Playing For Keeps by Dani Weston

examine them more, even though I knew I couldn’t. I didn’t have the time. I cut off the outside world, when I could, and holed up in the library, where even Bea didn’t find me.
    Diya found me, though, late into the night, and slipped me a burrito, wrapped in foil. It was still hot to the touch.
    “Why are you so amazing?” I asked, as she joined me at my shadowy corner table.
    “Girl, if I knew the answer to that, I would bottle it up and make a billion dollars.” She leaned in close. “Don’t let the librarians see you eating that. I already have a rap sheet here and I can’t afford to get kicked out. Again.”
    Her eyes darted side to side and I stifled a giggle.
    As I sank my teeth into my dinner, I wondered again if part of my motivation for not telling Bea about Jimmy Keats stemmed from guilt. If I was hiding from Bea because I was a jerk to continue a relationship with a guy she had a crush on, because I could have ruined our band’s chances. But I stamped those thoughts down as soon as they rose up. Not because I didn’t want to examine them beyond the idea that celeb crushes are hardly real —it’s not like he was her ex or anything—but because if I let myself think about them for too long, I ended up drifting into daydreams of kitchen counters and warm, dark skin on my tongue.
    If someone asked me what was on my class exams that week, it would be impossible for me to remember. I played with my phone on a regular basis, always meaning to call Bea and clear the air between us. But the longer I left it, the harder it was for me to come up with the perfect words. And the worse I felt.
    Bea avoided me that week, not stopping by the Delta Gamma house like she usually did, not meeting me at our favorite lunch spots between classes as was our normal schedule, before. I told her she was busy. She had to fit her voice lessons in, somewhere. I knew I needed to call her, and I knew it would be easy to tell her what Jimmy Keats and I talked about. It was the rest that was hard. Admitting I was wrong not to hope. Admitting I might even sell-out for the chance at stardom. Admitting that I wanted the band…and the boy.
    I really needed Bea to be my rock. It scared me to think about tossing aside my time at UCLA, when I was so close to graduating, to take this chance. I’d convinced myself, for the past couple of years, that business was what I wanted to do. I had a head for numbers, for delegating. I enjoyed looking for and solving problems. I looked great in power suits. But what if that was all a cover? What if, really, I was hiding from what I truly loved because I knew how hard it was to make a living at it? If my indifference to all of this was a way to protect myself in case everything fell through. Of course music was what I wanted to do. Had been since I was a teenager. I was struck, not for the first time, by how brave Bea was. Had always been. She was the heart and soul of Ladies in Waiting, and she’d never given up on the dream.
    Diya and I were studying Wednesday night when I said, out of the blue, “This kind of music is my life. It has been for a long time. I just thought I was supposed to do something more, you know, practical.”
    Diya turned a page in her textbook and shrugged. “I mean, you can do both. Music and a career. Or…you can jump on this chance because no one gets a chance like this. No one.”
    “But it’s scary. We’re so close to finishing our degrees. This would be such a diversion.”
    “Maybe it’s a detour, instead. A road that swerves off to the side, but reconnects with the road you were on before at some point. If you want that. If things do work out, I’m sure you could come back to your work at UCLA. You don’t even know, things might not progress so fast that you’d have to leave it before you graduate.”
    “Maybe not. I’m worried, though. About more than just that.” I picked at my cuticles. I was having a hard time forgetting the way Jimmy Keats looked