The girls were determined to watch the sun rise. It was Jessica's idea. She desperately wanted to do something that felt normal—an activity that other teenagers often wasted their time on during their long weekends, or days off, or summer holidays. Time at their age was brief and selfish, Jessica had told Naomi. Even briefer was their time away from the Riverside Dance Academy. Before they knew it they'd have to go back into the dance studio in order to bend and twist themselves into shape for their next dance competition. Right now was their only time to feel free. She said it, and to Naomi's ears it already began to sound liberating.

It was why in response Naomi suggested they lie on the carpeted floor tonight instead of on her bed. As she was explaining it to her best friend, Naomi wasn't sure if this was the once-in-a-lifetime type of freedom Jessica had in mind, but the other girl did not hesitate to collapse on the floor. Jessica asked Naomi for the blanket off her bed and Naomi quickly grabbed it for her. Maybe Naomi was onto something after all. She dropped right next to Jessica on the carpet and threw the blanket across their bodies. Comfortable now, she turned on her back to watch her ceiling fan.

"Have you ever seen the sunrises in Riverside?" Jessica asked.

"Well, I've been awake at sunrise but never actually stopped to watch it. Why?"

Jessica tutted. "You have to pause to pay attention to these things, Naomi." She looked over at her. "You're going to love it. It's like a sunset but better. Instead of everything turning black, everything turns into color. For a moment you forget the sky is supposed to be blue. That's how much color you can see."

Naomi turned to look at her and asked, "How often do you watch sunrises?" It was hard to imagine Jessica regularly waking up at that hour just to watch the sun come over the horizon. Usually, she didn't even want to wake up for their
8 a.m. rehearsals.

Shrugging, Jessica answered, "I've only done it once." Naomi raised her eyebrows. "But that one time was enough, you know? Like, I can still remember it. How often do you need to experience something beautiful to know how amazing it is?" They remained on the floor long thereafter. They moved on from talking about sunrises to sunsets, which Jessica insisted were worse in a lot of ways. Sadder was the word she used. Then they talked about Naomi's dad's promotion. The new burger place that was opening downtown. How, perhaps if they weren't homeschooled, their friend group wouldn't be just them in Naomi's bedroom at five in the morning.

Cutting herself off midsentence, Naomi sat up. "Speaking of burgers, I'm hungry. Should I grab us some snacks?"

Jessica leaped up. "I was just about to say that! Do you think there are any leftovers from dinner?"

"Probably. But Mom would say we shouldn't eat pork this early in the morning." Naomi's head fell. She was just about to suggest making a sandwich as an alternative when she looked up and saw Jessica grinning at her. Naomi laughed. "What?"

Jessica pushed her. "So we don't ask her! She's probably gone to sleep by now, anyway!"

Naomi laughed again, her grin matching her best friend's this time. She nodded. "All right, let's do it."

Slowly tiptoeing down the staircase and taking extended, far-reaching steps all the way to the kitchen, Jessica and Naomi gripped each other by the arm, snickering. Naomi tried her hardest to not bust out laughing when Jessica gently opened the fridge and asked if they should grab the tub of potato salad to go.

Now Naomi wasn't sure if wasting was the right word. Maybe other people their age would waste their free time on whatever felt easiest, but being out here did not feel like a waste at all. After all, Naomi was with Jessica, they were holding in laughter (which only made them want to laugh more), and the sun was about to come up. It didn't feel fair to describe such a good thing as if it was something meant to be discarded. Naomi couldn't offer an alternative to describe what they were spending their time doing instead of dancing, but it definitely did not feel like a waste. It felt, actually, like the opposite.

Milliseconds before the timer on the microwave hit zero, Jessica stopped it. She spun to Naomi. "I almost forgot!" If the microwave had beeped, Naomi's parents probably wouldn't have heard it anyway from all the way upstairs. Naomi decided against reminding Jessica about that, though.

Instead, she pushed her cold plate into Jessica's arms. "Do mine! Do mine!"

Jessica grabbed it and replaced the plate in the microwave. They inhaled the aroma of the steaming jerk pork with rice and peas. Jessica turned to Naomi and soberly told her, "This. This, Naomi Morgan, is heaven." Naomi fought back the urge to ask what kind of heaven then deserved to be called a waste.

When both plates of food were finished heating, the girls scurried back up to Naomi's room. They gently took the steps two at a time, shutting off all the lights they had needed to turn on, and finally locked the bedroom door behind them. Naomi plopped down on the floor. "You know, I'm starting to think you're only my friend for my mom's cooking."

Jessica had already dug in. "Fair observation," she said between bites, opening the potato salad she had decided on bringing after all. "But I would also like to posit that we have a number of things in common. See example A: our shared suffering in the academy."

Naomi was spooning rice into her mouth now too. "As a rebuttal, I would like the jury to take a look at example B: Jessica Kingsley refusing to even swallow her food before speaking."

Jessica smacked her lips. "The oxygen helps the food oxidize. Better for flavor."

Naomi let out a howl. "That's gross, and it doesn't even make sense!"

Jessica shrugged, on to the next forkful.

They sat in silence for a moment, Naomi watching the other girl continue to eat. She spun her fork aimlessly in the rice. "I still can't believe Prix is this summer."

Jessica groaned. "I don't want to think about it. This is our break, please. We get two weeks for ourselves out of the whole year and this time, I'm determined to take full advantage of it."

Naomi wasn't sure how Jessica could not think about the Youth America Grand Prix. For the past few weeks Naomi had been watching documentary after documentary and thinking of the best ways to structure her days to get more dancing in. "I know, but isn't it scary to think about?"

"Only if you let it scare you, Naomi."

It was easy for her to say. Jessica Kingsley always got solos. Naomi had seen the back of her curly head of hair as she glided across the studio floors so often at this point that she could probably draw it from memory alone.

Watching Naomi sink into herself, Jessica dropped her fork and put her plate down. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to sound insensitive. But, Naomi, you're a talented dancer. I know it. Valentino knows it. Everyone at the academy knows it. If you keep overthinking, you'll psych yourself out."

"Thanks, so are you. I just don't know how you're so calm about it. You know our odds."

Jessica took up her plate again. "I'll stress about it when I set foot back in the theater. But right now, I just—I just want these two weeks, outside of that cage, to be ours. Our time. No dance academy. No Valentino. No Prix. And definitely no New York City Ballet. Just us. Right now." Her mouth was beginning to turn up at the sides, the tips of her teeth appearing.

Naomi had been rehearsing herself out of breath for ballet for so much of her life that now, every time Jessica mentioned relaxing, it felt like a sinful idea. Jessica had been a worrier once, too, but in the past few years her strict shell had eroded. She didn't stay up late rehearsing. When they got to crosswalks, she didn't practice her stances while waiting for her turn to walk. Jessica didn't even talk about ballet all that much anymore. Yet it never stopped her from being one of the top dancers at the academy. Naomi, however, was sure the moment she began to relax in the same way all her success would slip from her fingers, like slick oil. Dread bubbled in the pit of her stomach just thinking about it. She was about to ask Jessica how she managed to dance so well without taking ballet that seriously anymore when Jessica glanced over her head, shock replacing her grin.

Jessica sat up. "The sun's coming up! It's happening!"

She took Naomi's arm and pulled her up. Naomi let out a laugh. "Where are we going now?"

Her best friend spun, glancing at her in astonishment. "Outside! We can't watch the sunrise from your bedroom window, are you mad?" Giggling, the girls ran out the door this time, not caring how loud they were. The whole neighborhood could wake up and it wouldn't matter. Maybe they should have been waking up for this. Maybe this was something everyone ought to see. Jessica surely thought so. Outside, the sky had only just begun changing color. White clouds were swimming in pink and the orange sun was starting to appear over nearby houses.

Naomi shrugged. "Maybe we should have watched it from the roof."

"This works!" Jessica shouted, still running across their lawn. "Come on, let's get closer! These houses are in the way!" Naomi laughed.

She went after Jessica, set to waste more of their free time together or whatever it was that meant being able to feel the fresh sun on their faces in a quiet, lonely neighborhood; but Jessica was already out on the road by now, still running in her long summer dress. She was far ahead of Naomi and too far into the road itself to notice the brief honk of a car. By the time she turned, the car and Jessica had left Naomi's field of vision. Naomi ran out after them, her heart slamming against her chest. Peering down the street, she saw that the car was only a few feet away. Jessica's body, however, was a block down. And she wasn't moving. Naomi screamed.