A/N: This is the "calm before the storm" chapter, so...let's play a really interesting game in the comments!  In addition to your normal comments, ask any of the characters any questions you want, and I'll answer in their POVs ;)

024. Breathing Room

At Aquino High, the time has come for forgiveness.

"Ignore him," Brynn mutters in my ear, stepping in the cafeteria line behind me. I try to take her advice and study the lunch options instead, but my gaze is inexplicably torn back to Taylor. He's still talking to the boys, and even though one or two of them have trickled off, the rest look enraptured.

Suddenly, the food in front of me doesn't look to appetizing. I cut out of line, winding purposefully around the study body getting its lunch. A few people look at me concernedly, and I figure my eyes are still puffy from crying and my makeup's running. When I turn back around, I see that my friends are looking at me questioningly; I shoot them a thumbs-up and keep walking.

A few minutes later I find myself back in the school, where I stride straight to Mr. Denham's office. His door is shut but I don't see a Do Not Disturb sign anywhere, so I knock loudly.

"Yes?"

Gulping in a deep breath of air, which smells like the cleaning agent the secretary uses in the front office, I walk inside.

"Ms. Soto. I can't say that I'm surprised to see you here."

Mr. Denham is reclining back in his chair, his office phone pressed against his ear. He mutters something into the receiver before hanging up and straightening. "I assume you want to have a rousing, inspirational discussion with me, now?"

I can hear the barely veiled sarcasm in his voice, and I hate that he's trivializing something so important. I wish I could yell at him so that he can understand clearly what's going on, but I know that will only get me thrown out.

Another deep breath. "Mr. Denham, I wanted to know your plans for getting rid of the Post-It system that I discussed in today's assembly."

He loosens his tie. "Listen, Ms. Soto," he says, "I've brought it to the attention of the school board and they will work to figure out an appropriate punishment."

"I don't want people to be punished. I want this to end."

"Ms. Soto." Holding up a hand to silence me, he continues, "You did what you think is right and I appreciate your courage. From here on out, it's up to the board to decide the best action. We understand the complexities better than you could."

No, I don't think you do, I want to say. Mr. Denham can't possibly know about the complex culture at Aquino High, about the color-coded Post-It notes and the social hierarchy. And even if he does, he can't understand it the way I do. I've lived right in the middle of it all year. If anything, he's only been watching from the sidelines.

"I can help—" I start, but he cuts me off with a warning glance.

"If you could send me that recording, that will be enough. I assure you that we'll take steps to resolve this from here."

Wide eyes, I tell myself, so that tears don't start pricking at them again. Mr. Denham is treating me like a stupid child, like I should no better than try to interfere with the school board's agenda. But they're not doing anything about it, and even if they tried to solve the problem they'd go about it all the wrong way. Why can't he listen?

Still, I grumpily attach the voice memo into an email and send it to Mr. Denham. With a curt nod, he opens it. "Thank you, Erika," he says. "That will be all for now. I have a meeting to go to, and you can go back to lunch with your friends."

My insides are boiling, but I know I have no choice but to obey. "Yes, Mr. Denham," I manage through gritted teeth.

"Thank you again for your initiative and bravery."

He says it like I'm a five-year-old who has just pretended to rid her house of aliens. I shoot him a tight smile before stalking out of his office, shutting the door behind me a little more loudly than necessary.

"Wow, he has a superiority complex," I mutter to myself and I head back to the cafeteria. Much as I can't bear the thought of stomaching any food right now, I know that I have to because tennis tryouts start today. If I want to make the summer league, then I have to be on the top of my game.

*

I spend the rest of the day angry at Mr. Denham. He doesn't come over the loudspeakers to make a school-wide announcement, and as far I or any of my friends know he doesn't bother to pull Taylor out of class to talk to him. By three o'clock, I'm pacing circles around the girls' locker room instead of getting ready for tryouts.

"Can you relax?" asks Cassidy. She's already in a white tennis dress and is doing some calf stretches. "You're starting to freak me out."

"Sorry." I sit down to tie my tennis shoes, knotting them more vehemently than I would any other day. All around me, the girls getting ready to try out are chattering loudly. Most of them are seniors, but we also have some juniors and sophomores hoping to make the team. A few are talking about the Post-It note system and what I did at the assembly, but I don't bother listening in. I can't lose focus any more than I already have right now.

Once I finish getting ready, I join Cassidy by the benches to stretch. Slowly, I filter all of my anxiety out through my limbs. Once it's time to go out and start tryouts, I'm calm and prepared.

The cold air doesn't help the tear stains still plastered onto my face. The iciness continues to prick at my eyes like knives, causing them to water. I shove sunglasses on even though there's only a bleak amount of light filtering through the clouds and step onto the court.

For the next two hours, I don't let myself focus on anything except tennis. There's only me and the court; I don't worry about Taylor, or the Post-It system, or what the other girls on the court are doing.

This continues for the next several days. Every day after school, I channel all my energy into tryouts, directing my anger at the balls on the court. I focus on control, power, and beating my opponent—even if that's Cassidy. I may have decided that she'll likely get team captain, but that doesn't mean I won't try my hardest anyway.

Thursday afternoon, Coach Bayer calls us all into a circle after tryouts have ended. She's holding the clipboard she's used all week to jot down notes.

"First off, I'm really proud of you all," she says, propping one foot up on the bottom bleacher. "You're going to make a great team. This season you'll be led by your captain, Cassidy Clark."

Cassidy's grinning from ear to ear. I lean over and hug her even though we're both sweaty; for once, I'm genuinely happy for her.

"Cassidy will also be playing the number one court. I'm going to have Erika Soto playing the number two court."

If it were possible, Cassidy and my smiles grow even bigger. She leans over and high fives me. Number two, I realize, has never felt so good.

Coach Bayer continues to announce the rest of the lineup, but I'm too busy feeling proud to listen. For once, though, I'm not just proud of myself—I'm proud of Cassidy. She's worked like crazy for this for as long as I can remember, and while it's not a big deal as the tennis scholarship she got for college, I know this still means a lot to her.

"What are the odds that Coach will let us play doubles together?" mutters Cassidy as Coach Bayer finishes announcing the team.

I snort. "She better. We're going to dominate together."

Coach Bayer ends practice with a clap of her hands, and everyone bustles to gather their things and leave. Cassidy goes from girl to girl, congratulating them all and saying how excited she is to have them on the team. I could never do what she's doing now, and Coach Bayer had probably seen that. I may be trying to change, but I'm not quite where Cassidy is now. I can only hope this tennis team is a chance to keep moving in that direction.

After practice, I drive home with the windows cracked so the cold air nips at my nose and cheeks. Since I stood up at the all-school assembly to discuss the Post-It system, Mr. Denham hasn't done anything that I know of to put a stop to it. The weekly meeting is tomorrow, and I have no idea if it will still take place as usual. The senior girls' lockers are still empty, and I don't think they'll take kindly to new ratings, but the guys might do it anyway.

When I get home, I hurry inside to try and tackle my homework before dinner. I freeze when I see Allison and Dad both sitting in the living room, studying me.

"Hey Erika," Dad says, "Do you want to come here for a minute?"

I know that he's not really asking. Slipping my backpack off my shoulders, I head into the living room, sitting down on the cushions between them.

"I know I should have had this discussion with you girls a lot earlier," Dad says, leaning back on the couch. "Especially since there's been a lot of confusion lately. I owe it to Allison to tell her exactly what happened with her adoption, and she wanted you to be here too, Erika."

I scoot closer to them and Dad clears his throat. "Your mom and I had wanted to have another daughter, but after you were born, Erika, it wasn't possible. So we looked into adoption. The Cunninghams had been having a lot of family troubles and didn't think they could take care of you properly, Allison. We were more than happy to take you in."

When I glance over at Allison, I see that her head is bent so that I can't see her expression. Carefully, I reach over and set my hand on top of hers.

"We never figured out what happened with the Cunninghams—that was their private business and we didn't want to interfere. All we knew was that we were thrilled to have another daughter. Both of you were like our own from the very beginning."

"I was planning on telling you both very soon, anyway. But adoption hasn't at all affected how I feel for either of you. You're both my daughters and I love you both very much."

Finally, Allison glances up at Dad. "You always celebrated our birthdays on the same day."

"I know. When you were little I didn't want you to know. If you want, we can start celebrating your birthday on its official day."

"No." She shakes her head, squeezing my hand tightly. "It's fine."

Dad nods. "Do you have any other questions?"

Another shake of her head. Then she stands and smoothes back her hair. "I'm going up to my room for a while," she says. "I'll be downstairs for dinner."

We let her go, watching as she climbs the staircase and disappears around the corner. When she's gone I turn back to Dad and say, "I'm sorry for the way she found out. I should have gone about it differently."

"It's okay." He wraps his arm around me, pulling me close to him for a hug. I bury my face in his shirt and try to remember that things are different now. I have to forgive myself for the bad things I've done if I'm ever going to move forward.

We sit like that for a few minutes, and I keep my eyes shut so firmly that I can see sparks of color on the insides of my lids. Then I wriggle myself out of Dad's grip and stand. "I'm going to go see Allison."

Quickly, I climb the stairs, straining my ears for the sound of tears or any other indication that Allison's upset. Instead, I find her sitting on her bed with the door to her room wide open. Photo albums are spread out around her and on her lap, open to various pages.

"Hey," I say, stepping inside.

She glances up at me, her smile weary.

"Why are you looking through photo albums?"

When she pats the bed next to her I sink down into the mattress, looking at the page she's open to. It has a series of photos from the beach when we were little, taken the same day as the portrait in the frame in our living room.

I scan the rest of the open photo albums. They range all the way from when Allison and I were a year old to last year, documenting birthdays, holidays, and everyday memories. Smiling, I flip to a page of us when we were around thirteen, taken at a mall.

"We thought we were so cool," I say, running my finger over the protective paper over the photo.

Allison grins, but when I look up at her I see that there's barely-concealed tears in her eyes. "We used to be such good friends."

"We really were sisters all along," I tell her, reaching forward so I can brush a tear off her cheek. "After all, it's not who you were born with. It's who you choose."

At that moment she bursts out into a real smile, and I realize how much I've missed my sister—really, truly missed her—since the day I lost her last summer. I know now that nothing is worth coming between us, no matter how important it seems at the time.

"Are you upset about being adopted?" I ask her quietly.

She shuts one of the photo albums and opens another, which seems to have been put together when we were in elementary school. "No. You guys are the only family I've ever had, and if I had to choose again I'd still pick you and Dad." She traces a family photo from our first day of second grade. "And Mom."

"Yeah. Mom, too."

Allison and I spend the rest of the afternoon looking through photo albums, laughing at some of our old memories. Sometimes we shed a few tears, too, but usually there are only smiles. When we get through the last photo album, we shove it aside and sit for a while, just thinking. I know I should probably do homework, but in that moment all I want to do is sit in my sister's company and exist.

My phone buzzes and I lunge for my phone when I see Spencer's name on the screen. There's no Post-It meeting tomorrow. Victory for us :) Celebrate with dinner tomorrow night?

My face breaks out in a grin and Allison leans over my shoulder, reading the text. She squeals and hugs me, burying her face in my shirt. "You have to text him back," she says. "But wait about five minutes. Make him think you're super busy and are making time to text him."

"Shut up," I say, elbowing her lightly. I text back right away with a Sweet, and I'd love to before dropping my phone back on the bed.

"You need to learn how to play hard-to-get," comments Allison.

"No I don't. I've played hard-to-get all year, and look where that's gotten me. It's better this way."

She rolls her eyes but doesn't argue anymore. Maybe we're finished arguing. I know we'll always have small spats—that's just what sisters do—but maybe this marks the end of our era of competition, backstabbing, and blackmailing. I hope it does, because I never want to look back and think about the things I did to hurt her.

Leaning back against her headboard, she begins stacking the photo albums back in order. "He's a good guy," she says. "I know we're not supposed to talk about last summer anymore, but I'm sorry if what I did came between you two."

"It's fine." I surprise myself by actually meaning it—it comes out as something more than superficial acceptance. We've all done things that were terribly wrong; I can't exclude myself from that statement. But at Aquino High, the time has come for forgiveness. I'll never forget—otherwise I won't have anything preventing me from starting all over again—but at least we can all move forward.

I can only hope that what Spencer said about tomorrow is true: that the boys think more highly of themselves than to walk in that gym again. That instead of talking about the girls they like and objectifying them, they'll go out and find them. Maybe they'll have a nice conversation instead, or take them out to dinner like Liam did for Celia. All I know is that they've made more progress in less than a week than any of the guys from the Post-It system have made all year.

I think of Taylor—I hope he'll be okay. Something tells me that he'll need a little time, but eventually he'll get over himself and everything he's done.

I think that's what we all need right now: time. Time and a little breathing room.