“And a really bad judge of yourself.” I could see the guy’s teeth as he grinned. “But that’s okay. I like that. We need that. People who don’t already think they’re too good to get any better.” He let out another puff of smoke. “So. Where do you see yourself in two more years?”

I’d been feeling so happy. So almost content. Now anxiety covered me like a swarm of mosquitoes.

Two years from now. Done with high school. Starting out on my adult life.

I couldn’t tell the truth. It was too raw and pathetic and predictable. I couldn’t say it out loud, not even to this guy.

I want to be a rock star. I want to be the best who’s ever been.

Nope. No way.

“I don’t know,” I said slowly. God, how many times had I said I don’t know? I don’t know. I don’t know anything. “I’d really—I want to keep going with this. See if it could be something real.”

He nodded. “I think, for you, it definitely could be.”

I started to say something dismissive, but he went on.

“You’re the type, you know?” he said, stepping a little closer. “You really want this. You give everything you’ve got to this. You’d give anything for this. Right?”

I smiled. “You sound like my guitar teacher.”

“I’m sure,” he said earnestly. “I’m sure he sees it, too. You’re primed for this. You’re meant for this.”

He dropped his cigarette. I watched the glowing orange butt hit the ground, touching the carpet of pine needles, before he crushed it with his boot.

“I mean, if this all went exactly the way you wanted it to”—the guy waved his hands, taking in the night, the Crow’s Nest, me. “If you could have everything you’ve been dreaming and daydreaming about, what would that be like?”

I laughed, rubbing my hair with one hand. “You want to hear my when-I-grow-up fantasies?”

“I’m serious,” he said. “What do you want? What do you really, really want? What would you give at least one kidney and one lung for?”

“A lung? I don’t know. I’d kind of like to keep both of them.” I looked around at the thick black trees. There was no one to hear. The words were building up inside of me, and as soon as I opened my mouth again, I heard them escape into the chilly air. “I guess . . . I want to be good at this. Really good. Not just decent for sixteen years old. Not good enough for the small-town metal scene. I want to be top tier. World-class.”

The journalist nodded, listening. This time he didn’t jump in. So I went on.

“I’d like to be faster, I guess. Better technique. I’d like to be a better songwriter, too. A better singer. All of that. I want it all.”

I laughed again. He didn’t.

“The stuff that comes with all of that would be nice, too,” I went on when he just stood there, listening. “I mean, the money. And the fame. And the travel, and the girls and whatever. But, really, it’s the music that I want the most. I want to be good. And I want to know that I’m good.” I took a breath. “That, and a decent guitar.”