We have to get inside.
“Hannah! Over there!” I shout, getting a mouthful of rain. Our hands slip as we try to cling to each other. We link arms instead, desperate not to get separated.
The rain forces us down the street, away from Thunderchicken. I can barely see the outline of the next smooth, windowless building, but I remember it’s some sleek private museum.
We fight our way up the slick steps. Hannah tugs on my hand and pulls me behind a marble column, but the rain is relentless, swirling and pounding at us.
“We have to get inside!” she shouts.
I dash out from behind the marble column, pulling her with me. Instead of kicking the glass in, I’ll try this Hannah’s way. The rain pushes me sideways, but I lurch to the door and grab the handle.
It opens.
Leo and I explode into the museum lobby. The rain pelts in after us, making me slip on the slick tiles, and I crumple forward to catch myself.
With my hands flat on the floor, I finally suck in a breath that’s not half water. Leo pulls the door shut, and we’re safe from the pummeling rain at last. It sprays against the windows, just a swishing wall of white noise now.
Inside the museum, the air is still. Ominous. It’s dark too—hardly any light is filtering in through the storm. In one corner, a single exit sign glows a ghostly red.
In the silence, my thoughts catch up with me.
The beam of light wasn’t a helicopter. No one’s coming to rescue us.
My breath catches, but I manage to swallow a ragged cry. I’m on the verge of a total breakdown.
Leo shakes his hair out like a dog after a bath. “Whoa! That was a trip!”
I press my fingers against my eyes to keep them from filling up with tears, but Leo’s too busy pacing by the windows to notice I’m still down here on the floor.
“It’s like we’re in a car wash,” he says, peering out. He’s trying to keep his voice light, like he’s not shaken by the storm, but I know him better now. He’s not much more than a dark shape in the gray dimness, but I can tell he’s bouncing on the balls of his feet and twisting his thumb ring.
Leo turns and scans the lobby. Finally he notices me on the floor.
“Oh shit. Hannah, are you okay?”
I nod yes, or shake my head no, I don’t know. My vision blurs with peppery tears.
He takes a step toward me, then shuffles back. “Um, uh, hold on,” he says. “I’m gonna go turn some lights on.”
I close my eyes. Breathe, Hannah. Get it together.
I’m okay. I’m out of the rain, and Leo’s here, and we’re alive.
Probably.
I focus on my breathing, counting the seconds of each inhale and exhale, over and over until I’m ready to open my eyes.
I shiver. The museum is cold. Asleep. The air-conditioning hums quietly. My clothes are soaked through, but there’s not really anything I can do about it.
Leo’s at the ticket desk, riffling through some papers. “Hang tight,” he calls. He finds a switch, and a light over the desk turns on. It’s so tightly focused it looks like he’s about to be beamed up by a spaceship.
He rustles around some more. “Ooh, found some instructions,” he says. “Good thing Robbie the Intern needed to learn how to turn on the lights.” He sits down in the swivel chair and peers at a built-in panel under the countertop. “There. Think I got it.”
Electricity whirs as hundreds of lights throughout the building turn on. The hallway branching off to my right begins to glow. Leo taps some more buttons on the screen, and the lobby blazes with light. I instinctively raise my hand to shield my eyes.
“Ouch, too bright,” he says, punching at the screen. The lobby lights go off, except for a strip of lights around the bottom of the desk, and the shadows wrap around us again.
It shouldn’t be like this. It should be brightly lit. There should be someone sitting at the desk, frowning at Leo for making so much noise. There should be visitors milling around, enraptured or bored or trying to impress a date. Instead the lobby is empty and echoing.
Leo comes out from behind the desk and crouches down by me. “Did that help? What can I do?” he asks.
“I’m okay. I don’t need anything,” I say. Except my parents and Astrid and for this to all be over, but that’s not going to happen.
He helps me to stand and offers me his arm. I’m trembling all over, but the softness of the inside of his elbow is warm and absorbs my shivers.
His shirt is so wet that it’s sticking to him like Saran Wrap. His hair isn’t a carefully arranged mess anymore—it’s just a mess.
He walks me over to the desk. Now that I’m coming down from the shock, I’m suddenly aware of a dull, thudding pain on my cheekbone.
“Ow,” I say, covering the swollen ache with my hand.
“What’s wrong?” Leo asks, his voice tinged with worry.
“Something must have hit my face,” I say. “Everything was so chaotic out there I didn’t even notice.” Whatever it was, it missed my eye by half an inch.
“Are you—bleeding?”
I pull my fingers away and check them, but even in the low light, I can see there’s no blood.
“No. I think it’s just a bruise.”
“Let me have a look. If you’re sure there isn’t any blood,” he says, smiling a little sheepish smile in the dark. He advances on me, crowding me up against the counter.
My back digs into the marble edge. Like every time we’re this close, my body starts thrumming. I’m pretty sure I’m about to lose control and accidentally kiss him.
To save me the temptation, I hike myself up to sit on the counter. There. Even if he stands right in front of my knees, our faces will be at least a foot apart.
My genius idea to sit on the counter works for exactly two seconds, because when he shifts forward to get close enough to examine my face, his other hand snags my knee and pulls it out to the side.
I stop breathing.
He’s standing between my legs.
Don’t breathe, don’t breathe. If I just keep still, I’ll be able to make it through this without doing what my body desperately wants to do, which is to pull him to me and—
He lays his hand on the side of my face, tenderly, but his thumb presses against the bruise. I flinch, but I’m grateful for the pain. It keeps me focused. Keeps me from getting too lost in this.
“Sorry,” he says. “It’s bad, Hannah. It’s already turning purple. You look like you’ve been in a bar fight. Maybe we should try to find an ice pack or something.”
“It’s fine. I don’t care.”
Ballet doesn’t give me bruises on my face, but this is nothing I can’t handle.
Even though there’s no blood, Leo’s cheeks are a little pale, and his eyebrows are scrunched with worry. He keeps his hand on my face as he tilts it this way and that. He’s concentrating so hard and being so gentle with me. The fact that he’s helping me, that he’s doing something just to make sure I’m okay—it has my heart clenching inside me.
Against my will, my eyes close.
God, I wish I didn’t like him. I wish I could snuff out my feelings like a candle, because he obviously doesn’t share them.
And then I feel his hand on my knee.
I open my eyes to find him looking down at my leg. His touch is cautious, like I’m a wild animal that might bolt.
“Your muscles are insane,” he says softly, tracing a fingertip down to my ankle.
I’m not even flexing. I point my foot to make my calf even harder, and Leo swallows. His hand glides back up to my knee, slowly, so slowly, marveling at the place where my calf curves with hard muscle.
He’s touching me.
I had no idea that touches like this were a thing I would crave. That they could convey so much. It feels like they’re saying, I like you, I care about you, I want you.
I want to believe them, but I know better.
My eyes shutter closed again as I imagine Leo’s head t
ipping forward, his palm sliding just a little higher up on my thigh. I’m so warm, all over.
I’ve got to stop thinking about this.
When I open my eyes, his are on me. Vacuuming up all the oxygen in the room.
“You okay?” he says. There’s a new roughness in his voice. Something about him reminds me of a prowling, rumbling lion, power checked and held at bay.
I can’t find my voice, and the moment draws out too long.
His hand slides away, and he steps back.
I want his warmth again. I want his hips wide between my knees.
I can’t feel the ache on my cheek anymore—the thrill of him touching me made everything else scatter.
Leo offers me his hand to help me down off the counter. For a moment, I almost think I catch a glimpse of something on his face. A mirror image of the want that I’m feeling.
“I think we might be stuck in here for a while,” he says, dropping my hand as soon as I’m on my feet and putting cold distance between us. “Might as well make the most of it and check this place out.”
I take a deep breath to gather up the swirling, unbound pieces of myself.
Breathe. Forget what just happened.
I walk in a slow circle around the lobby. The museum is entirely ours to explore.
Something in me shifts. It’s just a little twinge, but it changes everything. I’ve read books about people alone in museums, and it always seemed like such a magical privilege. I even daydreamed about it on school trips. While my classmates colored in pictures of dinosaurs, I stood off to the side, imagining myself alone in the exhibit. Climbing inside a rib cage of bones. Lying under the twinkling planetarium sky all by myself. Not having to rush through the VR exhibit so the next person could try it.
“Shall we?” Leo asks.
I nod. If anything can make me forget about the storm, it’s this. Maybe instead of trying to squash my imagination, I can use it for good.
We follow a glowing hallway to the first gallery. It’s smaller than the foyer, and the ceiling is made of glass. The rain beats down, dropping straight from the darkness of the sky beyond.
When my eyes slide to the walls, my stomach sinks. Of all the artists throughout history, did it have to be this one on exhibit right now?
“Hey, check it out! Ballerinas!” Leo says.
He tears off across the room to look at the paintings. I trudge after him. Of course it had to be Degas—the French guy who was obsessed with ballerinas.
“This dude is a big deal, right?” Leo asks. He climbs over the velvet rope to get a closer look.
That prickle of annoyance is back. Leo probably thinks I’m an updated version of the girls in these paintings. A porcelain statue to be admired.
He’s studying a scene of a ballet rehearsal in an airy room. One dancer is posed in croisé, turned toward the ballet master for inspection. Others stand at the barre, stretching or chatting or being judgy. I see the same body language at the Academy every day, on girls born a hundred years after this was painted.
“Is this what it’s like at your ballet school?” Leo asks.
“Well, we don’t wear dresses like that, but yeah, kind of.”
Their soft white skirts flow down to their knees, contrasting their black ribbon chokers.
“You wear sticky-out tutus now, right?” Leo asks.
“Not for rehearsals, unless it’s for a pas de deux and you know the costume is going to be a classic tutu.”
At my school, we have to wear plain black leotards and ballerina-pink tights, no exceptions. That’s one good thing about going pro, I guess. The dancers in the main company get to wear whatever color leotards they want.
“This guy looks intense,” Leo says, squinting at the mustachioed ballet master. “Are your teachers more or less strict than they were back then?”
I shrug. How am I supposed to know? These were painted in the 1800s. I’m not a freaking ballet historian.
Shoes squelching, I cross over to the next painting before he can ask me anything else.
Everywhere I turn it’s ballet, ballet, ballet. My skin feels itchy.
I stare blankly at the painting. It’s another rehearsal scene. This time the dancers have their legs extended in développé.
Leo’s hand appears between me and the painting, holding an earbud out. I bristle, expecting another question about ballet, but when I push the earbud in, an explosion of reggaeton fills my head. When the song reaches its chorus, I snort a little bit. Very un-balletic of me. The chorus is an endless repeat of “Lift up your leg, lift up your leg, come on, girl, lift up your leg.” Perfect for this développé painting. I imagine the uptight accompanist clicking into the rehearsal hall with his cane and his top hat, opening up his violin case to lift out a boom box blasting this song. Degas’s dancers would be bewildered. I have to cover my mouth to keep from laughing out loud.
Leo takes his earbud back and smiles at me.
We walk together to the next painting. In it, a lone dancer looks down at the floor, lost in thought. She’s miles away from ballet. She reminds me of … me. In the background, another dancer ties up her hair, probably thinking something normal, like worrying if she’ll be able to hold her arabesque without wobbling, or if the ballet master will rap her with his cane again for sickling her feet. But the miles-away girl is thinking something else. I spin some possibilities out, and her life becomes a vivid reel in my head.
I’ve always done this—tried to figure out what’s going on in other people’s heads. I’d scribble it down in the margins of my school notebooks. Astrid used to love reading the backstories I made up for people, but my imagination got out of control as we got older. History classes were the worst—I’d make up whole families in my head, giving them names and faces and happy pasts, and then I had to watch as they suffered through wars and famines. I could see their lives so clearly. My nightmares came back—until I made it into the ballet academy’s Upper School. After that, I was too tired for bad dreams.
Astrid tried to make up backstories a few times, but they sucked. She had to force it, but for me it just happens. Now I’m even doing it for people in paintings.
“Whatcha thinking about?” Leo asks.
I startle. I was so absorbed in Lonely Dancer’s life that everything else faded away.
“Oh. Nothing, really,” I say.
“Aw, come on. You were totally captivated. Is there something about this girl?”
I cross my arms. “I don’t know. I like that she’s not thinking about ballet.”
“She’s not?”
“Obviously I don’t know for sure, but see her eyes? She’s not looking right down at her shoe, like she would be if she was thinking about a painful blister or the steps she’s about to dance. She’s looking farther off, staring into space. Maybe something’s wrong at home. Like … maybe her older sister is really sick? The sister’s usually at the next barre, but now her spot is empty. Lonely Girl is worrying about the rattling cough in her sister’s chest, because that kind of thing could be the beginning of the end back in those days. Or maybe it’s something else totally. Maybe she’s thinking about the book she was reading before she fell asleep last night, how the world in it felt bigger than this one she’s in now. She’s tired of wearing the same things, doing the same things as all these other girls.”
Leo stares at me. “That’s incredible,” he says. “Did you just come up with that?”
I nod. “It’s kind of a thing I used to do. I haven’t done it with a painting before, though.”
He turns to the painting. “Hey, Lonely Girl,” he says softly. “You have a story now.”
I feel like JoyPuking all over him.
We make the rounds, stopping at each painting. Half of Degas’s paintings are ballerinas, and the other half are the backs of women bathing, as if we’re spying through a crack in the bathroom door. Seeing them side by side … I’m used to my body being stared at and studied, but something about this doesn’t feel like a r
espectful nod to the dancers’ athletic ability or grace. It feels … creepy.
“Can we go to the next area?” I ask.
Leo looks puzzled. “Of course. Yeah, sure.”
The next room is tiny, more like an antechamber. The walls are black, and there’s no art. Only the framed bio of an artist and a notice explaining that her exhibit has to be dark, because she uses ultraviolet and radioluminescent paints. One time she even used bioluminescent ink collected from sea organisms.
Black curtains hang over the door leading onward. Maybe it’s not the best idea in the world to go into some dark room when you’re hiding from a storm and you’re the only two people in the world, but Leo peeks behind them anyway.
His face lights up. “Hannah, you’ve got to see this.”
I follow him through the curtain and descend into a magical world.
The walls are matte black to soak up any light leaking in from the Degas room, and each piece of art has its own black light. The paintings pop with UV purples, searing salmon reds, and ghostly glowing greens. From the bio, I thought it would be like Laser Quest in here, garish and basic, but the work is delicate and detailed. There are a thousand shades of color, sunsets and sunrises and night skies that look more real than any painting I’ve ever seen before, because the light is coming from within them.
Leo whistles. “Psychedelic.”
We marvel at each piece in silence, moving around the room. I think I can actually feel things shifting around in my brain as I try to make sense of up and down. Is that a person, or an animal? Or nothing at all?
At the far end of the room, there’s another partition. I venture behind it. On the wall dead ahead of me is a painting that’s obviously the pinnacle of the exhibit, on a canvas bigger than the rest, as wide as my arm span.
It’s a woman floating in midair, bursting with momentum like she’s been caught in the middle of a jump. She’s turned to the side, and her back is arched. Chin tilted up, head thrown back, eyes closed. Her hair flies out around her, then turns into multicolored swirls of fluorescent chaos. Black stars fleck her arms, sharp cutouts where there’s no paint, only darkness. She doesn’t have feet; her legs just blend into a swoosh of blue. The silhouette of her body pops out against a surreal galactic sky that reminds me of Galaxe.
You & Me at the End of the World Page 12
