Arrows

by Melissa Gorzelanczyk

  “What did he say? Did you call him? You can’t keep bringing Nell to dance.”

  Her tone was pointed, but there was a hint of pity in it, too.

  “He’s been really busy.” I focused on Nell, because I couldn’t stand my sister’s judgmental gaze. Poor Nell. She’d been crying so often, especially at night. Rehearsals were tough. School was tough. Danny probably would have been better off dating a zombie. I really needed more sleep.

  “Karma, you can’t let him get away with this crap. He should help you more. It’s like you’re not even the same person you used to be. I can’t believe he still treats you like this.”

  “Danny supports me. You know that.” But my voice shook. Help me more? How about spend more time with Nell? He could if he really wanted. I patted Nell as guilt snuck in for thinking that. She continued to fuss.

  “You need to make him man up. The way he ignores you, then shows up like some kind of clueless hero? It’s very annoying.”

  I gave a short laugh, but there was nothing funny about her statements. Leah was right, not that I’d ever tell her that. I stared at my bedroom wall as a feeling of loneliness crept over me. Loneliness and longing. Everything had changed so fast. One pregnancy test confirmed. One scholarship lost. Me, a ballerina, tripping through life.

  I took a deep breath and gathered Nell against me, standing in ballet fifth position with my legs in a demi-plié, heels touching. Together we listened to the rain, a soft scratching sound.

  “I’ll talk to him,” I lied. “Stop worrying. Stay out of my love life, and next time knock.”

  I glissaded across the part of the floor that was clear of laundry, exaggerating the movements with Nell in my arms.

  “Your room is such a mess,” Leah said before she left. She was right again. The clothes and papers and too many things I’d saved littered all the flat spaces. At least Nell’s corner of the room was organized. I kicked at the stack of diapers that was tipping until they were straight. I’d get around to picking up the rest eventually.

  Nell fell asleep. I continued to glide where I could, little leaps back and forth between the door and her crib, finishing with an improvised ballet bounce. Those blond lashes against chubby cheeks. Perfection. I tucked her inside the baby carrier with a kiss and dug around until I found my dance bag, her diaper bag, and my overstuffed purse.

  Mom had relaxed in the recliner with a copy of Better Homes and Gardens. She looked up with tired eyes. I’d inherited her eyes, crescent-shaped. They always seemed kind, even when she was exhausted. She was the natural-beauty type, but her eyes were bloodshot now because of me—because of my baby—and because Mom was the kind of parent who would never leave her kids when they needed her and move across the country, even if what they needed was a lecture. Even at five in the morning.

  “I’ll be back around ten,” I said.

  Mom was trying not to look guilty over the whole babysitting problem but failing. She rubbed the knees of her yoga pants. “At least she fell asleep, right?”

  “Mom, you don’t have to watch her all the time. You’re right.”

  “I want you to follow your dreams. I just—”

  “Mom. It’s okay. She’s my responsibility.”

  “Next week, I’m calling Danny myself,” Leah muttered.

  Outside, the sky was incredible. Yes, I was weighed down like a packhorse, but wow. I stopped for a second to enjoy it. Rain glittered on the grass and trees like hope. I snapped the baby carrier into the base and headed to the studio.

  —

  “You brought Nell?” Peyton, my best friend, pounced on the carrier the moment I walked in, her mouth in an O shape. “Oh my gosh, she’s so sweet I could die.” She was always on the verge of dying around Nell. The studio was empty except for us.

  “Danny canceled again.”

  Peyton ran her finger over Nell’s cheek. “Did you guys fight about it?” She raised one eyebrow, which was auburn to match her hair. She was outdoorsy and always sunburned, since her complexion refused to tan. “He bailed last week, too.”

  “He could do a lot more for her,” I said. A bad feeling was stuck in my throat, like I couldn’t stand what I was saying about him. “He’s got his own future to worry about, I guess.”

  “If Nick left me to take care of our baby by myself all the time—if we ever have a baby, I mean—I’d be mad as heck.” Peyton didn’t swear. Instead, she pointed to add effect to her words, jabbing the air for heck. She sat cross-legged on the studio floor and cracked open a bag of potato chips. “I can talk to Danny if you want.”

  “That would not end well.”

  “Want one?” She held up the bag.

  “No. I’m maintaining.” I knelt beside her, shrugging the rest of my bags to the side. “How are your ankles feeling, by the way?”

  “Eh, sore, as always.”

  “There’s still time to heal before the scholarship competition. There are ten of them up for grabs, you know. Not just the big one.”

  “I wanted to be a ballerina when I was little, and I am, sort of. But the reality is, I’ll never be you.” She shoved a handful of chips into her mouth to demonstrate.

  “You’re a really good dancer.”

  “Yeah, well, my nickname around town isn’t Prodigy.”

  I felt myself blushing. I had a love-hate relationship with that nickname. Yeah, I’d worked my butt off to get where I was as a dancer—I even turned down potato chips to keep my body lean—but the name Prodigy should feel special, right? Mostly the name just felt like a disappointment. The girl I could have been before I got knocked up and had to switch my whole career around. I frowned, remembering the modifiers kids at school had whispered behind my back. Slut Prodigy. Sex Prodigy. Prego Prodigy, which didn’t even make sense.

  “Tell me,” Peyton said. She circled her hand, as if coaxing out my secrets. There was salt on her fingers. “You’re obsessing about something. Tell me now.”

  I shrugged. “I’m just thinking about everything.”

  “Don’t do that. We agreed about this, remember? No bad feelings about the past. The past is behind you.” Peyton leapt up, yanking me to my feet. “We cannot change the past, only live in the moment.”

  “Oh God.”

  “This moment is your destiny.”

  “Stop. Please.” I was smiling.

  She bowed, the chips accidentally spilling. “You will silence your critics by winning that scholarship and blowing them all away as Lakefield’s true prodigy.” She stopped flitting around when the door opened. Juliette, my dance teacher and aunt, was barefoot, her strong legs shiny with some kind of oil. The only thing country about her was the music she preferred. She gestured to the carrier. “Barbara wouldn’t watch her?”

  “She had plans.”

  Juliette didn’t mention it was Danny’s night to babysit, which she knew. I wasn’t the only one getting used to him being busy.

  “Plans that didn’t include helping her daughter win the most important scholarship of her life?” Juliette leaned over the carrier handle and smiled wide at Nell. When she smacked her little lips, Juliette and Peyton both melted.

  “Aw,” Peyton said.

  “Maybe she thinks I should add ‘day care’ to the sign.” Juliette wasn’t really mad, but she always made a point that she and Mom butted heads on the topic of my teen mom responsibilities. Juliette wanted me to be as free as possible, with support from Mom as needed.

  My mother was of the opinion that Nell was my number-one priority, which she was. Her and one hundred other responsibilities. I’m pretty sure their differences had a lot to do with how their lives had turned out—Mom, a single parent of two girls; Juliette, a free spirit who owned Shining Waters, one of the most elite dance schools in the country. Mom was overwhelmed and tired from running the business end of the school, while Juliette loved life and had the body of an eighteen-year-old.

  “Hey, guys,” I said. The girls who had trailed in behind Juliette clustered around Nell.<
br />
  “She’s honestly the cutest baby I’ve ever seen,” Monique said. The twins—Sofia and Svetlana, from a well-off family that spoke in Russian half the time—nodded as Monique dropped the one bag she’d brought to the side. One bag.

  One.

  She had no idea how much I envied her.

  “I’ll tell Barbara she cried the whole time,” Juliette decided. Nell continued to sleep. “And you.” My aunt pointed her French-tipped nail at me. “I’ll push you twice as hard until she wakes up. We’ve got one month.”

  “I know. I’m ready to work.”

  “Getting accepted to Wist simply isn’t enough,” Peyton said. She liked to brag about me, which only made me feel weird.

  “I still think you should apply,” I said, but Peyton made a nah sound.

  Wist School of the Arts. New York City.

  Sometimes I felt like pinching myself. Wist was really happening. I hadn’t completely ruined my life by getting pregnant.

  With the grueling admissions process behind me—the live audition in Chicago followed by me begging the faculty for a one-year deferment—all I had left to worry about was how to pay for it. There was tuition, an apartment, child care on the days Danny wouldn’t be able to help, dance clothes. The Leona Barrett Scholarship could pay for all of that and then some, and I’d been picked as a finalist to represent the Midwest based on my video submission and essay. Just one step and six competitors left to go. So—yes. I was definitely ready to work.

  “Okay, girls. Let’s go through class and then focus on your individual pieces.”

  We spread out in the studio, which was designed to feel like a modern retreat—good lighting, seamless wood floors, and giant black-and-white photos on the walls. Each image was a close-up: pointe-shoe ribbon strings; a dancer’s hair lit by a spotlight. We warmed up as Juliette walked, toe to heel, into the center of the room. She still had those beautiful high arches, feet we were both born with, made for dance. The studio was my second-favorite place in the world, second only to being with Danny.

  When the ensemble pieces were done, I caught my breath next to one of the huge windows overlooking the woods, a dancer’s muse. Beneath my fingertips, the pane was cold from the recent rain. The stress of my day receded like a wave.

  “I want it perfect,” Juliette snipped, breezing past. So I began.

  Stretching.

  Bending.

  Clearing my mind of everything, letting dance take over.

  That unbelievable feeling of connection—that’s why I danced.

  As I moved over the wood floor, I felt the ache of my past pushing me.

  Work harder. Pay attention.

  I lost track of time, even when sweat formed at my hairline and my feet burned. Peyton jogged toward me with her hand out.

  “Your phone went off.”

  “It’s probably Danny.”

  I stole a tiny peek at the screen, pretending not to notice Juliette’s disapproving frown from across the room.

  “Is it him?” Peyton said, nudging me.

  “Uh, Jen texted.”

  We exchanged a look. Peyton and I didn’t care for Jen, who was a senior like us. She was the kind of girl you said hi to but didn’t trust. I opened the message and tried to hide the instant worry I felt, fear rising from the bottom of my stomach to the back of my throat.

  I heard about Danny. Are you okay?

  Phoebe smiled and slid closer to Chaz on the marble bench in the alcove, making room for me. He didn’t bother moving out of her personal space.

  “Hey,” I said, soft, right against her cheek.

  “Hey,” she said back. Cupid briefing, Dad’s place, always way too early. I was on time. I leaned over my quiver with my hands clasped. Two golden arrows glinted up at me. Check and check.

  “It’s been a while since we’ve reviewed history,” Dad said, silencing the group. He stood before us wearing a gold cape over his wings, wings only he, the original cupid, had grown. The wings were vintage and cool and not something I would have hidden given the choice. I squinted and read the text on the screen behind him.

  THE CUPID’S PURPOSE

  Stuff we’d learned in prep school.

  Images of couples he had shot with arrows over thousands of years hung around him. We knew them well. Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Bonnie and Clyde. Johnny Cash and June Carter. My mother, Psyche, had been up there until she and my dad separated two years ago. Yeah. Some epic love stories don’t last as long as others.

  “I designed the arrows to help people. Because of us, love is a reality all over the world.”

  He carried on and on.

  Humans no longer have to waste years of their life searching for their other half.

  The arrows have changed history.

  When you became a cupid, you strengthened your rank among the gods.

  Humans like to believe in love.

  They need love.

  We make love happen.

  And then Chaz raised his hand and said the one thing that got my attention all morning. “Can you speak to all the changes in technology? Because humans are connecting to their soul mates—without our help—every day.”

  He may as well have faced the group with an arrow pointed at us. No one moved. I’m pretty sure we all held our breath, since Chaz seemed to be reading from Tek’s manifesto word for word. Tek had been a cupid like us for a while, then ditched the program to “start his own thing.” He wrote a manifesto, “Sex and Human Exploration,” to explain his plan.

  “I’ve read Tek’s essay,” Dad said dismissively. “By the way, is that a direct quote?” His history lesson began to make sense. “Correct me, though—I didn’t see the term soul mates mentioned. Not once.”

  I glanced over at Chaz. Could he give Phoebe a little space? He knew we were a thing. We didn’t have an official title, since Phoebe wasn’t big on that, but everyone knew we were good together. Ever since I’d passed my final, we’d been a couple. “I’m just saying, we all know the arrows are powerful, but there are lots of ways for humans to fall in love now.”

  “But an arrow’s forever,” I said. The room got really quiet again. Phoebe hesitated, then slid her fingertips down my arm for a few seconds.

  Dad nodded at me. “Exactly, Aaryn. Now, let’s get to work. It’s a good day for love.”

  The briefing adjourned just as a goddess ran into the room. A messenger goddess. One of Iris’s girls. She wore the traditional white dress, silk, and made a beeline for my father, cupping her hand to his ear.

  The sound of the others talking grew louder.

  “Thank you,” Dad murmured, which sent the messenger girl hurrying out of the room.

  “What was that about?” I asked. My arrows rattled to one side.

  “Just a meeting I have to go to. Something about an audit.”

  The set of his jaw, the storm in his eyes and the way he avoided looking into mine, the way he’d said audit as if it wasn’t foreign or strange, and the way he strode through the door with his hands in fists, tight to his sides, paralyzed me.

  The questions in my mouth were liquid. The air had cooled. When Phoebe said goodbye, not picking up on my fear, I didn’t reply. Just stood still until the room emptied.

  Last year I landed on Earth, invisible, and used my arrows to make two people fall in love; and then I came back. That was my story. I had to stay calm.

  —

  Dad and four guards were waiting for me in my room when I returned.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” Dad asked. He faced me in the stoic way he faced everyone: as the leader. His arms were crossed. This time, his wings drooped beneath the cape, and noticing them, a feeling of relief, almost like forgiveness, hit me and spread. Finally, after a year of pretending everything was fine, that I was a good son and a good heir, someone had discovered what had gone wrong that night back on Earth. But what would happen to me?

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, stalling.

/>   “The practice arrow? Finals?”

  From there, my father’s words blurred.

  The assembly knows what you did.

  Write down your arrow PIN.

  I’m disabling it.

  You’re going to get a chance to fix your mistake.

  “How?” I blurted out. The room was too bright, almost as if the sun was cresting the horizon, shining directly into my eyes. “How will I fix anything without an arrow?”

  “I don’t know. But you’re going to try.”

  “I won’t go to Blackout?”

  Dad clasped his hands behind his back. “You’ll have ninety days before that happens. You, and by default, Phoebe.”

  “What?” My legs felt weak. “Where is she?” The room was spinning. “What have you done with her?”

  “She’s taking a leave of absence while you’re gone.”

  “Don’t let them hurt her. She doesn’t deserve any of this. Promise me.” Breathe in. Breathe out.

  “If you can get the guy to propose, you can come home as if nothing ever happened.”

  The room came into focus. “And if I fail?”

  “You won’t. You can’t.”

  “But what if I do? What will happen to Phoebe?”

  “I can’t change the codes. You know that. I did the best I could.” Dad picked up the paper with my PIN and handed it to a guard, who took it with robotic-like stealth. “Phoebe is part of this whole mess, just as much as you. But you’re the one going to Earth.”

  Deep down, I’d been waiting for someone to find out. That’s the thing about guilt. You don’t want your secrets exposed, but the guilt keeps you up at night. The guilt changes who you are and throws you into a dark corner, alone. Even my flawless work ethic since finals couldn’t make up for what we’d done.

  My father pawed through a folder full of papers, almost as if he didn’t understand what he was doing, either. “Ninety days. There’s no Blackout for anyone if you can fix this.”

  “But how do you get someone to fall in love without an arrow?” I asked.