Dani moves toward me, anger rising from her lungs, coloring her face. But then she changes directions, breaking for the staff closet. She digs through her bag and pulls out a folder, neat handwriting etched across the tab: PHOTO—FINAL PROJ./PASSION.

“Seven,” she says, fingers ashen against the plain manila. “Something you love. Something that used to make you smile.”

“Dani, I—”

“You forgot who you are, Hudson Avery.” She flings the folder at the prep counter and a few eight-by-tens slip across the metal surface. I recognize them from the shoot we did months ago for the cupcake flyers. We’d just finished taking some close-ups and I was messing around with a bowl of frosting, licking the spoon mock-seductively. I did it to make her laugh—to make both of us laugh.

It worked. I laughed so hard I didn’t even notice she was still clicking away on the camera. And now, staring down at a picture of the former me—the me who only a few months ago could still laugh like that, who still believed a good bowl of icing and a best friend were the keys to happiness—my heart shatters. She’s right. She’s right and I’ve risked everything that ever mattered to me, just for one more impossible chance on the ice.

But I’ve come too far to walk away from it. After all this, I owe it to myself to try. To go after the one thing I know will make me happy. Skating. Winning that competition. Getting back out there and proving to the judges that yes, Hudson Avery does have what it takes. Knowing that I worked hard for this, no matter who else is standing with me in the kiss-and-cry room when they call out the final scores.

I scoop the photos into the folder and hand the packet to Dani. “If you still want to come with me—”

“It’s too late. You made your choice.” Dani marches to the other end of the counter and tears the folder in half, dropping the whole thing into the trash. “Good luck tonight, girl. I hope you win that prize. And I hope it’s everything you dreamed it would be.”

In the third stall of the ladies’ room, I shed my Hurley Girl dress and slip into jeans and a sweatshirt, my old, slightly too-small skating dress folded neatly beneath the skates at the bottom of my backpack. My eyes are blurry with tears, but I can’t let Dani’s words get to me—not now. I have to focus on the competition. Visualize my routine. The applause. The scores. Everything I worked for all winter, all my life, finally happening.

I open the stall door, set my bag and Hurley’s uniform on the counter, and splash my face with cold water. I’m okay. I have to be. I have my skates and a passable dress and a date with Parallel Hudson, ready to reclaim the destiny that should’ve been mine all along.

“Hudson?” Mom sticks her head in the bathroom doorway, face tight and splotchy. “Where’s Dani? She’s not in the kitchen.”

“Did you check out back?” I tear off a paper towel and blot my eyes. “What’s wrong?”

“Just got a call from the newspaper. The reviewer has an assignment in New York on Monday.”

“He what?” I grab my backpack and the crumpled Hurley Girl dress from the counter and follow her out through the dining room, back into the kitchen. “He’s not coming? But what about—”

“Tonight, Hudson. He’s coming tonight.” She scans the kitchen, taking inventory. “Nat should be here in fifteen minutes. I called Marianne in, too. See if you can find Dani. Trick? Get those steaks prepped.”

“Mom, I can’t—”

“What about me?” Bug asks from under the prep counter. His hair is sticking up in every direction, his glasses smudged. “I got all the gum off the tables. And I even found some other stuff, too. Like—”

“You can polish all the ketchup bottles,” Mom says. “But first help your sister find Dani.”

“Right here.” Dani steps in through the smoking lounge door, rubbing her arms. “What’s going on?”

“Critic’s coming tonight instead of Monday,” Mom says. “Can you two change out the specials for the beef tips, put on fresh coffee, and make sure the menus are spotless?”

“Ma!” I step in front of her, finally snagging her attention. “I can’t stay tonight. I have plans. It’s … they’re kind of important.”

“Important?” She laughs. Like, maniacally. “Hudson, this is the most important night in the life of this diner. If we don’t pass this review with flying colors, we’re sunk. I don’t know how to be any more clear than that. Sunk. Do you understand?”

“But—”

“I’m sorry. If I had another option, I’d—”

“You’d take it. Right.” I drop my backpack on the floor, still clutching the dress. Grill smoke fills my lungs and makes me cough. I close my eyes to keep the tears in, but soon my heart is racing, blood pounding in my ears. I think back to that night in November when she told me I’d have to waitress, that she wished so badly she had another option, that she’d try to find another server as soon as she could.

“Why don’t you and Dani do a quick run-through on the tables,” Mom says. “Make sure the condiments are filled, check underneath for any gum Bug missed, and—”

“No.”

Mom glares at me, eyes fixed on the Hurley Girl dress in my hand, and it all comes down to this. All the guilt, the money, the extra work, my little brother, the gas bills, the smell of fryer grease, the dropped skating lessons, my father’s suitcases by the door, the arguing, the crying, the cheetah bra, and the hours of my life, ticking off against the clock on the wall.

“I can’t stay,” I say. “I’ll come back in a few hours to help, but I have to go now.”

She grabs my arm and drags me to the walk-in cooler, fingers digging into my muscle. “Open it.”

I do as she says and she pushes us both inside, slamming the door behind us. The skin on my arms prickles, but I’m not cold; adrenaline rushes through my body and warms me all over.

“You’re skating on thin ice, Hudson Marissa. Very thin ice. This is serious. This is our whole life.”

“But it isn’t our whole life.” I shake my head, voice soft but certain. Unwavering. “I don’t want to stay here forever, Ma. Not in Hurley’s and not in Watonka.”

“Since when did home stop being good enough?”

“That’s what you want for me? Good enough? Whatever happened to aim high? Reach for the stars and all that crap parents are supposed to say to their kids?”

“Do you have any idea what it takes just to keep us fed and housed? To keep this place going?” Mom slams her hand against the metal egg shelf, sending one of the cartons to the floor. “We can’t afford the stars.”

The yolks soak the cardboard, darkening the edges. The balled-up Hurley Girl dress slips through my fingers and lands on the floor. “It’s not fair.”

“You’re absolutely right.” She ignores the eggs, but bends down to retrieve the dress, shaking it out and pulling it against her chest like it’s some precious thing. “It’s not fair that you have to work so much and take care of your brother. It’s not fair that I had to move you guys to a cramped apartment. It’s not fair that your father was sleeping with other women during our marriage. So what do you want me to do? Tell me how to make things fair. How to make it work.”

Her hand clutches the lavender fabric of the dress, all knobs and angles and bones poking up against the skin, and it reminds me of when she used to dress me for a day out in the snow, tugging my hands into mittens, guiding my feet into boots lined with plastic bread bags to keep out the slush. How much time has passed since my parents took us to Bluebird Park in the winter? Since they pulled me along the path in a sled, Bug wrapped up in a snowsuit in my arms, all of us laughing as the branches shook and dropped snowflakes on our heads?

I look intently at her face, all the lines deeper in the blue glow of the cooler. “I wish I never showed you that bra.”

Mom shakes her head and stands down, turning the handle and pushing open the cooler door. As she steps out into the warm light of the kitchen, her voice goes so low I barely catch her words.