And it wasn’t the only one. Disaster. Clucking, worried, more than a little irritated—and I didn’t blame her—Coach Debbie applied a skin-toned blemish concealer, dabbing it on with her index finger. “I’m trying to blend it in at the edges, but it’s not quite your color. You can see it if you know it’s there. The judges will see it for sure.” She stepped back, frowning. “And you and Benson might rub some of it off during the performance.” It was the next morning, before breakfast, and I was wrong about last night. I had slept, cuddled in bed with Soraya, for a full hour and twenty-two minutes—a miracle—after which I’d eased my way out of her sleepy embrace and knitted furiously until she woke up. Now I stood naked in Coach Debbie’s room, twisting my back into a pretzel, trying to see myself in the mirror. I couldn’t see a thing. Soraya, horrified, had told me about the bruises half an hour before when we’d showered together.
