I shrug but don’t look up.
“I don’t think that. Promise. But just so I understand, you didn’t like your program because you don’t feel like a girl—or aren’t one?”
“Or a boy. Right.”
Tamar still looks confused.
I ball up the tissue in my hand, then grab a second. “You know those Venn diagrams? The ones where the two circles intersect at the center?”
“Yeah, kind of.”
“It’s like that. One circle is for boys, the other’s for girls. I’m the part that overlaps. Or maybe I’m outside both circles.”
Her brows rise a little.
“And I did try to tell you last week, but you were upset. Probably about your Moves test.” I look down into my lap. “Why didn’t you tell me you failed it? I found out from Alex.”
“Because it felt like you were keeping secrets. I knew you didn’t like your free program, but it felt like there was something else you weren’t telling me.”
I swallow hard, knowing I danced around my real problem all summer, with Tamar and everyone.
“So, I guess I wanted to keep something from you, too, like failing my Moves.” Tamar shrugs. “I didn’t mean to fight with you like that. I was mad and you were only a small part of it. But it just built up and up. On the day you called, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.”
I scoot a little closer. “Why were you mad? Because of your test?”
Tamar sighs in a way I would’ve called dramatic in the past. Now it makes her seem tired and vulnerable.
“This summer’s just sucked since you switched rinks. Completely. Most of my friends are gone until fall, the synchro coaches have been tough on us because they want to move the team up a level—so I really need to stop freaking out in front of the judges and failing my Moves—and we didn’t even go on vacation like usual.”
Tamar’s family usually visits someplace cool each summer. “You’re not going anywhere before school starts?”
“Dad’s been too busy with work, and Mom’s never home, either. Then they fight about dumb stuff whenever they’re together. Walking the dogs. Who has to take me to practice.” Tamar acts like it’s no big deal, but her tense shoulders rise to her ears. “It’s fine. I wouldn’t want to spend two weeks in a hotel somewhere listening to them argue all the time, anyway.”
I brush my shoulder against hers. “What does Eli think?”
Another shrug. “He says they’ll get over themselves eventually and pretends he doesn’t care at all. Typical.” She hugs her knees to her chest. “I guess I’ve just been feeling kind of lonely lately. Kell’s a cool coach, but practice isn’t the same without you.”
“I want to be there for you,” I tell her, “to hang out and help you with your Moves, for sure, but also so you’ve got someone to talk to when your parents fight.” Tamar still looks doubtful, and I know why. Even when we do hang out, I’ve been off in my own world lately. “It’s been hard to juggle training in Oakland and doing stuff together with you, too, so I thought of something that might work.”
I pull out my phone and show her the new calendar I set up before leaving home. “If you download the same app, we can share our schedules so we’ll know when we’re both free. You can even make edits to my calendar if there’s a specific day you want to meet.”
“You are such a dork sometimes,” Tamar says with a small smile, but she pulls out her phone. A few seconds later, the calendar app appears on her screen, fully downloaded. “But now I can call you out when your new friends are taking up too much of your time. I’ll send you screenshot evidence.”
I know she’s joking, but I can’t help focusing on one part of her sentence. “My new friends?” I shake my head. “Who are you even talking about?”
“You know.” She flops onto her back. “Faith Park, all the other Oakland skaters, and your millions of adoring fans, of course.”
I snort.
“Plus, that boy you keep ghosting me for. Him, too.”
“Um?” I look back at Tamar over my shoulder.
“Blond hair. Tallish. Purple eyes for all I know since you never reported back to me.”
“So…” I groan. “About that.”
I drop down beside her. We lie next to each other without saying anything for a moment, eyes on her light fixture.
“Okay, first: I barely have any friends in Oakland. Faith seems cool, but we’re both busy with our own things and still getting to know each other. Second: I definitely don’t have fans, unless you count an adoring nine-year-old. Third: Hayden and I were friends, but I’m not sure we are anymore.”
Tamar waits for me to continue.
“Remember how I told you I mixed up my name tag and Alex’s when I helped with Hayden’s class?”
“Sure. But that was, like, over a month ago.”
A lump forms in my throat. I try to swallow it down, but it stubbornly stays put.
“He thought you were a boy.” Tamar props herself up on an elbow. “You didn’t correct him, did you?”
Squeezing my eyes shut, I shake my head and remember the look on Hayden’s face when he discovered I’d lied to him.
“Why don’t you tell him now?”
“It’s too late. The skate-school has a recital coming up and I agreed to perform in it. The school director put up posters showing me at my last competition in my free-program costume. I didn’t get to talk to Hayden before he saw them.”
Tamar mutters a word that’d get me grounded for a month.
“Right?” I sigh and rub my knuckles into my eyes. “She used this huge text for my name. And it says I’m the Juvenile girls champion, which I know I am. But Hayden was so mad when he saw it, and I don’t blame him. I lied to him and his whole family.”
“Yeah, I’d be hecka mad, too. What a
