The Unstoppable Bridget Bloom

by Allison L. Bitz

Genres: YA Coming of Age; YA Contemporary; YA Social Themes

Synopsis

A bright and fun fat-positive YA novel about learning how to express yourself when what has always defined you is no longer an option. Perfect for fans of Julie Murphy and Emma Lord.

Bridget Bloom’s out-of-this-world voice is the perfect fit for center stage. When Bridget’s admitted to Richard James Academy, a college prep boarding school with a prestigious music program—where heartthrob Duke Ericson attends—all her dreams are on track to come true: leave the hometown where she’s never belonged, fall in love, and launch her Broadway career.

But upon arriving at the academy, she learns that due to her low music theory scores, she’s not eligible to perform or earn the sponsorship she needs to afford the tuition. Worst of all, Dean of Students Octavia Lawless, the one person with the power to reverse the decision, challenges her to work on her humility . . . by not singing at all.

Without her voice, Bridget will have to get out of her comfort zone and find a new way to shine. Good thing she is unstoppable!

From debut author Allison L. Bitz comes a coming-of-age story of self-discovery, humility, friendship, and love.

Release date: May 2, 2023

Publisher: HarperCollins

Print pages: 352

Sample

one

Two things are immediately apparent: dorm rooms bear a remarkable resemblance to jail cells, and they smell like Grandma Evelyn’s basement but with zero homey nostalgic vibes. I flip-flop into the middle of the joint, doing a full one-eighty.

“Bridget? What’s wrong?” Dad snakes a suntanned arm across my shoulders and hugs me to him.

My long lashes are fanning away, working hard to keep my eyes from overflowing. “It’s, um. Small.”

Dodge, my other dad, chuckles. Which makes sense. The system with my parents is that Dad comforts me, Dodge toughens me. “C’mon, kiddo. You knew this was the size of the room.”

“Reading on a website that a shared room is fifteen-by-fifteen and then seeing it in person are two very different things.”

The cinder-block walls are a god-awful shade of light blue, like someone threw a bad Insta filter over a perfectly fine cloudless sky. There’s a gross tile abomination underfoot, and the trim is black rubber of some kind, I think. All of this is a far cry from my comfy farmhouse room back in Lynch, with its gleaming wood floors, original oak trim, and massive picture windows. Dad is an antique-loving contractor, and our house is his second baby (I’m number one, of course).

The state of this room is confusing, really, because Richard James Academy in Chicago is the boarding school of my dreams. It’s extremely prestigious. Rigorous. Everyone who goes here is effing brilliant, so I’ll fit right in. Best of all, it’s very, very far away from my backward rural hometown in Nebraska, where I have always stuck out like a glittering emerald in a sea of shale. But I suppose I forgot to account for the fact that it’s also old, and old doesn’t always mean “cool vintage vibe.” Sometimes old just means shabby—hence, this dorm room.

Just as I’m about to throw myself onto my unmade mattress in despair, I’m hit with inspiration—a Bridget Bloom specialty. This room isn’t at all like my bedroom, but it is like Lynch. Drab and dingy and too small for the likes of me. I’ll do to it what I’ve been doing to my hometown for the entirety of my sixteen years—I’ll make it fabulous. I grab the garment bag I’d slung over the school-provided desk chair, unzipping with gusto, but not too much gusto. Its innards are sacred. Carefully, I draw out a prized possession: my mermaid costume.

My dads fought me on bringing this. “Why in the world would you need that at boarding school, B?” said Dodge, ever the practical dad. But I knew—just knew from some deep place in my soul—that I needed it by my side. A talisman, maybe. A reminder of who I am. A Halloween costume, if worse comes to worst.

And, in the case of this shit dorm room—wall decor.

“Help me. I’m hanging this up,” I say.

“I’m confident in your ability to wield a clothes hanger. On your own,” says Dodge, shaking his head.

“No, I mean—I’m hanging this up here. Over my bed. Like a mural.” Because it’s perfect. It’s green and purple and iridescent, and unequivocally mine and me. Dad made it for me a few months ago, when I landed the role of Ariel in the school musical. The school had its own mermaid costume, but the thing was a clear no-go for me. I couldn’t get the fin up past my hips, and those shells covered up only about 30 percent of the girls. And not even the most important 30 percent. Given Lynch Public Schools has zero budget for the arts and was threatening to recast a smaller but far less talented Ariel for that reason, Dad stepped in and saved the day. He’d whipped up my size-eighteen mer-miracle at home with just his sewing machine, a whole lot of shiny fabric, and his imagination.

I’d looked absolutely killer in my custom fin-and-shells, and I’d also killed the role. No kidding, I was a tremendous Ariel. I hit every line, every note. I was so on for opening night that I turned “Under the Sea” into an impromptu duet. I’m just that good.

So good that no one else in the musical even thought to invite me to the cast party after the show. I intimidate Lynch kids with my many talents. It’s been like that for years now. One of the many, many reasons I needed to get out of that town.

In any case, my beautiful, sparkling mermaid costume is a symbol of me and of my dads’ unwavering love. What better thing to brighten up my new home away from home in Chicago, five-hundred-plus miles away from the place I’ve lived my whole life?

Dad stares at me blankly. “You sure? I mean—”

“Yes, I’m sure. Where are the Command hooks?”

Five minutes later it’s up, a smudge of chaos in the midst of monotony. Just like me. “I love it,” I say, standing back to take it in. “But it’s not enough.”

I’d optimistically brought about twenty mirrors from my antique mirror collection, which covered the walls of my bedroom at home. Now that I see the room, though, I realize I’ll be lucky if there’s space for half of them. No matter—the cell block needs all the help it can get, and I put us to work faster than you can say extreme dorm makeover.

We hang mirrors until the whole right half of the room is covered, but it’s still missing something. Panache. Appeal. Feng shui. Something. In desperation I say, “Put the shell one up over there,” pointing to a blank piece of wall near the door.

Dodge purses his lips. “Isn’t that Ruby’s side of the room?”

Ruby Deterding is my roommate. She’s from Maryland. She’s also a first-year student, but she’s a sophomore, whereas I’m a junior. Like me, she’s going to be in the music focus program (MFP) here at Richard James. We’ve chatted a couple of times via an app the academy uses to match roommates, but that’s it. Essentially, she’s a stranger, and one who has to like me.

I shrug. “Won’t I be doing her a favor? Adding this much class to our dungeon of a room?” I suppose the washed-out blue paint is meant to be neutral and soothing, but honestly, it’s the color of despair.

Dodge seems dubious, but Dad elbows him in the ribs and they do as I say. The shell mirror goes up and about six others with it. In the end, seventeen mirrors find homes on the sad blue walls of my cell.

After the bed is dressed and my clothes are put away, a framed picture of me and my dads finds a place of honor on top of my dresser—a shot from an amusement park, our collective winter-white faces smattered with early spring’s freckles. “It’s perfect,” I say, surveying

our work.

“Just like you,” says Dad, bopping my nose.

I shove at his shoulder but let the cheesy compliment ride. I’m probably not perfect, but I am pretty great. And about to get greater.

Dodge fishes a stack of bills out of his wallet. “Now, here. This should cover some beginning-of-the-year groceries and things. Like we talked about, we’ll put some money into your account every month, but you need to pay attention to your spending, okay? No antiquing on this student budget.” He grins, but there’s a pinch around his eyes that sends a twinge of anxiety through me. Only once did I check on the tuition and boarding costs of this place, and the figure was enough to make me choke on my dollar-store seltzer. But my dads don’t talk money around me, and they assured me we could afford this. Still, I did some research on my own. According to a Reddit thread I found, r/RealTalkRJAcademy, most of the MFP musical theater kids are sponsored by old Broadway-obsessed donors—meaning I’m a shoo-in. Some rich lady will choose me, after she sees me perform. I can feel it in my bones. (I made sure to forward that thread to the dads. Just in case.) If everything goes to plan, I’ll be all set with a sponsorship by next semester.

“I’ll be frugal,” I promise. “And no antiquing.” Which, for a Bloom, is a big concession.

After that we start our goodbyes—and I say “start” because boy, do they take a minute. I had a feeling it would be a little torturous for all of us, even though I’ve been antsy to get out of town for months upon months. My breaking point with Lynch was at the end of my freshman year, when Derek Czerny pelted me in the head with a spitball for the umpteenth time. And not the fun, “I’m just kidding around” kind—the huge, wet, “I really mean this” kind of spitball. Bridget Venus Bloom cannot deal with that sort of indignity, and it was about then I started begging to move, to transfer schools, to anything. And then, Eureka! An ad for Richard James Academy in Chicago popped up on YouTube. The prep boarding school is known for churning out the likes of future senators and surgeons, the Hollywood beloved and pop stars—the latter of which usually come out of the academy’s music focus program. MFP students are basically guaranteed acceptance to any college music conservatory or a pipeline straight to the stage.

Case in point, Duke Ericson, current Richard James senior and poster child for the academy. Duke is originally from Kansas City, Missouri, is six feet even, Afro-Latinx and white, loves pizza, rides a motorcycle, and prefers women without tattoos. At least, that’s what his Wikipedia page says. He went viral on YouTube last year when he put up a video of himself singing an original song with Blythe Rosen, a mega–pop star, and now he has a whole channel of uploads. He’s an inspiration. Also, he’s melt-your-underwear hot.

And Duke is just one of many shiny examples.

In sum, the more I read, the more I realized Richard James was the only place for me to finish my junior and senior years of high school (as it was too late to audition for my sophomore year). A ticket out of Lynch and the key to my destiny of Broadway stardom? Check and check. I’ve never wanted anything more, except maybe The Spotlight generally.

Still, my dads and I are all we’ve got, now that Grandma Evelyn has died. We’re in the midst of group hugging when the door cracks open, and Ruby Deterding steps hesitantly through the threshold.

After much observation over the years, I’ve determined there are two distinct types of music-loving kids. First, there are the musical theater mavens, who are shouty, wear bright clothes, and are known to wave their arms in a dramatic fashion when feeling something deeply.

The other type—the instrumentalists, I call them—are more reserved, aloof, and either frumpy or plain clothed. They inherently possess a snobbery about not calling music written in the Romantic or Baroque periods “Classical.”

I am of the former group. Obviously.

It appears my roommate is of the latter. Her brown-and-blond pixie cut could be edgy but isn’t, and she wears jeans and a Pink Floyd T-shirt. But the real giveaway is the cello case she hefts along with her, which is bigger than she is. She’s flanked by two stuffy-looking middle-aged white people. The man’s in a suit, and the woman sports a cardigan that’s almost exactly the sickening color of our cinder blocks.

But it’s my solemn duty to become best friends with my roommate, even if she is an instrumentalist. That’s just how this stuff works.

“Hi,” I say, jutting a hand out to Ruby. “I’m Bridget Bloom.”

Ruby shakes limply, smiling in a Target cashier kind of way. Courteous, but fake. “Hi. I’m Rub—”

She’s interrupted by Dad. “Bring it in, kiddo,” he says, and though her eyes are wide and incredulous, she steps into his open arms. “Welcome to the Bloom family, Ruby. And don’t mind us—we’re huggers,” he says before letting go. Then Dodge takes over, squeezing her again.

For a flash, Ruby’s smile brightens, but then an obnoxious throat clear draws our collective attention to Ruby’s parents. They wear twin looks, a hybrid of polite and judgy, something that only the super-rich seem to know how to pull off. Neither offers a hand out to me or my dads. Possibly because their arms are full of suitcase handles and boxes and comforter sets. Possibly not. Hard to tell.

Meanwhile, Dad blows right past the pompous faces and wraps his arms around each of the Deterdings in turn, suitcases and all. “So nice to meet you,” he says.

I remember my manners. “This is Chad, aka Dad,” I say, pointing to my blond-haired, sunshiny parent. “And this is my Dodge,” I add, presenting my mahogany-haired, stoic dad with a flourish, because it’s not like he’s going to do this for himself.

“Your . . . Dodge?” says Ruby, looking confused.

“Oh, it’s the cutest story,” gushes Dad. This is the kind of thing that horrifies most kids my age, but honestly, it is the cutest story, and so on-brand. “We adopted B when she was almost two. Her mom, Carol, was Dodge’s younger sister. Unfortunately Carol died in a car accident, and B’s bio dad was never in the picture to begin with.”

All eyes look to Dodge at this point, as always, and he issues a sad, soft smile. “I’ll miss my little sister forever, but she left us the best gift of all—the daughter I would’ve never otherwise had. And Carol lives on in her, another gift.”

Dad barrels on with the story. He’s kind of immune to the big feels of it, since he’s told it so many times. “At first we tried to get Bridget to call him Daddy, but she was already talking by then and called him Dodge—and everyone in town calls him that, after his truck,” adds Dad, rolling his eyes. “We’d say, ‘B, you understand Dodge is your daddy, right?’ and she’d say—”

“He’s Dodge. But now he’s my Dodge,” I say, finishing the story in a baby voice, as I always do. I’ve got the imitation of past me down to a science. Of course, I was too young to remember any of this myself—I remember nothing of my mother, beyond what I’ve been told and seen in home movies—but I’ve seen the video of this moment so many times that I feel like I must remember it.

“And I’m still her Dodge,” says my pickup-truck-driving farmer dad, grinning.

I’m grateful as hell for both of my dads, though I sometimes wonder what life would have been like if my mom had stayed alive. By all reports, I’m a lot like she was. Redheaded, stubborn, scary bright, and talented. She was headed for bigger things, until one icy patch of road took her life.

And so I’m headed to those bigger things in honor of her. I’ll do what she didn’t get to.

The room remains silent in the wake of our family origin story. Dodge fills the space. “My actual name is Mike,” he offers.

“Oh, how lovely,” says Mrs. Deterding, finally, without one speck of warmth. She may as well have said, “Can you please shut up, you baboons.”

My dads finally s

eem to notice the frosty awkwardness rolling off the Deterdings. “Well, Chad. I guess we should head out and give Ruby and her family some space,” says Dodge.

I let Dad and Dodge hug me for an egregious amount of time before pulling away. I assure them I’m fine now, going to be fine, will call them if I need anything, will try not to stray too far from campus alone, etc. They shove a box of condoms and a package of dental dams into my hands and make me promise if I’m going to have sex, I’ll have safe sex. (Out of my periphery I see Mr. Deterding’s eyes boring into the prophylactics like they are the Devil’s Work.)

Finally, their need for squeezing me to death is satiated and they make their tearful departure, managing to not hug Ruby or her parents as they go. I assume I’m going to be relieved with two fewer bodies in the room, but as soon as they’re gone, my rib cage starts feeling a little tight. Like there’s something big growing in there. I take a seat on my extra-long, not-super-comfy, creaky twin bed, rubbing my palms against the satiny lavender bedspread we’d selected at Target last week. I think I’m fine. Am I fine?

Now with more space to maneuver about, Ruby can fully take in the splendor that is my eye for home interiors. She steps away from her parents and moves from mirror to mirror, stopping to observe each one. “Oookkkaay. Let’s talk about this, um, decor,” says Ruby.

“Yes! Let’s.” If I had a tail, it’d be wagging. Our first roommate discussion! The mirrors could be a total bonding moment. Each one has a story.

“What in the world is that?” Ruby sneers up at my radiant mermaid costume–turned–art like it’s autographed clown portraiture. She homes in on the shell-encrusted mirror, my favorite. “I thought . . . wow, I thought the rooms would be blank slates. Did the academy provide all this hideous stuff?” She pulls at the mirror, and I gasp in alarm as my body moves involuntarily toward it. You can’t handle a mirror by its shells.

“Um, no. That’s mine. They all are. I thought . . . well, you know what they say about mirrors making a room look bigger.”

The three of them ogle me like pretentious guppies. Finally, Ruby’s mom clears her throat. “Thank you for trying to . . . freshen up the room, Bridget. I’m sure you and Ruby will find a way to make the decorating work for both of you.” She digs an elbow into Ruby’s arm.

Ruby massacres what some might call a smile. “Sure. Yeah. Of course. Thanks, Bridget.”

With the three of them now walking all over the room and all over my enthusiasm, and no dad barriers to shore me up, I’m starting to feel claustrophobic. “I’m going to let you settle in. It was nice to meet you, Mr. and Mrs. Deterding.”

“Oh, it’s Deeeeeterding, dear,” says Ruby’s mom, laying one of her many bags on Ruby’s bed.

“Gotcha. Okay, well, until next time, then,” I say, hastily removing myself and shutting the door behind me. Once in the hallway I inhale deeply, then go in for another gulp of sweet, sweet oxygen. The Deterding family had sucked the life right out of my dorm room.

Kids and parents swarm, carrying boxes, piles of clothes, rolled-up posters. One dad hauls in a wooden apparatus that’s possibly a bunk bed. Impressive. I try to catch someone’s eye, anyone’s, desperate to have my second first meeting go better than my attempt with Ruby and her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Fakey McFakerton. But everyone is too busy to notice me.

Suddenly very aware of my solitude, I lean back against the outside of my door and flick on my phone. There’s a text from Dad.

Dad: Remember—we won’t text until you do! Even the most prolific plants need space to grow and BLOOM. Go be the star you already are. We love you, precious girl.

My feels overflow, and my eyes get soggier than I’ve let them get all day.

“Hi!” says a voice at point-blank range, scaring my tears right back into their

ducts. A tall woman with long beachy-blond waves and impossibly dark blue eyes stands in my personal space.

I’d take a step back if I could, but there’s nowhere to go. “Hi?”

She clasps my upper arm, her sun-kissed skin several shades darker than mine, though we’re both white. “Are you Ruby?”

“No.” Thank God. No taste in decor, if I were. “I’m Bridget.”

Something flitters across her face—nervousness?—but it’s gone in a blink, replaced by a twinkling smile. “Ah, Bridget Bloom. What a name! I couldn’t forget it once I saw it on my roster. I’m Piper, your hall counselor.”

“Hall counselor?”

“I’m here to help you figure things out. I can guide you to your classrooms. Point you to other school resources. Help you talk through difficulties you might run into. You know, all that good stuff.”

“Wow. Um, thanks?”

Piper moves in close and cups her hand over her mouth, like she’s telling me a secret—but doesn’t whisper. And it’s a good thing: it’s as loud as the New York Philharmonic in this hallway. “Hey, can you come with me for a minute? To a quieter place? There’s something I need to talk with you about.”

Even though that sounds ominous as hell, it’s still better than going back into the cloying discomfort of my own damn room. “Sure.”

I follow Piper until we reach a huge, heavy wood door with fancy carvings—the kind of thing Dad would drool over. Behind it is a room that’s maybe an office, maybe a fortune-teller’s haven; it’s hard to say. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, dark wood panels, a big oak table, and fluffy armchairs with ottomans—this is the vibe. When Piper flips the wall switch, several floor lamps come on, but they’re dim, because they’re all covered with gauzy fabric.

“What is this place?” I say as Piper gestures me into a mauve wing chair.

“I call it the comfort library. It’s generally where I meet with students who need to chat in private.”

“Oh. Well, the room is nice.” But what the hell are we doing in it?

I don’t need to speak the question for Piper to hear it. “So, Bridget. We need to talk about your placement score. And the music focus program.”

Here’s how Richard James works: first, you apply with essays, grades, standardized test scores, and letters of recommendation—a lot like a college application. It’s highly selective, but I’m an ace student with a knack for selling myself in writing. Obviously I got in. Once you’re admitted, you can apply for a focus program. Music is one, but there’s also visual arts, journalism and creative writing, science and engineering, history and pre-politics, and math. My audition for the MFP—which I

came to Chicago to complete last month—involved singing a prepared solo and playing a piece of music you’ve never seen before on the spot, otherwise known as sight-reading.

I sight-read like a boss, and the panel judges for my prepared solo were thrilled with me. One of them shouted, “Brava!” as I left the stage. I’d brought down the house just as hard as I always do, maybe even harder. There’s literally no way I didn’t get in.

Piper continues, her face squeezing in a concerned-adult kind of way. “You didn’t get in.” 

 

two

There is a kind of pause that books often refer to as “pregnant.” I super-hate that description, partially because ew, but also because I’d never experienced one.

But now I have. This silence is long and heavy and loud.

“Excuse me?” I finally manage to say, praying to whoever’s out there that I’ve just got an earwax problem.

“I’m so sorry. You weren’t admitted to the MFP. There was a computer glitch with the scoring of the theory tests, and we just got it all sorted late last night. Your test score was . . . really bad. There’s no tactful way to say it,” says Piper, grimacing like she’s in physical pain.

An anvil plummets into my gut, landing with a dull thud, and promptly my hands and feet break out into a clammy, anxious sweat. I’d forgotten all about the theory test—more like blocked it out, that’s how awful it was. All music focus students took it online last week. My understanding was that they were just placement tests, though, not admission deciders. Holy shit. This is very bad.

I mean, of course my theory test score was low. It’s not like Lynch or anywhere within driving distance has theory courses. The only music theory I know I learned from Grandma Evelyn (aka Grams), and she’s been gone for almost two years now. My knowledge is neither fresh nor vast in that area, but I thought it was enough and they’d teach me more here. Isn’t that the point of a music program? To teach me music stuff?

“I. Um. Wow.” For once in my life, I have no words, only a very vomity feeling in my stomach.

“I know this must be shocking,” Piper replies sympathetically. “Octavia wanted me to discuss your options with you.”

Octavia Lawless is the chair of the MFP and the dean of students. “My . . . options?”

“Yes. We know you might have come to Richard James specifically for the MFP. A lot of students do. So if you want to withdraw from school entirely, you still can, at no financial penalty.”

Couldn’t they have let me know all of this when we were still back in Lynch, before all of my clothes were hanging in my sardine can of a dorm room closet and my mirrors were disrespected by my cringey roommate and my dads were headed home? Piper must read the anger on my face, because she says, “I’m really sorry you’re so late in finding out. We tried to call this morning but couldn’t get ahold of anyone.”

“Really? What number were you trying?”

Piper spouts the ten digits off the sheet with my test scores, and I realize what happened.

“Our home phone.” A relic in the era of mobile to even have such a thing, but Dodge insists on having a landline.

There’s a ball consisting of every painful emotion imaginable welling in my throat. My vision goes hazy around the edges, like I’m dreaming—wait, maybe I am dreaming. Nightmaring. I pinch myself, hoping I won’t feel it . . . but no. It hurts. Not as bad as my heart hurts, but the pinch leaves a mark.

And Piper’s looking at me expectantly. I need a plan. Now. Lordy. “What happens to me if I decide to stay?”

“You’d be a gen ed student, which obviously still provides a really, really great college-prep education. And you can try out for a focus program again for your senior year.”

I sigh. Richard James is a great school, there’s no doubt about that. It’s also not Lynch, which is a huge bonus.

“Octavia also wanted you to know you are welcome to take any of the music courses that are available to gen ed students. You can load your schedule up with those. She encourages you to sign up for Theory One if you want to try again for music focus next year.”

I perk up a little at that. “So I can sort of . . . create my own music focus program for this year?”

“As long as you're

taking the required core academic courses, the sky’s the limit. You can even take piano lessons!”

Okay, so this is going to be fine. I’ll be in spirit what everyone else officially is, no big deal. My chest has just started to depressurize itself when Piper adds, “The only thing you can’t do is perform.”

All the happy thoughts leave my body. I am the opposite of Peter Pan going airborne. I’m crashing into the ground, my life vision going up in a Bloom bonfire.

And Piper says it so blithely, with the delivery with which one might say, “And tonight’s dinner is chicken strips.” As if it isn’t the absolute dream crusher of all time. Anything but perform. Performance is my life. It’s embedded in my DNA. It’s my destiny. Taking it away from me is like ripping off my right arm. Hell, maybe both arms.

Not to mention dashing those sponsorship hopes—no donor can choose me if they can’t see or hear me. But I can’t even deal with that right now. The financial part of my worry will have to wait for another day.

I nod reluctantly and Piper relaxes back into her armchair. As she crosses one Birkenstock over another, I notice her perfect, blue-toenailed feet. Literally, I had no idea anyone’s feet could be so graceful. Try as I might to make them pretty, mine are long and boatlike. Good thing I’m more of an Ariel than a Cinderella. Flippers over slippers, that’s what I always say.

Though I wouldn’t say no to a fairy godmother right about now.

“What’s your take on Octavia?” I ask Piper.

Piper’s gentle smile freezes. “Octavia is . . . complicated.”

“Complicated?”

Piper pierces me with her midnight-blue peepers. “My best piece of advice when it comes to Octavia is to lie low. You stay out of her way, and she’ll more than likely stay out of yours.”

“And . . . if I don’t stay out of her way?”

“I would compare it to kicking a hornet’s nest.” I wince. Octavia sounds more evil stepmother than fairy godmother.

Piper barrels straight back to the original topic. “Anyway, what do you think about joining us as a gen ed student? I really am sorry to spring this all on you. Feel free to call your parents if you need to discuss it.”

I shake my head, because if I call my dads, I will cry and they will come swoop me up and haul me back to stupid Lynch, and I can’t think of anything more humiliating than that. I’ve been talking up Richard James to anybody at my old school who would listen, and often to people who were clearly doing their best to not listen. Derek Czerny and his spitballs, and Emma Shafer, who used to be my best friend until for some reason in eighth grade she wasn’t, and Lizzie Papik, who rolled her eyes anytime I spoke in class or sang in the halls or anything that made me me—I need for all of them to see what I’m made of. I am Richard James material. I am too much for Lynch.

I’m not going back.

. I’m just going to have to find a way to make this work.

“I’ll stay,” I say finally.

“Oh, good! I’m glad. Now, let’s talk about your living situation. You chose a music learning community floor. You can stay put, or we can move you to a different floor.”

“Are there . . . are there any others like me? Kids who are doing a lot of music but who aren’t in the MFP?”

Piper’s face scrunches sympathetically. “Not on your floor.”

My teeth grind as I consider. Living here among the people who were living the life I wanted would definitely be a very special brand of hell. And yet. I’d still be having classes with a lot of these folx. And even if I wasn’t technically one of them, I think my best shot at fitting in anywhere is with other kids who love music like I do.

And did I really want to move all my mirrors again?

“I’ll stay in my room. But would it be okay if we kept my non-admittance to the music program between you and me?”

“Sure thing. No reason to shout it from the rooftops,” says Piper.

“Thanks.” I’m considering heading outside for a nice, long, wallowing cry when inspiration hits. As it does, when you’re me. Yes, this whole MFP situation sucks to the nth degree, but so did my dorm room, and look what I’d achieved in there. I’m unstoppable. It’s kind of my thing.

When a door closes, a window opens. It was one of many Grandma Evelyn–isms, stated with a repetition that was annoying until she wasn’t there to say it anymore. Her face swirls so clearly into my mind just then, her sweet wrinkly eyes slightly taunting. Since when did you ever back down from a challenge, little miss?

I just need to find my window.

 

It’s been forty minutes since I made like a library and booked it out of my room. Maybe it’s okay to go back.

I stop at my door, pondering the etiquette of entering a room one shares with someone else. Do you just walk in? Knock? Maybe roommates typically have a signal, like a three-toned whistle or maybe some Morse code tapping? Finally, I rap lightly before letting myself in.

Ruby sits atop her plain-but-pristine white bedspread, magazine open in her lap. There are no signs of Mr. and Mrs. Suit and Sweater—a small mercy. A new-looking Apple laptop sits on Ruby’s desk, flanked by a pair of fancy speakers, and a few framed pictures adorn her dresser and bedside table. It’s all very classy, very chic, and I have one startling, shocking moment of feeling less than.

Which I hastily throw out the dorm window, which Ruby has cracked just a tad, despite the swamp-like Chicago summer heat. I cross the room and wind it shut.

Seven mirrors lie in a neat pile on my bed.

“I ended up not needing those,” she says as I examine the discarded decorations.

I grab handfuls of Bubble Wrap out of the trash can under my desk and start to wrap each mirror. I don’t dare put these precious

 pieces in the mail, but I’m also not sure where we’re going to keep them in this matchbox of a room. My top teeth crush into my bottom lip, an attempt to keep it from trembling, and I turn my back to Ruby so she can’t see my glassy eyes.

Today is a lot. That’s all there is to it.

“I think they’ll fit in the closet, on the top shelf,” she says. She’s as intuitive as she is cruel, folx.

“Thanks, that should work fine.” The words come out of me thicker than I’d intended. I clear my throat. “Did your mom and dad get going?”

“They had a couple of things they wanted to shop for while they’re still in town, but they’ll be back to take me out for dinner. One last hurrah.”

Of course they’re going shopping. Because clearly, this is a family that needs even more expensive things.

But the family dinner part was a good idea. A send-off meal with my dads might’ve been nice. I’d thought I was ready to say goodbye before, but I think really I’d just been tired of being smooshed in the car with all my stuff and NPR. A pang of loss slices through my chest, and I finger my phone, considering calling to see if they’re still in the city. Then I set it down on my desk and walk away, busying myself again with the Bubble Wrap. Calling them now would not be a good idea, for reasons upon reasons, the biggest one being that I don’t plan to tell them I’m not admitted to the MFP. Not yet, anyway.

Ruby fills the silence between us. “My theory placement score just hit my in-box. Nothing like waiting for the last minute! Did you get yours?”

My molars chomp down toward each other so fast that I clip one side of my tongue, releasing a surge of metallic blood into my mouth. I should hate the feeling, because it effing hurts, but the pain feels oddly good. Sorta right. And it gives me a different kind of pain to focus on, something that isn’t Ruby the Privileged bragging about her theory score.

“Yeah. I’m in the basic class.” It’s only sort of a lie. Tonight I’ll log on to the Richard James registration program and sign up for as many music classes as I can, including the ultra-beginner-level theory Octavia suggested.

“Ah. Cool. I’m in intermediate.”

“Cool,” I say, though nothing about any of this is cool. It is all shit.

But Ruby isn’t done torturing me. “Did your parents take off already? Like, leave Chicago completely?”

I lean down to fiddle with my perfectly tied double-knotted shoes so she can’t see the tear pricks that come immediately surging back. “Yeah.”

“You could come to dinner with us, if you want.”

A whole evening with the Stuffies? “Thanks, but I already have plans.”

“Really?” She’s eyebrowing and frowning like she’s surprised. She must think it’s so hard for me to make friends. I’ll show her.

But for now, I will lie. “Um, yeah. I met some kids while I was out exploring the dorm. We’re going to eat in the dining hall.”

“Oh. Well, enjoy.”

“You too.”

I carefully place the wrapped mirrors on the top shelf of the closet, then stay in there, acting like I’m organizing my stuff (which is already perfectly organized). Ruby makes me twitchy—the exact opposite of what I’d expected in a roommate. So much for the easygoing girl-talk, witty banter, and giggling that are the hallmarks of bunkmates, per TV shows and movies everywhere.

When I finally exit the closet, Ruby’s got her face in her phone, so I grab mine and do the same. Maybe it’s just me, but it feels like there are about fourteen rotund elephants in the room.

A gross, slimy chunk of feeling starts in my head and drops into my stomach. Rather than dissolve in the acid, it stays there, steadfast, a brick in my gut.

Dread may be the densest of the feelings, but nothing, nothing, can douse ambition. I fill my head with plans for the next day—my first real day as a Richard James student!—and something like hope, and like determination, fills the space where the dread was, nearly washing it out.

My newfound emotional space gives me room for plotting, and a plan cracks through. I have all the right skills for persuasion—fast talking, a certain amount of charm, loads of moxie. Not to mention my raw musical talent. I can still get in the music program for the year, I know it. Piper’s advice to steer clear of Octavia rattles through my noggin, but I find myself able to dismiss it, word by word. Lying low might have worked for Piper, but it’s not my thing. I’m about the least subtle person I know.

I hope Octavia’s ready when I kick her hornet’s nest.

 

three

I wake to the song that’s served as my alarm for the last several months (“Firework” by Katy Perry, because it’s so me), but everything else is unfamiliar. The bed’s lumpy in weird places, my arm’s hanging off the side. The light in the room’s all wrong. Window position is off. My heart thuds in my ears with near panic confusion: Where am I? What day is it?

Lavender calm washes over me as I remember I’m at Richard James, and today is the first day of classes. Baby, I am a firework, and it’s time to put on a show.

Hope surges yellow and I spring out of bed. I linger in the shower, breathing deeply, letting the steam massage my vocal cords. After today, I intend to be able to use these magic cords for more than sucking vapors and making stupid small talk with Ruby. I’m unstoppable. Octavia Lawless won’t know what hit her once I visit her office to remind her of my exceptional talent. It’d be a disservice to the school to not let me perform.

I make my damp way back to the room and find Ruby isn’t up yet. How in the world is she going to be ready and to class by eight? My making-a-public-appearance routine takes about eighty minutes, and I assume that’s gotta be about the industry standard for people with a strong sense of personal aesthetic.

The hair dryer and the lamp on my dresser have been on for about a minute when Ruby sits up in bed, hair sticking in every direction. “What time is it?”

“Six thirty-five!” I shout over the hair dryer.

“Ugh, so early,” she says, lying back down and folding a pillow over her face. Two minutes later, she rears up again, face red. “How much longer do you think that’ll take?”

“Um, probably at least another five minutes. I’ve got a lot of hair,” I explain, holding one thick strand out to demonstrate.

“Could you maybe run the dryer somewhere else?”

Entitled much? “Well, I guess, but don’t you think you should probably get up anyway?”

“I can be ready in ten minutes flat. I’ve got until at least seven fifteen.”

“But what about breakfast?”

“How long do you think it’s gonna take me to eat, Bridget?”

Well, hell if I know. I always try to give myself plenty of time so I’m not late for anything. Feeling prepared helps me with nerves. Not that I’m going to explain all this to Righteous Ruby. “I’ll just finish up in the bathroom.”

“Thanks. I appreciate that.” She burrows back into her cocoon of blankets and pillows.

By 7:17 a.m., I’m dressed and leaving the room, and she’s just barely up and moving. Yeah, we’ll see whose stress management strategy pans out better. (Spoiler alert: Mine. It’ll clearly be mine.)

As soon as I walk into the cafeteria—known as “the Rot” by Richard James students—I wish the friends I told Ruby about were a little less fictional. Sure would be nice to have some people to sit with right about now. Would’ve been nice last night, too, instead of eating granola bars alone in my room while Ruby was out with her parents.

I need to look cool, laid-back, like the kind of girl a person would want to chat with over avocado toast and coffee. Like my insides are not trapped in one long, horror-movie-worthy scream. I dig my phone out of the side pocket of my bag and unlock it, because nothing says “I’ve got this” like checking your phone while you stand awkwardly at the threshold of a bustling room. No important notifications await. My dads have honored their commitment to not text until they hear from me.

I jam the phone into my back pocket and gaze back out into the crowded cafeteria. Duos and trios of students sit together, spread out across long rows of table. But they’re all strangers to me.

All but one.

I almost go into cardiac arrest when I see him. Duke Ericson’s

there. Like, right there. After months of seeing him on my phone screen only, the experience is surreal. His straight, dazzling teeth stand out against his medium reddish-brown skin, and his toned biceps strain the sleeves of his fitted T-shirt. Do I actually go to school where this absolute dish of a human being goes? Hot damn, the only way my life could possibly get any sweeter is if I can get him to fall head over Converse for me. His head’s thrown back in a laugh, and the gaggle of students flanking him are busting up, too.

All but one.

A mahogany-haired kid with an intense smattering of freckles and a T-shirt emblazoned with Freddie Mercury’s hot face sits on the fringe of the group, and I wonder if he is my in. But honestly, it’s also hard to tell if he’s a part of the Duke Fan Club or not. His position at the table would say yes. His face would beg to differ.

Only one way to find out. I grip my tray tighter as I make my way toward my fellow Freddie fan, as nonchalantly as possible. As my tray clinks the table, plastic meeting plastic, I raise my eyes from my scrambled eggs in greeting.

“I like your freckles,” I say.

His eyes, which are lashy and already on the big side, open even wider. They’re light brown, but with a flower of yellow around the pupils. Mesmerizing, really. “You’re one to talk,” he says, one side of his mouth hitching up. “But for the record, I like yours, too.”

We grin at each other and an eggbeater starts churning in my chest. Maybe because of his sunflower eyes, but maybe because this could be my key to meeting Duke. I knew I could make friends here. I’ll show those Lynch losers what they were missing out on when I come home for Christmas with an entourage of talented friends.

“I’m Max Griffin,” he says.

“Bridget Bloom.”

“Wow, an alliterative name.”

My smile is growing wider by the second. “Wow, what a nerdy thing to say. Please take that in the most complimentary way possible.”

“I will. Nerds run the world.” He’s also still smiling, but his freckles disappear under the blood that’s rushed to his cheeks, and I can’t help but feel a little proud of myself for making a boy blush. “You’re new,” he says. A statement, not a question.

“Yeah. It’s my first year. Must not be yours?”

“Nah, it’s my fourth year here.”

“Wow. You like it?”

He sips at what’s left of his orange juice. “I do. Richard James is a better fit for what I’m good at than normal high school.”

“And what are you good at?”

“Music,” he says. “I’m in the focus program.”

“Me too!” The words slip out—I meant to agree that I’m good at music. But now I don’t really know how to correct myself. And I don’t really want to.

“Awesome! Hey, w

anna exchange numbers? It’s good for us music kids to stick together.”

Us music kids. My first actual, non-sucky-roommate friend at Richard James. There’s no turning back now. “Of course,” I say, handing my phone to him. I lean back in my chair, considering him as he studiously enters his number. “I think I’ll put you into my phone as Freddie, in honor of that magnificent shirt.”

He snorts. “For the record, it is a magnificent shirt.”

“Oh, I’m being serious. Big Queen fan over here.”

“Well, then by all means,” he says, handing back my phone.

“So glad I have your permission, sir, because ten bucks says my big mouth slips and calls you Freddie in person, at least once.”

His eyes land on my mouth then. “Are you that forgetful, Bridget Bloom?” He’s got this look on his face I can’t quite figure out, but something about the curve of his lips tells me he’s enjoying this.

“I think it’s more like impulsive. I’ve been known to speak without thinking. Act without thinking. Sing without thinking.”

“Oh, you’re one of those singer types?”

I nod enthusiastically. “I’m a pianist, too. You?”

“Used to be one of those singer types, too, but I’m here for guitar. And theory.”

“Who comes to Richard James for theory?”

“Only the coolest nerds. You’ll find us in room 313 at nine a.m., AP music theory.”

I make the face of “oh hell, no” and Max snickers, then pops a grape into his mouth. “So, are all the girls from wherever you’re from as confident as you are?”

I scoff. “Nebraska, and no. Bunch of lemmings, for the most part.”

“Yeesh. No lost love for home sweet home?”

“Not really. Where are you from?

“Kansas City.”

“Really? Do you know Duke Ericson?” Same home city, same breakfast table . . . it stands to reason, right?

His gaze falls south, into his mostly eaten oatmeal. “Yeah, I know him.”

“That’s so cool!”

“Yeah. So cool.” Except his frown says it’s the least cool thing ever.

“What, ...