“Oh.” She folds her arms across her chest and leans against the wall. “Cool. Gotcha. See you around.”

I’m thrown; she went from almost friendly to dead cold in a split second. I stutter, “N-no—no. I mean…I was thinking about it, but Lucy seems like she might be fun to watch, so I think I might stay.” My heart’s beating fast and I don’t even know why, except she’s making me super nervous, and I want her to think…I don’t know what I want her to think. That I’m cool? That I’m someone worth talking to? She seems like someone who doesn’t bother with people unless she really wants to. I want her to want to bother with me. However, considering I can’t even manage to form a coherent sentence in my brain, nevertheless out loud, that’s probably unlikely.

She furrows her brow at my spluttering nonsense. “Oooookay.”

I mentally kick myself.

“Anyway.” I force myself to take a long breath before I continue. “Is Lucy any good?” There you go, Zach; finally got those words out of your mouth. Jesus.

At the mention of her friend, a real smile crosses her face. It’s as awesome as—maybe more awesome than—the one earlier today in class. “Lucy? Lucy isn’t good. Lucy is amazing. Just wait.”

“Nice. Conor’s going to be stoked. He’s wanted to get a female drummer for the band since forever. Thinks it’ll help their image.”

She rolls her eyes.

I laugh. “I know.”

Across the room, someone knocks over a snare drum and it crashes to the floor, loud, reverbing off the walls. When I look back at May, her eyes are wide.

“You okay?” She looks super spooked, like she might take off running out of the room. Her breath is coming out all choppy and weird, and her face has lost most of its color.

She doesn’t respond. Instead, she stands there pressed against the wall, unmoving and silent for about a minute. I’m starting to think maybe it would be a good idea to grab her friend Lucy, because she doesn’t look right, but as I start to rise off the arm of the couch, May coughs and jolts back to life.

She looks around the room, slowly, and then focuses on my worried face. She blinks like she just remembered that I’m here.

“Hey…are you okay?” I don’t want to come off like her mom, but I don’t think that was a normal reaction to a falling drum.

She shakes her head. “Yeah, of course. Sorry. I’m fine. I was just thinking about Kowalski’s hair.” She laughs, but it sounds forced. She licks her lips. “Do you think she even owns a hairbrush?”