17. Trevor

17

TREVOR

This week has been crazy. We’re preparing for the semifinals and are dancing the jive. It’s an up-tempo dance with lots of kicks, flicks, and rock steps. We’re supposed to be connected to each other but also show joy and engage the audience. There are spins, kicks, and lifts. It’s very technical. I’m trying the best I can to learn everything, but my brain is muddled. The dance steps are competing with new hockey plays we’re trying to keep us in the wild card race for the playoffs. The string of losses these past few weeks has dropped our standing so much we’re scrambling to earn the spot in the Dickinson Cup playoffs that was ours all season long. Everyone says hockey is a team sport, but I feel like it’s my fault we’ve been slipping down the rankings like a penguin sliding down an iceberg.

Sophie is at her place in Zoom meetings with the producers, so I snag Randi to help me practice downstairs. Randi’s trying to help me get the dance into my brain well enough that muscle memory takes over, so I can focus on looking like I’m having fun and not trying to remember what my arms and legs need to do.

I want to prove to Sophie I can do this and that I’m willing to do whatever I have to, even if that means giving cheesy smiles and acting like I don’t have two tons of stress on my shoulders. I can fake anything for ninety seconds. I have the moves down, at least most of the time. Okay, some of the time. It’s my expression that’s the real problem. I can’t just let go and dance. I think about every step and how important this is to Sophie, and it’s messing with my head, causing me to miss steps. And all of that’s showing on my face. I know Sophie’s frustrated and trying to not show it. In a way, that makes me feel worse. I’m failing her like I’m failing my team. I’ve never failed anything before, and now is a lousy time to become an expert at it.

“You know the steps, Trev, what’s the problem?” Randi asks after she watches the video of our last run-through.

I point to my face. “This.”

She lays a gentle hand on my forearm and gives me a sympathetic look. “Trevor, you can’t help that you’re ugly. You have a great personality that makes up for it.”

My arm whips out to pull her against me, and I give her a noogie on her head. She squirms and giggles until I release her.

When she catches her breath, she pins me with her clear gray gaze. “If you want to dance with joy, you need to feel it. What makes you happy? You don’t have to tell me, just think of that while you’re dancing.”

The only thing I can think of is Sophie. She brings me joy, and this time when I move into the choreography for the jive with Randi, I feel that joy in my limbs, imagining Sophie beside me dancing, imagining me giving her everything she wants and needs. Imagining I have the power to make her happy.

It works. I can feel it, and I can see it in Randi’s expression. I’m giving Randi a high five when I glimpse Sophie in the studio mirror. She’s backing away like she doesn’t want me to see her. Crap. I didn’t want her to know I was practicing with Randi. I don’t want the stress of my failures on her shoulders. So I lied. I told her I had extra on-ice practice this morning so I could work with Randi. I feel like I’m cheating on Sophie. I may be a lot of things, but I’ve never been a cheater. Great. I can’t even get being in a fling right.