I blink at him. There’s something wrong here. Something about the way Flynn’s looking at me. I’m not sure what it is, because he’s never looked at me like this before.

“That woman,” I start. “The music rep . . .” Her eyes. The mud and pine needles on the soles of her boots. “It wasn’t right. Something about her. It just wasn’t right.”

“Sure.” Flynn nods. His voice is so dry, I can’t tell if he’s serious or sarcastic. “There’s always something, right? They only like you for the music, or they don’t like your music in the right way, or it feels like the music isn’t really you. There’s always something.”

“But it’s—” I don’t know how to finish. My thoughts are just a storm of noise.

“You know what it really is, don’t you?” Flynn scratches his arm again. The missing half finger twitches over his bicep. “It’s you. You’re sabotaging yourself. You’re keeping yourself from being what you’re meant to be. And that’s your choice, dude, but I’ll tell you what: I’ve never seen that choice end well.”

I choke on the words. “What do you mean?”

“You know what other people would give up to get what you have?” Flynn’s words are sharp. Or maybe I’m so raw it just feels that way. “You think opportunities like the one you just blew are going to keep piling up around you forever? You think you just get to take and take and take?”

A cold, numb feeling is traveling down from my shoulders, through my arms, into my hands. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“Oh, come on.” Flynn grins at me. His eyes are narrow. “Nine years of lessons. Practicing for hours every day. You can’t say you didn’t want this. Don’t even try to tell me that, Anders Thorson. Don’t even try.”

My hands clench my knees. I can’t look away from Flynn’s eyes, even though I want to. Nine years, like he said. Nine years, and I’ve never seen his eyes look at me like this. So cold and flat and hard. I barely recognize them.

Abruptly, Flynn sets both boots on the floor. His palms hit his knees with a slap. “All right. That’s it.”

The stare is broken. I’m reeling, lost. “What?”

“We’re done here.” Flynn gets to his feet. “I’ve taught you everything I can. I’ve done everything I could to help you. Most kids, if they want to just play the guitar for fun, goof around, never practice, and pay me my thirty bucks a week to waste both of our time, I don’t care. But you? I’m not going to give pretend lessons to you.” He picks up my guitar. “You could have been the real thing. But you made your choice.”

He pushes the guitar case into my hands.

I get up, robotically, like someone with a remote control is moving me toward the door.

“Wait. Flynn . . .” I hear myself say.

Flynn yanks the door open ahead of me. “It’s probably too late for you anyway,” he says. “You’ve burned your bridges. Set things in motion. Might be tough to stop them now.” His hand guides me through the doorway. “So long, Anders. Good luck.”