the most. All it gave him was a restless heart and a daughter who only knew him through stolen moments between tours, anecdotes of life on the road, and guitar riffs.

  Maybe that was enough for him. And maybe, for a long time, I could convince myself that it was enough for me. But not anymore. Not right now.

  Here, in this moment, I’m anchored. I’m facing this girl and the bigness of this head-on.

  Trust me, she mouths. My palms are sweating. I’ve only ever trusted three people in my life—never gotten close enough to trust any more. I hold on to her waist a little tighter.

  And I answer with my body: I do.

  FRIDAY NIGHT

  Even if Toni doesn’t feel comfortable out here, dancing is something I know. The dance floor is my territory, the one place I feel completely in control of my own body and totally myself. Imani always says it’s like flipping a switch, watching me go from the Olivia who acts like what other people want me to be and becoming the Olivia who is wholly her own, who moves with grace, barely contained energy, perfectly in time with the music.

  I start to move. I hope that Toni will just catch on as I go. I close my eyes and breathe deeply. The room smells like sweat and earthy red clay that people have trailed in from outside, but I can’t even hate it. There are bodies pressing in from every side, but it’s not suffocating, it’s liberating. In this moment, all of us are moving together, one sweaty mass finding comfort in the same thing. I bring my arms over my head and allow the rhythm to take over.

  One song switches to another, and then another and another and my eyes are still closed. A body brushes against mine from the side, and all of a sudden, I’m taken back to another party. I’m not in the dance barn anymore, I’m in someone’s house. The music isn’t EDM, it’s some trap song I’ve never heard before, and the body against my back isn’t a stranger. It’s the same person who told me they would say they loved me back if I just stopped being such a nun about everything.

  “If you cared about me, you would,” he muttered in my ear, breath hot. He could’ve been talking about anything, really. The pictures he wanted but I was afraid to send, the fact that we’d been dating for three weeks and hadn’t done anything more than make out in the back seat of his precious Charger, even though he wanted to. My mouth suddenly feels like there’s sawdust in it.

  My eyes blink open quickly, and there’s no Troy Murphy in front of me with a red Solo cup and his stupid Park Meade High School Varsity Basketball letter jacket that I used to think was so special. That I used to feel so valued in when he’d drape it over my shoulders in the hallway. There’s just Toni, and my heart slows at the sight. Toni is safe. Me and Toni have a deal, an even trade. A smile is just a smile and a jacket is just a jacket.

  Her eyes are closed now too, and she’s moving with her arms still pretty firmly locked to my waist but moving nonetheless. She’s swaying with the beat, allowing herself to get lost in it.

  When she opens her eyes, I don’t pretend I wasn’t staring. And I don’t expect the look I see on her face, all hopeful and open. It’s different than the half-scowl she’s been sporting practically since the moment we met, but it’s perfect on her face. It makes her look younger, like the type of person who eats ice cream even though it’s cold outside and wears white after Labor Day because what are rules?

  If I had met Toni in a different life, was born a different person with a different personality and absolutely no baggage to carry from a million failed not-quite-love stories, then I would think she is the type of girl you write home about. I mean, not write write, because no one is Jo March-ing it like that anymore, but you know. The type of girl you tell your parents you’re bringing home for the holidays.

  She’s beautiful. I try to ignore how that beauty is making me feel, but the part of my brain that never quite shuts off convinces me it’s safe to think. Under these lights, skin dark and luminous and shining, it’s okay for me to admire her. But she was beautiful when she was leaning against the performance barn earlier clearly freaking out, and when she was sprawled in the dirt after tripping that girl in those fairy wings, and as she was explaining what it means for a vocalist to hit an A above high C while we were walking by a set earlier too.

  And … there it is. I don’t know how I was able to ignore it earlier. Of course I’m developing a crush on her. I can see Imani’s disappointed face already. I can see my mom with her head in her hands, looking tired and sitting at the kitchen table after she found out what happened with me and Troy, saying, “Why can’t you be more like your sister, Olivia? Why can’t you slow down?”

  The song changes, and Toni isn’t smiling anymore. She just looks at me, but not like people on the other end of the Olivia loves [insert name here] equation usually do. She’s looking at me like she sees me. And then she’s moving gradually closer, eyes still open, and I could do it. My body and my brain are in a battle to the death to just let this happen, to give myself over to this good moment and this great feeling and to Toni. And maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, I think, letting myself. It’s as natural to me as riding a bike, the moment of breathlessness just before a big kiss. Her hands twitch just slightly on
my waist, I lean in, flick my eyes up just before shutting them and—

  I stop short. Something catches my eye on the loft just over her shoulder, something gold and glittering nestled on top of one of the big bundles of hay. The next apple. It’s enough to snap me out of it, and I practically jump back when I realize.

  I almost ruined everything. I almost let my stupid instincts drive me into another poorly timed romance that would end in ruin. All before I was able to help Toni win the competition, perfect my wing-woman game to get Imani and Peter together, and of course, win the scavenger hunt. The golden apple is a sign. My mom would call it divine intervention. But I’m just going to call it fate finally throwing me a bone and saving me from my own recklessness for once.

  I step back and point behind her. I shake myself a little, and take a deep breath. I’ve killed the moment, and probably reversed whatever ground we’d managed to cover since earlier today when she would barely speak to me. But she just blinks, like she’s coming back to her senses, and my stomach clenches a little. Because that’s the look that I should expect to see. A brief moment of insanity is all that was, I think.

  She follows my finger to the apple against the back wall. We haven’t gotten the clue yet, but we didn’t need to. I try on a smile that feels more like a dog baring its teeth than a girl trying to pretend everything is normal, and step around her to go grab it.

  I try to tell myself it doesn’t sting just a little bit. I wanted to forget, and for a while I did. For a second as she was holding me, and the music was moving us, I was only thinking about her. This moment. This place.

  That’s all I wanted from this weekend anyway.