My eyes popped opened and I saw a guy in a Hollister tee; the collar was frayed and separating from the shirt. His eyes were dark, but I could see them as if I were right next to him, as if I were letting him in. I looked quickly somewhere else, but again I found myself looking at some girl I didn’t know. Her head cocked angularly to the side and her elbow bent holding up her palm, like a waiter with a tray, as she huffed. Again I averted my eyes, my gaze landing on an overweight guy with a shaved head. He shot a blast of cigarette smoke out the side of his mouth—Come on, princess, he was thinking. I scanned the crowd, my focus acute on each and every person.

How could I let all these angry people in?

“What’s the matter, kitten? Scared?”

I’d closed my eyes, thinking how many times Kori’d said it to me. How many times she pushed me to do just one more thing.

“I’m sorry. Sorry,” I croaked. I dropped my grasp on the mike stand, wheeling out of the spotlight. The edge of the stage was mere inches away when Marc caught my arm.

“Hey, don’t,” he said in my ear. “That’s a really tough song, just try something else.”

“But that’s what she was going to sing.”

“So? We can play something else. Just name something.”

I didn’t want to sing, I wanted to crawl beneath the seats in Mr. Miller’s truck and have Shay drive as fast as he could away from there.

“So what’s it going to be?”

Marc wasn’t asking me if I was going to be able to sing, to which my response would have been no. He was asking me what song I wanted to sing.

Ling-Ling sneered at me, but it was Kori’s words I heard. “‘Fraidy cat, are you useless or what?”

And I wanted to prove she was wrong, prove I wasn’t the doormat or wuss-girl she’d always accused me of being. That I could be just as fearless as she was. That we were more alike than she thought.

“We need a song,” Ling-Ling growled.

Right then, only one song came to mind, the one that had rocked me through my grief. “Pearl Jam? ‘Black’?”

“Not exactly easy,” Marc said. “But, fuck, whatever. Got it? Guys?”

I walked back to the mike and took it out of the stand. I needed to get out of the spotlight; I needed to be alone. Channeling Eddie Vedder and picturing Kori, I sank to the floor at Marc’s feet and pulled my knees into my chest. My voice trembled as I started, but soon it found its pace and settled in deep and tight.