WHERE THE WATER ENDS

Prologue The mirrors of the studio always make me feel nervous. Every mistake, every stiff arm, every hesitation: you can always see it, and it stares back at you. Nationals are coming up, and Simon has us running the same eight beats until we get it perfect. He isn’t captain, but he sure acts like he is. He loves control. “Sharper, Miles. You are dragging us. Get out of your head,” he snaps, clapping once, hard, like he can slap rhythm into me. Like I’m his property. I am his property. He loves having me in his back pocket, the one who tests things before him, just to ensure he does it better. I’m trying. I really am. The floor hums with the vibrating noise coming from the speakers blasting Taylor Swift’s new album, Cruel Summer is playing. The air smells like dust and sweat and cheap deodorant, the kind that burns when you breathe in too deep. There is elegance in discipline. Grace in symmetry. We glide as one. And then, I see him. Through the big windows that line the dance studio, sunlight pours in, a tour group is passing. I see this boy. Just a boy I’ve never seen before, laughing at something the guide says. His voice doesn’t reach me, but the soundless shape of his smile does. Somehow, I can feel my stomach lurch. Not nerves. Not stage fright, something else. The world is slowing down around me; the music is fading. My heart is feeling too loud, the only thing I’m hearing is the quiet, mellow beat. I’m meant to be dancing, staying in sync with the group, but my mind is stuck… staring at him, staring at the way he walks past. Just studying his every move. He doesn’t even look this way, but it feels like he does. Like if the glass vanished between us, he would see straight through me. And then it hits, this rush I don’t have a name for. It’s not like watching a celebrity on TV or pretending to like someone in class because everyone else does. This is… different. It’s sharper. Messier. It makes my stomach flip, and my skin prickle, and my brain screams what are you doing? Is this—? No. No, it can’t be. “Miles!” Simon’s voice slices through the haze. “Stop being weird. Focus. I ain’t forfeiting nationals for your daydreams.” The room bursts with muffled laughter. Heat floods my face, and I snap back to the routine too late, too stiff. I miss the beat, stumble through the counts, but no one cares anymore. They’re still snickering. By the time I risk another glance at the window, he’s gone. All I can see is my reflection—an ugly, red-faced idiot with a catastrophic question burning in his head. I don’t know how to answer it. What is happening to me? I keep moving because Simon is counting and everyone else is still in sync. But the thought clings, loud and terrifying, even as I force myself to dance: What was that? What’s wrong with me?