The words pour out of me before my brain gets a chance to process them. A side effect of wanting so badly to be heard.
“I saw Tatya backstage earlier,” I say, watching Dad’s careful eyes drift back to his sheet music. “She offered to train me. If it’s okay with you and Mom.”
Dad looks at me for a split second and then jots something down with his pencil. “Mmm. That’s very generous of her. Just remember you’ve got classes, and she has a career—it might be harder than you think to fit in extra training once school starts.”
“Actually, I was thinking more of an apprenticeship-type situation? Something more… serious?” My heart tugs a bit harder.
“Why do I get the feeling you’re asking me for a job?” he asks, setting his pencil back down and meeting my gaze.
“Because I am,” I say firmly. “I wouldn’t expect you to pay me or anything while I’m training. But if I get really good, maybe you and Mom could think about letting me perform sometimes?”
“Does Tatya know you intend to replace her?” he asks seriously.
“I don’t want to replace her,” I say quickly. Defensively. I brush my palms against my pants because they’re starting to feel clammy. “But even Tatya takes time off, and you’ve always had Nina as her second. Maybe I could be Nina’s second. Like, a last-resort backup plan. For emergency situations only.” My hopefulness feels like it’s wedged in my throat—it hurts to get the words out, but it would hurt even more to swallow them back down and bury them in the pit of my stomach, where they’d fester for an eternity because some dreams refuse to die.
Dad’s face is emotionless. “How do you intend to take up a full-time apprenticeship and keep your grades up?”
I raise my shoulders like I’m trying to hold up the weight of this conversation. “I—I’ve decided not to go to college.”
Silence. A heartbeat. A twitch on the right side of Dad’s mouth.
And then all the words I don’t want to hear.
“Out of the question.”
“But—”
“This is not up for discussion.”
“I just want—”
“You’re not quitting school.”
“I’m not—”
“It’s worse than quitting—you’re giving up without trying.”
“It’s better,” I practically shout, and clamp my mouth shut when Dad narrows his eyes. I can barely hear myself over the pounding in my chest, the ringing in my ears, and Dad rejecting my dreams without even listening to me. I breathe the cold air through my nostrils and try not to cry. “I don’t want you and Mom to waste a bunch of money on a degree I don’t want. And so many acrobats retire in their thirties,” I point out. I can feel the fire in my eyes—the hunger for him to just understand. “If I don’t start training now, I might never get the chance.”
Mom speaks from the doorway like she’s been waiting to jump in for a while. “Why on earth would you trade your education for a career in acrobatics that’s only going to last you ten years?”
I turn around. Her arms are crossed against her chest, and her short bob is pushed mostly to one side. She doesn’t look Chinese like Popo or Irish like Grandpa Cillian. She just looks like her—like she’s content sitting exactly in the middle.
I don’t feel like I’m in the middle of anything. I feel like I’m on a thousand different points of a thousand-sided polygon.
I twist my mouth and find my words. “It’s not a trade—I don’t want to go to school. I don’t even like school,” I say.
“You love school! You took all those extra classes and graduated early from a magnet school with a good GPA—” Mom starts.
“Yeah, so I didn’t have to stay there for an extra year,” I interrupt. “And my grades were only good because I turned in all my homework and could fake my way through an essay. It’s not because I actually learned anything.”
Dad sighs. “That’s because you’re easily distracted. If you spent less time daydreaming and more time—”
“That’s not it!” I bark too loudly.
Mom makes a noise that sounds halfway between a growl and a “hey.” It’s a warning—a yellow light. A sign to tread carefully. She and Popo don’t always see eye-to-eye, but they do agree on one thing—children should respect their elders.
And I don’t necessarily agree completely—I mean, there’s a gray area to everything, right?—but something tells me now is not the time to argue.
I try to slow down my heart rate by thinking about balancing on the static