I get what he’s saying. Jezz was ready to forgive me. Patrick needed another nudge. But here he is.

I look back down at the wheel because I’m afraid of what my face might be doing. “Thanks, guys,” I hear myself mumble. “Really. Thank you.”

“And just because Last Things might be on hiatus doesn’t mean we can’t speak to you or anything.”

“On hiatus?” I swear, my heart actually leaps.

On hiatus. Not over. Not forever.

Then I glance at their faces and see what this really means. Jezz’s face says the door is still open, at least for him. Patrick’s face says the door is still shut. And locked. And that maybe there is no door.

Of course, none of this even matters if I can’t compose or play anymore. I force down a flare of panic.

“I mean . . .” Jezz looks at Patrick, too. “Never say never. But we can talk about that later. When everything makes sense again.”

It’s a small step. A better-than-nothing. “Okay,” I say. “Good.”

We’re all quiet for a minute.

I frown down at our shoes, my ancient knockoff Dr. Martens, Jezz’s red Converse, Patrick’s scuffed work boots, all of us shuffling in the gravel. And suddenly the craving to jump back into our usual routines is so powerful that it almost knocks me down. I want to talk about music with them. Listen to a new track with them. I’d give pretty much anything I own just to get out our instruments and play.

But they aren’t my band anymore.

I still can’t wrap my head around this. It’s like learning that your mom isn’t actually your mom, and that she’ll never be hugging you or helping you with anything again, and she’d really like it if you moved out of her house ASAP.

“So,” I ask when I can finally talk again, “who do you think left the note?”

Jezz looks at Patrick. Patrick doesn’t speak. “I don’t know,” Jezz says. “Maybe it was another one of Frankie’s friends or something. Like Will. He’s not a total psycho. Maybe he knew about their plan and wanted to stop it. In a kind of chickenshit way.”

I nod. “Maybe.”

Patrick makes a little grunting sound. Jezz and I know exactly what this means. It’s the sound that means Patrick disagrees, but he’s not going to say anything unless we ask him to.

“What?” I say.

He lifts one shoulder. “It didn’t look like a guy’s writing.”

We all think for a second.

“Anyway.” Jezz rocks on his feet. “Crazy, about some other car being in the river.”

My heart sinks. “Yeah.”

“I mean, I don’t think you had anything to do with Frankie or with that, but maybe there’s some kind of connection. I mean, things like this just don’t happen all the time. Not in this little town. Right?”

I’m starting to feel sick again. “I don’t know.”

“You know what I think?” Jezz hurries on. “I think there’s something weird happening around here. Around this whole town. I mean, like, bad spirits or something crazy like that. I think it’s affecting all of us.” He nods at my wheel. “I mean, even an ass like Carson Bergdahl wouldn’t normally do something that could kill somebody. And—I’m just saying—you do seem different, dude.” He raises his hands, quickly, placatingly. “Not, like, dangerous different, but like . . . Dude, what was with that song on Saturday night? ‘Devil’s Due’?”