Autumn could’ve come and gone in a single night, and Skylar doubted that she would’ve noticed. Life seemed to be constant static, like an old television with a blur of black and white and a persistent buzz.

She had only one clear thought: four pills.

That’s all she had left.

Four pills.

She lit a cigarette and leaned against the brick wall of the café. “Come on, Cody.” Her hands trembled, but she wasn’t sure if it was from the cold November temperature or from cutting back on the pills. Cody had come to the café just once, eleven days ago. “We’re closing soon, and it’s Saturday,” she whispered as if he could somehow hear her.

The door to the café swung open, and Susie walked out. “Hi.”

“Hey.”

“You know that we really appreciate all you’re doing, right? The help with figuring out what we needed to order for the café, great menu suggestions, hard work for a payday that hasn’t come yet, and especially finding a doctor for Cilla.”

“Potential good doctor,” Skylar corrected while exhaling smoke. “That’s all we know right now.”

Abram had called the doctor’s office, and the first available appointment was in six weeks, which stank in Skylar’s opinion.

Susie folded her arms, shivering. “It’s the best lead you could find, based on the reviews and Yelp. I didn’t realize that they’d do a couple of weeks of testing. Abram said the follow-up visit after the testing won’t happen until the first of the year. Apparently getting answers for someone with Cilla’s condition is quite a process.” Susie stomped her feet, obviously trying to warm herself.

Skylar inhaled. “Yeah, I did a fabulous job poking around the Internet that night.”

Susie rubbed her palms over her thin sleeves. “I don’t know what that means.”

“Of course not.” Skylar had no cause to be snippy or to talk in coded nonsense to Susie, but her mood was too foul for her to stop herself.

Two days earlier Jackson had brought his computer to the café. While the others talked and cleaned, Skylar had spent a couple of hours making a short list of potential doctors for Cilla. Once she had the list, everyone, including Jackson, discussed the information and decided which doctor to call. With that done and Jackson in no hurry to leave, Skylar had played around online. That had been a mistake. She’d gone to YouTube, as she used to do regularly, and typed in some names—hers, Cody’s, her mom’s. It wasn’t until she searched for her dad’s name that she stumbled across a clip of her mom onstage singing with Ariana while he accompanied them…and sang!

Skylar had no words for the hurt and anger that had rumbled through her as she watched the display of emotion between her mom and Ariana and the pride on her dad’s face. Skylar thought she had talent. But Ariana’s voice was remarkable, and she couldn’t read music and had never had a voice lesson, at least not before leaving Summer Grove. Worse, the stupid thing had been posted Saturday evening, and when Skylar saw it six days later, the clip already had twelve thousand views and every review was glowing with positive comments.

The whole situation was nauseating, infuriating. So Skylar had exited YouTube and closed the computer, telling no one what she’d seen. She’d bottled her emotions, and now she was a jumbled mess and downing more pills than usual.

“Why’d you come out here, Susie?”

“Well, see, you’re smoking out front again. Mamm and Daed and all of us are trying to be cool about this awful habit, but it can’t be inviting for customers to see an employee propped against the front of the café and smoking. You showed us that we’ve earned a few bad reviews on Yelp, and we’d like to avoid any more.”

“The reviews had nothing to do with me smoking. Ten reviews. Two bad ones based on the first week the café was open, and they said that neither the service nor the food was good.”

“And you’ve helped set to rights the coffee, the menu, and the service. But can I ask what happened to the agreement that if you had to smoke, you’d do it behind the building?”

“Change of plans.”

“Like the change that’s keeping away whoever it is you keep looking for?”

She inhaled again. “Give the girl a gold star. She’s not as unaware as she looks.”

“Sorry, Sky, but no one is as naive as you seem to think. So this guy…I’m assuming it’s a guy. What happens if he never shows?”

Skylar flicked her cigarette in Susie’s direction, using just enough restraint not to hit her with it. “That’s not going to happen.”

“And if it does? I’ve watched you struggle a little more each day this week, and I’d really like to know what you’re going to do if he doesn’t show.”

Skylar studied the street, wishing Cody would arrive. If the fuzzy television set inside her brain could get a clear picture for just a few minutes, she might be able to think of a decent retort. “Kill myself.”

“That’s not funny, but you already knew that.” Susie pressed her foot against the cigarette butt, picked it up, and put it in the nearby trash can. “If you need someone to talk to—”

“I don’t.”

What was there to talk about? If Cody abandoned her the way her mom and dad had, she was alone, stuck inside a weird life from another century. Her bio family could barely tolerate her living with them, and her mom and dad had traded her away as soon as they found out about Ariana.

Without her parents’ support there would be no acting school, but she wasn’t sure she cared about that anymore. She missed her mom and even Nicholas. She ached to be their little girl again. But the oddest thing of all was that she didn’t miss being onstage. Maybe it was because she’d been booted out of drama for the semester, so she wouldn’t have been onstage or learning parts whether she was there or here. But she didn’t even dream of singing or performing anymore. Something was happening in her. Things that used to matter didn’t now.

The thing she missed most about performing was something she hadn’t even been aware was a part of her. Whenever she had performed onstage, she could feel Mom and Dad in the audience pulling for her to nail every line and hit every note. During those times all of life grew quiet for them and nothing existed but her. Their focused desire toward her felt as if they’d had some sort of supernatural power, like prayer would if God were real.

Skylar overlapped the front of her coat and started walking toward the gas station. She had to call Cody again.

“Where are you going?”

“Since you seem to know so much about me, there’s no need to keep my calls to Cody a secret, is there?”

Skylar kept walking. She had herself, the cigarettes she’d bought with her tip money, and four pills.

She rolled her eyes. Life just kept getting better and better.

Maybe Cody would answer the phone this time.