Work Text
Friday, August 27th - Auditions
Chest heaving and ribs burning with each gasping breath, Adam thinks that there were nobler ways to die. Hunched over with his hands on his knees, he pulls in every bit of oxygen that his body will allow and, using his arm, wipes his forehead. The entire studio smells of sweat. Even though Adam prefers to focus only on himself, especially during auditions, it’s hard for him to ignore that everyone’s clothes are soaked through. It’s even harder to ignore the puddle of sweat that’s forming under Tad Carruthers. He attempts to shake out a spasm that hits his calf as he straightens himself and looks at his face in the mirror. Damn, he hasn’t looked this bad since that one time he tried a spin class with Blue. “Run it again!” Aurora’s voice trills, “At this rate, none of you will be getting the part.” Next to him, Lynch catches Adam’s eye. A sense of relief washes over Adam upon seeing Lynch’s face mirror his: flushed and in definite pain. It’s the first time Adam has seen nearly all of the wickedness stripped from his expression. Exhaustion is causing his attention to stray from himself but he finds comfort in hearing the out-of-breath dancers around him and seeing that Lynch is struggling too. This has to be the hardest Aurora has ever worked them. “Come on, gentlemen,” Aurora claps her hands, “Let’s go. Starting positions.” There is a collective exhale; they’re all too exhausted for it to be a sigh or a groan. “Ronan Niall Lynch!” thunders Aurora. Adam and a few other dancers jump at her shout. “One more look like that and I’ll be giving our janitor the night off so YOU can mop the floors.” On Lynch’s other side, Kavinsky lets out a sound resembling a laugh, quickly followed by a grunt as the back of Lynch’s hand collides heavy and graceless into Kavinsky’s abdomen. “Boys,” Aurora’s voice is quiet, dangerous, warning. It quickly flips back to its trilling self, “Gansey, dear, could you start from the top?” When Adam thinks of Aurora, the phrase ‘small but mighty’ came to mind. As requested, Gansey begins playing the piano accompaniment for the 20th? 21st? time -- Adam stopped counting around the 12th mark. As Gansey begins the intro, he offers Lynch a sympathetic grimace but Lynch misses it. Something about their friendship strikes Adam as odd but he never has enough energy to dwell on it, chalking it up as something he won’t understand. Regardless, Adam catches the one-sided exchange and smiles a little. Somehow even smiling hurts. Every single inch of Adam aches and he wonders when he’ll hit the point where everything becomes numb. He sorely hopes, as his limbs begin to move through the first few steps of the choreography, that this is the last run through. All he can think about is how much he aches and how he can’t wait to shower and then fall into bed. Aurora’s voice severs his thoughts like a blade, “Adam, pay attention!” He isn’t certain that it’s possible but his face grows redder, layering embarrassment on top of body heat. He knows more than anything, more than the scream of his muscles, more than the sweat on his back that he needs to get out of his head. Being too inside his mind is both a now-problem and an overall-problem -- fluidity and overthinking are Adam’s main roadblocks on the path to becoming a better dancer. There’s no hope of getting this part -- or any other part -- if he doesn’t focus. Adam does his best to empty his mind and pull his focus away from dwelling on the boys around him and pull his focus away from dwelling on his soreness in order to dance. Only dance. Nothing more. Nothing less. Dance. He guides his breath to match the metronome that sits atop the piano, wills his legs into a latticework of steps and jumps and turns, focuses his arms to be soft but sturdy as they frame the movements of his body. He hopes it will be enough, he hopes he will be enough.
Monday, August 30th - First Day of Classes
The hall is crowded with enough students to make Adam claustrophobic but being so focused on getting to the cast list postings dulls any sense of anxiety. Everyone is pushing and huddling around the bulletin board that declares their fate for the upcoming semester. Adam holds his breath as he pushes through the swarm of dancers. His gaze is stuck on the small black lines that he can’t yet read. They blur and meld together and then sharpen and separate as his eyes work on focusing on the sheet. Only a few more shuffles and Adam will see if his hard work has paid off. He’s able to make out the title of Aurora’s original contemporary pas de deux piece when he runs into a brick wall. Or maybe the brick wall ran into him. “Fucking watch where you’re going, Parrish,” the brick wall growls. “Whatever, Lynch,” Adam mutters in response, pushing past him to face the cast list, not paying any mind to the solid knock of their shoulders. All of the blood drains from Adam’s face.
/Dream Things choreographed and directed by Aurora Lynch
Orla Sargent
Adam Parrish/
Stunned, he stands still, just staring, allowing himself to be jostled by the throng of students.
/I did it. I can’t beli-- /
A noisy exhale -- that he can somehow hear over the buzz of his peers -- interrupts his thoughts. Adam slowly turns to look over his shoulder to the source of the exhale. He’s met with one of Lynch’s leveling glares. “Listen--” Lynch starts, but Adam cuts him off. “If you have something shitty to say, Lynch, save it for your boyfriend,” as soon as the words leave his mouth, he knows he shouldn’t have said them. Lynch’s face goes the darkest that Adam thinks he’s ever seen it and his voice drops low, “Kavinsky isn’t my fucking boyfriend.” A vein in his neck flutters as he clenches his jaw. “I was gonna say congratulations.” Adam blanches. He doesn’t have time to apologize, Lynch has already disappeared into the crowd of students. Adam covers his eyes with his hand and breathes noisily out of his nose, before dragging his hand down his face. He so wishes he could revel in his accomplishment, in his pride. Instead, he feels like a complete ass. For the first time, after years of Lynch trashing him and him trashing Lynch back, he feels like he has just crossed some sort of line. Even though he’s said worse things, there’s a feeling at the base of his stomach that is gnawing against the echo of “I was gonna say congratulations.” He wishes that the tiles of the school will open up and swallow him down into the boiler room where he can be burned alive. Adam glances back at the cast list. “I was gonna say congratulations.” Something about the look on Lynch’s face and the sound of his voice tells Adam that his words hurt this time. Really hurt. And it’s something he can’t quite shake. Adjusting the backpack strap on his shoulder, Adam sighs and walks off to his first class of the day. It’s anatomy, one of the classes he’s particularly looking forward to this year. As he walks in, Mr. Smith is writing on the chalkboard, already preparing notes. Adam has had Mr. Smith as a teacher before, so he knows, to check the lectern for the seating chart. Sure enough, atop the day’s lesson plan is a neat, handwritten seating chart. Adam glances down, then glances up to where his seat is and withers. Most every student has already arrived. It’s clear which seat is his; not many are empty. Still, Adam checks the seating chart again and chews at the inside of his cheek. Blue catches his eye from where she sits, looking incredibly miserable, next to Gansey. If he wasn’t in his own predicament, he would smirk or maybe throw her a wink. Instead, he casts her his own miserable look as the bell rings. “Mr. Parrish, if you could kindly find your seat.” He nods and slides into his chair at the lab table he shares with Lynch. The entire left side of his face heats up from what he is convinced is a glare from his tablemate. He doesn’t turn though, instead Adam keeps his gaze trained forward, on the chalkboard, on the teacher as he hands the stack of syllabi to a student at the front and gestures vaguely to her to take one and pass the stack along. A classmate at the table in front of them turns and hands the diminishing pile to Adam. He takes two and passes the remainder along. Keeping one syllabus for himself, he slides the other across the high-pressure laminate tabletop in front of Lynch, still keeping his eyes everywhere but on his tablemate. Adam knows he can’t look at him without apologizing first. Unfortunately, it will have to be later; he knows that the first few minutes of the first class of the new semester is not entirely the appropriate time to say, “I know we’re not really friends but I was an ass earlier and I feel like I need to apologize so I’m sorry.” Mr. Smith starts up the spiel of classroom expectations. Adam casts a forlorn gaze across the classroom where Blue seems to be suffering nearly as much as he is. That’s when a student bursts through the door in what could only be described as a theater-worthy entrance. Adam blinks at the boy’s outlandish accessories that are clearly outside of the dress code. He blinks again. Yes, somehow his hair is that tall. “I’m so sorry I’m late,” the boy says with no remorse and all grandeur, “I’m--” “Mister…” Mr. Smith squints at his student roster, “...Cheng. I know this is your first day here at The Academy so I will give you some leeway but it would do you well to know that a late entrance should never--” The teacher’s voice grows quiet and far away. It has nothing to do with Mr. Smith’s voice and everything to do with Adam losing concentration. Something in his stomach clenches and, before he realizes what he’s doing, Adam is looking directly at his tablemate and hears himself whispering. “Hey,” he hisses, “Lynch.” He slowly turns to Adam with a perturbed raised eyebrow. “I’m sorry.” Lynch’s eyebrow arches even higher. “I’m sorry for, you know,” Adam shrugs, “earlier.” He feels a flush gathering under his freckles and wills it away. Why am I so embarrassed? I know Kavinsky has said worse things to him. Hell, I’ve said worse things to him. What’s the big deal? Lynch’s face holds little emotion, “Forget about it,” he mutters curtly. This makes Adam stop short. He didn’t know what he is expecting but it isn’t that. “What?”
“Just forget about it, Parrish.” His voice has grown thorns. “I know, I just wanted you to--” “I said, forget about it, Parrish.” This third time Lynch’s voice is raised and each syllable is its own word. Anger flares within Adam and he opens his mouth to respond. “Mr. Lynch, anything you’d like to share with the class?” Adam clamps his mouth shut. All the attention is drawn from Cheng to them and, for the second time that day, he wishes the floor would swallow him up.
Lynch’s eyes, colder than any nor’easter, stay trained on Adam. “No.” “Then kindly keep personal conversations out of the classroom. Now, Mr. Cheng, if you could please take your seat next to Mr. Czerny, we can finally start class...” he glances at the clock behind him on the wall, “...ten minutes late.” Mr. Smith doesn’t get two pages into the syllabus before someone in the back of the classroom starts snoring softly. Lynch is scribbling broken Latin in the margins of his syllabus and Adam is trying to discreetly read what his tablemate is writing. As he squints, not being able to discern the handwriting, Lynch swiftly flips the syllabus over and punctures Adam’s concentration with a scowl that could frost over Central Park in the middle of July. Part of him wonders how many glares Lynch can hand out in a day before running out. Another part of him wonders if Lynch is hyper-aware or if he really is that bad at being subtle. The third part of him is bothered by how “I was going to say congratulations” and then “Just forget about it, Parrish” keep cycling around in his head. Later in the day, when he’s in line to get lunch, he’s startled by Blue and a hug that could only be described as a leprechaun tackle. “Adam! You did it! You got the part!” He wheezes a shaky laugh before he offers Blue a smile -- a real one, all teeth and crinkled eyes. “I still can’t believe it,” Adam says as he scratches the back of his neck. “You should. You deserve it.” She nods with a beaming look on her face. He imagines Blue has gotten that same look from her own mother many times. “You really deserve it.” Suddenly, Adam feels bashful, kicking at a scuff on the floor. “Thanks.” He pauses. “But what about you? I heard you did pretty well too.” Blue gives a casual shrug. “Sort of. I’m an understudy for the part I wanted.” She shrugs again. “One of the seniors got it. I’m hoping she gets picked up by a company before the show.” “Cirque du Soleil, maybe?” She scoffs, “I don’t care what company it is, so long as I can perform. Hell, I don’t care if she breaks her leg, so long as I can perform.” “You don’t mean that.”“No, I don’t mean that.” They both laugh, light and airy. Sometimes Adam wishes he could live inside small moments like this with Blue. They remind him of when it all started, when they started dating, when they were happy. He remembers how their relationship soured quickly, how Blue broke up with him, how it took him an embarrassing amount of time to diffuse the contempt he held for her. But once it was gone, it’s like nothing bad had happened. Adam found that they went right back to the way they were when they started dating, they were closer even, just without the messy romance part. Blue gently bumps her shoulder into Adam’s upper arm. “Hey, do you know what’s for lunch today?” “I’m not sure.” He shrugs, “I didn’t check.” She stands on her tiptoes and leans around the line of people, trying to get a better glimpse of what’s being served. “They better have yogurt.” Adam lets out an easy laugh.“I think they know better than to not have yogurt.” “Yeah, the ballerinas might start a riot.” “I think they’re more afraid of you starting a riot.” Blue glares but there’s a smile behind it. “Speaking of rioting. Smith has it out for us. I don’t know what I’m going to do about being lab partners with that pompous, insufferable piece of beige wallpaper.” Adam lifts one shoulder, “Gansey’s not that bad. I think you’ll manage.” “I was hoping to make it to graduation without having a conversation with him.” He exhales a laugh that’s more air than sound. “I mean you can still try.” They reach the front of the line. Adam picks up two trays and passes one to Blue. She leans around him to look the food on the bar. “Ugh. It is salad. I appreciate the ‘Health Initiative’ they have going on but I miss pasta.” “Do they have yogurt?” She peers further down the line of food, squinting, “It looks like it.” “Good. I don’t feel like being heckled into rioting with you today.” She shoots him a look and pushes past him to grab a salad that is already doled out into ‘an appropriate serving’ on the plates laid out for them. She tosses the plate and it clatters onto her tray and then takes three yogurt cups. Adam follows her through the line and to their usual spot at the small table near the southern bank of windows. The summer had been long and he is happy to have Blue back. While it was peaceful staying at the Academy, working at the garage, improving his technique, and helping with ballet summer camps, it was lonely. Blue is talking on and on about her summer at home with her family in between bites of yogurt. Once in a while, she points her spoon directly at him or brandishes it into the air, adding emphasis to her statement. Adam eats his grilled chicken salad that, surprisingly, isn’t that bad. It’s green and fresh and a lot better than what the Academy was serving over the summer when the ballet camps came through. He watches her talk, all arms and facial expressions, and thinks that she would make a good actor if she weren’t so in love with acrobatics and contortion. It occurs to Adam that he might get in trouble later for not paying attention to Blue’s stories but he can’t help enjoying this. He can't help living in this moment because, even though his interactions with Lynch are still cycling through the back of his mind, Adam is happy. “...and anyway, Orla was awful the whole summer. I think she went through five significant others? You’re going to have a great time partnering with her. I’m sure she’s going to hit on you if she hasn’t already.” “Wait, Blue, are you slut-shaming your cousin?” “What? No! Yes. Maybe. I don’t know! All I know is that she will try to get into your pants.” “Don’t worry; she won’t succeed,” he laughs. “She’s not my type.” “Who’s not Adam’s type?” Noah asks, plopping into the seat next to Blue with his tray piled high with food. “Uh, Orla, apparently,” she says, stabbing a piece of lettuce with her fork, shoving it into her mouth, and chewing angrily. “What? I thought Orla was everyone’s type?” Noah stuffs his mouth full of salad and talks around it, “That’s what she says, right?” “She actually says that?” Adam asks, disbelief drawing his eyebrows high on his forehead. Blue’s eyes darken. “Yes.” A loud laugh boils up within Adam and barks out. “Then she’s definitely not my type.” “Then what is your type?” Noah asks, pointing a fork full of chicken across the lunchroom to where Gansey seems to be prattling on and on while his best friend looks less than enthused about the subject matter. “Is it Lynch?” Adam, taking a drink, chokes on his water. He tries to talk between coughs, “What? No! Why would-- why would you think that?” Blue looks to be holding back a laugh, while Noah shrugs and puts the large forkful of chicken into his mouth, “I wanted to see your reaction. You did not disappoint, Parrish.” “Oh, Noah, you’re horrible,” Blue declares but it’s clear she’s doing her best to swallow laughter. Still coughing lightly, Adam looks across the mess hall to see that Gansey is still talking. But this time, instead of looking like he’d rather be cleaning a public restroom, Lynch is watching Adam with a dangerous smirk on his face. Adam flashes an embarrassed smile and tips his head to the side with a shrug. He sees, but doesn’t hear, Lynch laugh, a real laugh. This catches Gansey’s attention and his head dips to the side, asking his best friend a nonverbal question. Lynch points to Adam, saying some words that he can’t discern that causes Gansey to turn to look at him, beaming. Adam responds with a grimaced smile and a short wave that is more flick of his wrist than it is a wave. For the third time that day, he wishes the floor would swallow him up.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Monday, August 30th - First Day of Classes - Afternoon
Adam revels in the feeling of fresh canvas against his toes, cool and unyielding. Slipping on a new pair of shoes, he sits amongst a few other students on the chilly, lacquered wood floor of Studio Room B, preparing for the first class of the semester. Accompanying the quiet thrill of first classes and new shoes, there's a snap of guilt -- not unlike the sharp snap of elastic at his ankles as his shoes spring into place -- that threatens his buzz. While shoes, and other necessities like dance belts and costumes, are provided for them and the cost is lumped into tuition, Adam can't help the shame settling in his stomach that he's been given this. He is at Aglionby on scholarship. He gets this -- the education, the instruction, the room and board, the opportunities -- all of this,
for free.
Well, not
free free
. He has to keep his grades up. But that’s it. No catch. Even entering his third year, it still seems too good to be true. Something as small as a pair of dance shoes can be expensive, depending on the type. The thought of it makes his throat dry. Adam remembers when he was younger and worked odd jobs for neighbors, teaching himself how to fix lawn mowers and then motorcycles and then cars. Back then he checked out books from the library to learn basic plumbing and electrical skills. Anything that had seemed like it would help him earn a few dollars, Adam worked his hardest to learn it. He saved up some cash that way -- his parents certainly wouldn’t pay for new shoes. Looking back, there were so many times when he danced on dead shoes for much longer than he should have and risked injuring himself, just to avoid the cost of a new pair. Now he doesn’t have that. Adam doesn’t have to dance on dead shoes again. Ever. It feels like a luxury. It
is a
luxury. He wiggles his toes in the crisp canvas. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to it.
All around him students are beginning to filter into the many-mirrored studio. There’s a low hum of multiple conversations around him. He notices that a good lot of the conversations are complaints that they’re starting with a technique class. Already, Adam has created a space for himself at one of the barres on the far left wall of the room. He’s always on the far left of the room. Every class he ensures that he is. If anyone asks, he says that he's a creature of habit or that it's his lucky spot or some equally simple answer that doesn’t leave space for questions. By no means does he offer any sort of answer that indicates the real reason he stays to the left -- it’s far too embarrassing of a reason and the reason itself has far too embarrassing of an origin story that he’d rather keep between him and his past.
Sitting cross-legged, Adam presses his face into his legs and stretches his arms out far in front of him, fingers splayed on the cool, slick slats of wood. He inhales heavy and exhales heavier. The room smells fresh like pine and citrus and window cleaner -- which is definitely preferable to what it will be smelling like at the end of the day. He lays there a moment, doubled over, eyes closed, breathing deep, reminding his muscles how to be flexible, before slowly sitting up. Keeping his eyes closed, he turns his face to the left, to the wall, to the mirror. Adam’s eyes open. There’s no darkness under his dusty lower lashes. The summer had been kind to him. While he worked a lot and rehearsed even more, he didn’t have to worry about school. He was able to get the recommended eight hours of sleep every night and the result looks good on him. Adam allows himself a small smile and watches the corners of his eyes crinkle slightly. The crinkles evaporate promptly as someone falls into his peripheral vision. Over his shoulder in the mirror, Adam sees Lynch, tall and dark, with a viper’s stare. Through the mirror, their eyes meet. Forget-me-not cerulean to ice-javelin azure. Adam notes how long his lashes look from this angle. But if he is being honest with himself, he noticed Lynch’s impressive lashes within his first week at Aglionby. He squints and arches his brows in an expression that’s equal parts question and impatience. Adam has already embarrassed himself enough today; he isn’t keen on spending any more time with Lynch than explicitly necessary.
“Here,” tall, dark, and viper steps forward and tosses something into Adam’s lap.
He glances down to see his pencil that he used in Anatomy but couldn’t find by the time he got to AP US History. “Than-” Looking back up, he stops short. Lynch has already slouched off to his regular spot in the middle of the studio and begun aggressively digging through his bag, like the hand submerged in his duffle might be in a fist fight with a rat. Adam looks back into his lap at the pencil, yellow and unassuming. It isn’t anything special. Sure, it has a nice eraser but it’s far from being Adam’s favorite writing utensil. It’s perfectly adequate -- not unlike how Adam feels about himself -- but nothing to write home about. He snorts quietly to himself at that thought.
Nothing to write home about. Punny.
Three sharp claps startle his attention to the front of the room. “Alright,” Aurora calls, “Up to the barre.” She sidles up to the nearest barre, places her slim fingers on it with a feather touch, and plants her feet in first position to begin demonstrating the flow she wants her students to mimic. Adam heaves himself off the ground and pushes his things closer to the wall, out of the way. A student barrels into the room as soon as Aurora's mouth opens to speak. The boy is panting and slides into a spot on the barre that’s to the right of Adam. A girl behind Adam scoffs while the late arrival hops on one foot and is pulling a shoe on the other. His hand finds the barre and he steadies himself. Aurora scolds with a series of tuts. “Tad, darling, not a good way to start the semester.” She turns her attention back to the class, not bothering to wait for Tad, leaving him to rush to get his other shoe on. “Now, first position. We start slowly. Point the right foot to the front and flex.” Aurora’s words match up like music to her movements. Adam is always amazed at how she can take a boring technique flow and turn it to be something so seamless and the melody of her voice carries a tune as she does so. “And stretch. Back to first. Then front and second and demiplié.” Her arms do something magical on the way up from demiplié that makes Adam ache with want that he could replicate it. “That is it. Then you repeat at the back: you flex, you point, you close, and quarter, and continue into demiplié. Two times then on to the left.” She casts her eyes to Gansey in the corner at the piano and nods. Gansey’s hands flourish in his own dance as he begins playing out a simple tune that will carry them through the techniques.
As they begin, Aurora watches and wanders, eyes keen. Her gaze pans, catching each dancer’s movement as she floats about the room. “Keep your lines up. And one and flex and point. And don’t forget your head! And second and demiplié and back.” She squints at Lynch, scrutinizing, coming close, dropping her voice. “Yeah, my dear, when you go into plié, feel that you lift and open rather than crawl in.” Aurora watches then nods. “Yes. Better.” She moves on, continuing to glide about and coach them through the movements, occasionally stopping to correct a student. Each flow is different and poses a different struggle. While incredibly redundant and having the capacity to be obnoxiously dull, Adam loves tech classes. They help refine his movement and better his technique. That is, of course, the purpose but there’s something special about having nothing else to worry about. All Adam has to focus on is how his body moves. He doesn’t have to worry about homework or money or work or rehearsal. Just what his body doing. However, on particularly stressful days, it’s difficult to completely empty his mind and center himself only on movement.
Today, isn’t a stressful day but his mind is buzzing. He feels distracted. Maybe not distracted so much as stuck in his head. Maybe not so much stuck in his head as being both everywhere and nowhere at all. His thoughts rabbit-leap from getting the part to the morning’s Lynch debacle, to the new student --
Cheng was it?
-- in Anatomy, to the sheer amount of homework he has from APUSH and it’s only the first day, to his lunch with Blue and how he should probably do something silly to get back at Noah, to the pencil interaction, to how he’s sure his feet aren’t doing quite the right thing, to counting the minutes of exactly how much time he’ll have to eat dinner with Blue, to what he might have to work on at Boyd’s tonight, to how exactly he’s going to break down his homework when he gets back home. Then he has to start it all over tomorrow but instead of working he has rehearsal for--
He’s pulled back into his body by a barking Aurora. “For goodness sake, Joseph!” Adam catches a wicked smile on the lips of Lynch. “Don’t be lazy! Use your core!” Then she turns to Adam, startling him a bit, addressing him directly with a much softer voice, all kindness and honey, “Adam, please get your mind out of your head and into your body. It’s severely affecting your lines today.” His hope that his distracted thoughts would go unnoticed is a fraught one. Heat blooms up Adam’s neck, through his ears and under his freckles.
Kavinsky whoops a single laugh that sounds like a rubber band snap. It’s something nasty with the intent to harm. It does its job well. His words roll around in his mouth like marbles before hitting the floor with a clatter, “Keep it up, Parrish.”
Shame blankets Adam in a wave of nausea. Gansey stops playing immediately with a stuttering halt -- it always strikes Adam as curious how well Gansey reads Aurora and sometimes knows what she wants even before she does -- and the entire studio goes still, silent. Adam watches as Aurora’s body goes rigid as she turns back to face Kavinsky. Every student is a paused video, an inhaled breath that cannot exhale. The ice that Adam often sees in Lynch looks even more deadly in the eyes of Aurora, like a poison that kills slowly, agonizingly over months, instead of something quick and painless. “We’ve been over this, Joseph.” Something like a smirk or a challenge sets itself in Kavinsky’s teeth as she continues, her voice low and alarmingly even. “No one, and I mean
no one,
is allowed to shame or demean my dancers
especially
in a learning environment. I
will not
have this conversation with you again.” Her wrist flicks in a motion that’s somehow aggressive in its grace. “Now get out of my studio before I break my own rule.”
Obligingly, Kavinsky gathers his things with a jackal grin and slinks out of the room. When the door closes behind him, the room breathes again. Aurora, too, lets out a weighty breath. She pinches the bridge of her nose and everyone is watching, waiting. A delicate hand drags down her face. “Alright, everyone take a quick drink and we’ll start at the chaînés and move into the saut de chat. Groups of six again, please. Start upstage right and move across the floor.”
Adam feels funny, unsettled. He’s stuck somewhere between shame for his performance and grateful for Aurora. It all pools uncomfortably into a watery knot in his abdomen. His unease magnifies and melds into anger that that hyena of a boy takes for granted the same things that Adam has worked so hard for. Grabbing his water bottle, he takes a large drink. The cool of it makes him feel moderately better. He shakes out his arms, his legs and lets go of Kavinsky, of his mind, of everything occupying his thoughts, of anything that will stop him from dancing his best for the remainder of his afternoon classes.
***
“Adam! Hey!” Blue comes running up behind Adam in the hall, rushing to meet him. “Did Aurora really kick someone out of your tech class?”
He readjusts the strap of his work bag on his shoulder. “She sure did.”
“Who was it?” she asks, nearly bouncing beside Adam as they walk toward the mess hall.
He shakes his head, “Kavinsky.”
“
I knew it.”
Adam huffs an uncomfortable laugh.
She scowls up at him, calculating a moment before asking, “What’s up?”
“It was me. Kavinsky was mocking me,” his voice is quiet, deflated of any confidence.
Something dark and ugly goes over Blue’s expression. Her voice echoes the low and dangerous tone that Aurora had earlier today. “He did
what
?”
Adam sighs. “I was too in my head and Aurora was telling me my lines were off and then he laughed. It’s no big deal, really. Just the usual shitty K stuff.”
Blue makes a noise deep in her throat that’s more animal than anything else. “That’s it. I’m going to kill him.”
“Blue.”
“I really really am going to kill him this time. I know it was just a laugh--”
“
Blue
.”
“--but he’s been pulling this shit on so many people and I’m-”
“
Blue
.”
“--done with it. I’m really absolutely done with it. I don’t know what I’m going to do but--”
“Blue.
Please.
”
“What!?” Her voice has been rising as with each phrase and now it comes out as a bit of a shout.
“Stop.” Adam’s voice is quiet and level.
She does but looks at him with a glare so heated that if he was under it for much longer, Adam’s sure he would get a sunburn.
“Just stop. Please. This is what he wants.” Adam points and waves a finger between the two of them. “He wants to get a reaction out of people. I think the best thing is to just ignore him.”
They’re entering the food line of the mess hall. Blue glares some more, “Just because you’re right doesn’t mean I still don’t want to set up a plan to kill him.”
“I’d rather you
not
go to prison for premeditated murder.”
Blue sighs something heavy, picks a spoon out of the silverware caddy, and brandishes it in his face. “I’d rather you
not
stifle my hopes and dreams.”
“One of your hopes and dreams is to kill Kavinsky?”
“Maybe not. But I wouldn’t be upset if
something
happened to him.”
“He is a menace,” Adam concedes.
“A. Mother. Fucking. Menace.”
They reach the front of the line and both take a look at the food. Blue grimaces. Again, everything looks fresh and like it belongs in an issue of Better Homes and Gardens. The color palette is obnoxiously green in the way that makes Adam think that maybe even the apples taste like kale. “Hey! Look!” Blue excitedly points down the line. They have gluten!” Adam follows her finger to see that, yes, indeed, there are wraps and sandwiches. But the bread on the sandwiches looks like they contain more seeds than a bird feeder. Adam opts for one of the wraps. Blue, again, loads up on yogurt. “Can we go grocery shopping sometime this week?” Blue asks. “I’ve been feeling too healthy since I’ve gotten back. It’s time to eat some real food and get bloated.”
“You’re going to regret it.”
“I always do.”
Adam stifles a laugh. “Fine. So long as you make that pie thing.”
“Persephone’s pie recipe?”
“Yeah. That one.”
“I was already planning on it.”
***
Noah doesn’t join them for dinner. It’s always a special occasion when they can spend more than an hour with him; he’s very good at disappearing for hours at a time and later appearing only fleetingly. At the beginning of their time at Aglionby, it took Blue and Adam a few weeks to figure out that Noah’s spotty presence has nothing to do with them personally and everything to do with an artist’s dilemma that Noah seems to constantly be in the throws of. Blue once said that costume design is both Noah’s lifeblood and kryptonite. Adam isn’t sure there’s a better way to describe Noah’s relationship with his area of study.
Blue is babbling away and Adam only has about ten minutes to scarf down his wrap and accompanying hummus and vegetables before having to leave for work. When he stands, she waves goodbye, her mouth stuffed full of grapes. On his way out of the mess hall, he grabs a banana and a granola bar that probably has more fiber in it than a square inch of his precalc textbook.
He doesn’t run but Adam’s strides are brisk on his 10 block walk to Boyd’s. Tribeca hums a heartbeat around him, quieter than Midtown but still very much alive. The air is warm if a little sticky and Adam is grateful that New York summers aren’t near the suffering of Henrietta ones. By the time Adam arrives, pulls on his coveralls, and clocks in, Boyd has turned the open sign to closed. But the lights are still on in the garage and the front door is unlocked. There’s a part of him that is silenced, comforted by the smell of the garage. It’s a scent that reminds him of how poor he is, of how much he needs to continue doing to keep himself living, but it also reminds him of how hard he’s worked to get to this point. Then there’s always a calm that comes over him in the small tasks of puzzling out and fixing what’s wrong with a vehicle. There aren’t always challenges but when they arise, he takes them happily, eager to solve a problem. Adam drops his bag in the corner of the office and walks into the garage. Boyd is underneath a vehicle making exasperated grunts that are accompanied by the clanging sound of tools against car. Adam knocks on the hood and Boyd promptly slides out from underneath the car, covered in grease. “Thank God.” Heaving himself and his large belly up into a standing position makes Boyd’s joints creak. “Here,” he slaps the wrench into Adam’s hand. “It’s got the same problem as the Impala from last week but this one is being a real bitch about it. Maybe your young eyes and wizard hands can perform some magic on it.”
Adam slides on a pair of safety glasses with a small laugh and says, “I’ll see what I can do.” When Adam lays down on the creeper, it’s still warm and he can hear Boyd’s weighted footsteps plod into the office. He scoots under the car and begins his preliminary look over, hands running over metal, calculating.
Before he can really get to work, Boyd walks back into the shop from the office. “Adam, I almost forgot to tell ya, a guy is coming in later tonight with his bike. He’s got something wrong with his brakes. Wants to see if we can fix it tonight. Said he couldn’t come during regular hours.” Boyd scoffs at this but then his voice turns apologetic, “I would stay but it’s my girl’s birthday.”
“No problem,” Adam says and he means it. “You go home and have a good night with your daughter.”
He can hear the smile in Boyd’s voice, “Thanks, kid. Just lock up when you’re done.”
“Always do.” There’s a smile in Adam’s voice too, “Have a good night.”
“You too, kid.”
Adam hears Boyd go out the back door and lock it behind him. Still, under the car, he raises his hands to begin working but before they can make contact with anything, his arms freeze suspended above him. The garage is eerily silent and Adam realizes that Boyd must have turned the radio off on his way out. He lets out a huff and pushes himself out from under the car and goes to turn the radio on. It’s set to the oldies station that Boyd normally listens to. The radio is so ancient, he’s not sure the tuning dial would survive a change in station. So he leaves it. Besides, the oldies aren’t
that
bad. Adam begins feeling sticky so he strips the top of his coveralls down and ties the sleeves around his waist. Looking down at his white t-shirt, he lets out a huff. It’s grown threadbare and there’s a small hole at the bottom hem that he hadn’t noticed when he had thrown it on earlier. Rolling his shoulders in a shrug, he settles himself back into the creeper and rolls back under the car. No one but the motorcycle owner will see him tonight. It’ll be fine. With a determined exhale, Adam begins working.
It proves to be just as Boyd described: a real bitch. He gets lost in the maze of it all, fixing then testing, tweaking then testing again, taking a water break, thinking, tweaking and testing, then sigh of frustration. Between the radio and talking to himself, he hears but doesn’t register the chime that indicates someone has driven up. Adam only barely notes the soft bell ring that someone’s walked into the office. Heavy steps clomp into the garage that sound weighty like Boyd’s. The steps come to a stop next to the car Adam is under, where only his coveralled legs are visible.
“Um. Hello?” The voice is rude, impatient, and most definitely not Boyd.
Adam tilts his head to the side to look at the culprit of the noisy footfalls. What greets him are a scuffed up pair of inkwell black combat boots that look like they’ve kicked a few asses in their lifetime. He exhales a perturbed sigh and slides out from under the car. For the second time today, Adam is confronted with Lynch’s offensively dark lashes. Sitting up on the creeper and resting his arms on his knees. A scowl born out of confusion, more so than inconvenience, pulls his brows together. “Can I help you?”
Something like a snarl pulls at Lynch’s upper lip. “Parrish.” He sounds angry and there’s anger on his face. “What the fuck are you doing here?” But it’s not anger, not really. Adam thinks it might be surprise wearing an anger costume. He considers that Lynch’s emotions often seem to be wearing an anger costume.
Adam casts him a look that melds annoyance and
you’ve got to be kidding me
while pointing at the car behind him. “I
work
here. What the fuck are
you
doing here?”
With his hands in his pockets, Lynch shifts a shoulder back, gesturing outside where his car is parked outside, out of view. “I need my brakes looked at.”
Too tired to argue, too tired to say he’s got more important things to be doing, Adam claps his hands to his knees with a sighed, “Alright,” and hoists himself up.
The garage door is a few steps away and he heaves it open above his head.
That’s not a car.
He suddenly feels very dumb for not realizing that Lynch is bad brake bike guy who called earlier. Then he allows himself the thought that Lynch never struck him as the kind of guy who would call ahead for anything, ever. Adam’s eyes scan the matte black BMW sportbike; the paint job is clearly custom. It looks painfully fast. And even more painfully expensive. Something about it makes him ache.
He shakes his head, backing away, with his hands raised in surrender. “No. Nope. No way.”
“What?”
“I’m not touching that.” Adam points at the bike like it’s a venomous snake and he’s decided to leave it in its natural habitat and stay far away.
Lynch scowls. “Why the fuck not?”
“
That
,” he points at it again, “needs to go to a sportbike shop. Not,” he gestures vaguely to himself and the shop, “an average mechanic.”
His scowl deepens. “Boyd said it would be fine.”
“Did you
tell
Boyd what kind of bike it is?”
Lynch doesn’t answer.
“Yeah, no. Definitely not touching it.”
There’s something desperate behind the frustration in his expression and that makes a piece inside of Adam feel leveled. “I really need someone to look at it.”
“Why?”
Lynch looks at him like he’s stupid. “The brakes are fucked up.”
Adam frowns. “No, I know
that
. I mean why can’t you take it to a professional shop?”
Again, he doesn’t answer.
Adam waits a few moments, growing frustrated, and decidedly doesn’t look at his lashes. Instead, his focus is on the scar that travels through the boy’s right eyebrow which he decides later isn’t much of a safer option as far as totally casual gazes are concerned. By how far apart the boys are standing, it would be hard for him to tell exactly where Adam’s eyes are falling. But looking Lynch in any capacity feels dangerous. Adam doesn’t feel
in danger
looking so much as it feels
dangerous,
like a near thing that shouldn’t be a thing to begin with.
When a bit of time passes, enough to make the hair on the back of his neck feel fuzzed, he heaves a sigh, clapping his hands together, “Well, Lynch, it was really great seeing you and all but I’ve got to get back to work. Good luck with your bike.” He walks back over to the car and goes to plop onto the creeper.
“
Parrish
.” When he says Parrish, he’s not saying Parrish. He’s saying
please.
Adam straightens himself and blows a heavy breath out of his nose, placing his hands on his hips, considering the other boy for a bit. “Tell me something.”
“Tell you what?”
“Anything,” he gestures broadly as if the answer might be somewhere in the shop or it might be halfway across the world. “A truth.”
Lynch pulls an expression that looks like someone is forcing him to eat an entire jar of creamed pickled herring. Then it turns startlingly smug. “You have some grease on your forehead.”
Scowling, Adam scrubs away the spot with the sleeve of his coveralls. “A truth I don’t already know, asshole.”
He exhales noisily like he’s being forced to fold his hand in poker. “Okay. Fine.” Lynch looks at the ceiling as if it’ll provide him the answer. Adam follows his gaze to the large steel beams that hold up the many floors of apartments above them. The other boy doesn’t say anything immediately. He doesn’t make any noise. But he sounds so loud. Part of Adam feels that he finally understands what Blue means when she tells him that he’s thinking too loud. When he finally speaks, he doesn’t look Adam in the eye. “It was my dad’s bike. My family sold it. They just didn’t know that they were selling it to me.” He kicks a boot at a scuff in the floor.
Adam nods slowly, accepting this truth. It’s heavy but he doesn’t feel crumpled under the weight of it. “How long have you had it?”
This bike. This truth.
“Since he died.”
He shifts in his work boots and does the math. About a year. Adam falls silent a moment, letting the oldies and the city outside be the only sounds filling the shop before declaring, “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay. Bring it in. I’ll look at it.”
Lynch starts with a snap, striding toward the bike and bringing it into an empty stall in the garage.
“But,” Adam states, pointing a finger at him, “if I screw something up you’re not allowed to sue me.”
He flashes Adam a wicked grin, “Then don’t fuck it up.”
In return, he casts a withering look before grabbing a wrench from the workbench and squatting near the front wheel to inspect the bike. “So what’s up?”
***
On normal occasions, Adam would be perturbed by having to take care of a customer after hours. His job at Boyd’s is specifically so Boyd can take more customers by offering overnight repairs during their closed hours. A customer taking up those precious, quiet, repair-only, closed hours is something that usually bothers him. While Lynch is annoying, he is oddly not all that insufferable and far from the brand of chatty that Adam loathes. Perhaps his tolerance is due to Lynch leaving promptly after the conversation of:
“What’s your phone number?”
“You hitting on me, Parrish?”
“No. I need it so someone can call you when your bike is done.”
“I don’t answer it.”
“Why not?”
Lynch is already out the door when he answers, “Tell me at school.”
***
For the remainder of his three-hour shift, Adam does a quick lookover of the BMW before ordering parts and then moving back to the car. Laying under the sedan, he thinks back to taking apart the brakes after Lynch left. He thinks back to the scarily thin brake pads and the trashed rotors and how there is no legal explanation for their state on such a new bike. Even though everyone in the tri-state area knows that Ronan Lynch races his bike, it somehow feels like a secret.
Between the shitty sedan and his pacing thoughts, his shift goes quickly -- to the point where he loses track of time and clocks out thirteen minutes past when he’s supposed to. Walking back to Aglionby is a normal non-event. The quiet walk is welcome after the rather eventful day that he’s had.
Working evenings at Boyd’s puts him out of Aglionby past the time of the front doors being open but not past curfew. There’s a back entrance for students and faculty that most everyone uses. But the route to that backdoor from Boyd’s takes him through an alley between the Aglionby building and the building next door. As far as alleys are concerned, it’s decently clean. Aurora makes sure of that. But alleys always make for interesting experiences especially when the students tend to be up to nefarious activities behind the dumpster that takes up residence there.
He hears low voices muttering to each other. The words aren’t discernible but one sounds drawling and slow the other sounds sharp and growling. Based on their tones alone, Adam sends up wishes that if he just ignores them, they’ll ignore him in return. His unilateral hearing makes it difficult to locate sounds but he doesn’t see anyone in the alley so he assumes it’s just a pair of students doing something stupid tucked away behind the dumpster. Eyes trained forward, Adam readjusts the strap on his shoulder. As he walks nearer, the voices grow more hushed. He tells himself not to look, to keep his gaze in front of him. And he does.
He doesn’t stop moving. But just as he’s about to pass the situation entirely, his eyes snap to the side and see a sliver of the space behind the dumpster. In a flash, he sees Kavinsky blow a plume of smoke into Lynch’s face while Lynch’s gaze, looking caught, snags on Adam’s. It’s a fleeting thing and Adam feels his stomach go instantly sour. Picking up his pace instantly, he readjusts the strap on his shoulder again and strides quickly to the door.
***
Adam feels instantly calmed, instantly safe when his feet cross the threshold and into the tiny apartment that he shares with Blue and Noah. It’s a warm feeling that comes over him with the smell of the apartment: the thieves oil that Noah wears, some strange collection of spicy and earthy candles that Blue made over the summer, and the fresh pile of his laundry that he pulled out of the dryer and folded this morning before breakfast. All at once, his limbs feel heavy and he collapses into the broken-down, musty couch that they inherited from one of Blue’s aunts. Or was it a cousin? He can hear Noah shuffling around the bedroom that the two boys share. Blue breaks out of the bathroom suddenly, hands holding a very wet, very orange piece of fabric wadded together with rubber bands.
“Noah!,” she yells, “Do you think-- Oh! Adam! You’re home.”
“Tie-dye?” Adam asks.
Blue, smiles, grimacing a bit, looking down at her orange-tinted hands, “Maybe more like Blue dye.”
“Orange is the new Blue?”
She laughs, turning back to the bathroom to deposit the orange lump. He hears the sink turn on and Blue calls, “How was work?”
Adam inhales a sharp breath. The bike, the brakes, and the smoke all feel like a secret. He shrugs out a detached, “Uneventful.”
Poking her head out of the bathroom, her eyes are narrowed, “Nothing happened?”
“Not really, no.”
And because Blue knows him, knows not to push, she nods before pausing a beat, before asking, “Would you like some tea?”
Adam scrunches up his nose.
“Don’t worry. It’s not the stuff my mom makes. It’s something I picked it up from that one bougie grocery store that claims to have all fair trade products but doesn’t pay their employees a livable wage.”
He smiles quietly before nodding, “Tea would be great.”
Noah bumbles out of the boy’s room, hands full of tulle and a feather stuck in his hair. Adam can’t tell if the feather placement is intentional or accidental. “Do I think what?”
“Is Orange the new Blue?” Adam quips.
Brow furrowing in mild confusion, Noah looks between his roommates for a few moments before his eyes fall on Blue’s unavoidably orange hands. “Oh, Blue, you didn’t.”
“Haven’t you heard. My name is Orange now.”