Instructions for Dancing

Evie takes a cab home, not feeling her sore feet from running in heels. She’s numb as she gets home, showers, and cries herself to sleep. She thinks that the opposite of love isn’t hate but death.

When Evie wakes up from her nap, she has multiple calls and texts from X, who’s clearly worried; he also texted that they won the competition. Evie finally responds that she’s fine and apologizes. X tries to work out the conflict, and wonders if she changed her mind about going to New York together. Evie texts that she doesn’t want him to change his life for her, avoiding her vision’s truth. X wants to change his life for her, but Evie states it won’t work out, apologizing again. He asks if this means they’re breaking up, and she texts “I’m sorry.”

Grace checks on her daughter, asking what happened. Evie states she’s fine, that X didn’t hurt her, and that theirs was a goodbye kiss. Her mother is skeptical, stating the kiss looked more like hello. Evie turns away, begging to be left alone.

When Grace gives her privacy, Evie checks her phone. All her close ones have called and texted her, except X. She doesn’t expect him to, after how she treated him. Even Fifi texted her, saying she’s proud of her and that she finally danced with her heart.

For the next few days, Grace lets Evie stay home, and then tells her to go back to school and face whatever she’s avoiding. School keeps Evie distracted, though her friends ask about her break-up; she doesn’t talk about it. After a week, Evie is still in a depressed state. Grace checks on her, before another date with Bob; she points out that Evie hasn’t showered or eaten all day, so she’s worried.

Grace calls Evie’s father for help. Evie goes out to the patio, and her father arrives with a burrito. Though she’s not hungry, she eats half the burrito. Her father starts to cheer her up, but she interrupts by asking why he cheated on her mother. He explains that he wasn’t happy anymore and made mistakes. Evie counters that he could have told Grace about his feelings, gone to therapy, or done something other than initiating an affair. Her father again states that he should have done things differently, but couldn’t deny his feelings for Shirley. More upset than before, Evie brings up his marriage vows and how he promised to love her mother forever.

Evie cries and asks why one should bother to love anyone when they could die or leave, and her father says people are lucky to love someone so completely that they feel ripped apart when they’re gone—that the “pain is the proof of a life well lived and loved” (248).

Evie can’t stop picturing X’s funeral program. She tells her father that she doesn’t think she can go to his wedding after all and may never forgive him—which he accepts.

When Evie imagines X dead, she doesn’t see darkness but a world of light. In darkness, there is still hope for things unseen, but in the light, one can tell everything is empty.

Evie thinks time is passing, and she’s surviving it. Graduation festivities arrive, with yearbooks, parties, and Sunday brunches with her friends. Every Sunday, she wonders if Sophie and Cassidy will break up during brunch, as she saw in her vision. The girls touch less and bicker more, but Evie and Martin don’t talk about the inevitable.

One Sunday, the break-up occurs just as Evie’s vision foretold. Sophie and Cassidy hardly talk, don’t touch, and Cassidy storms out. Sophie cries and states Cassidy started to forget their dates, as if she got bored of her. She doesn’t want to go on the road trip anymore, which disappoints Evie, even though she knew it was coming. Later, Cassidy calls and says she’s not ready to be anyone’s girlfriend.

Grace starts seeing Bob twice a week for dates. Evie wonders if she didn’t learn from her relationship with her father, or remember taking down wedding photos and moving from their house. Her mind often wanders to how and why X dies. She can’t tell him the truth, as X once said he wouldn’t want to know about his death, though she wants to call him.

Evie spends a weekend in bed, until her mother asks her to bake with her. She helps make bread pudding, and Grace says she knows something happened. Evie says her mother should talk first, since she never brings up her father. At first, Grace avoids the topic, but then tells Evie that she’s a mother and needs to wipe her children’s tears, not the other way around. She’s trying to be strong by not bringing up her ex-husband, but admits she was devastated by the affair; her ex-husband wanted to try marriage counseling, but Grace refused. Evie can’t believe her mother left her father, not the other way around. Grace could tell he didn’t love her anymore, and she didn’t want to be his second choice. Evie asks about Bob, and Grace says she doesn’t want to cut herself off from love—and that just because love doesn’t always last, this doesn’t make it less real. When Grace mentions X, Evie says she’ll be fine by herself. As they bake, Grace makes a joke about how people need love like fish need water.