The sound of Nina singing “Here Comes the Sun” wakes us up in the morning. We blink our eyes, and I look down at the guitar on my lap. The lights are on.

“Guess we fell asleep,” I say.

“Yeah.” She sounds like a talking frog.

“Whoa, Spike, your voice is so hoarse. Let’s get you some water.” We get up and go into the bathroom and brush our teeth. I can’t help but feel just a little proud of myself for finally getting myself in here with everyone, even if it is the last day. After we shower, we get dressed and sit in the hall to wait for Ty and the morning sing.

Spike’s eyes are closed, and she seems less than her usual excited self. This morning, Ty has us sing a cappella. “I know you know it by now,” he says with a smile. “Let’s give it up for Nina.” And we sing, and there’s this knocking in my chest—the reality that when I wake up tomorrow, I won’t be sitting with all of these people, Ty won’t be DJing my morning, Spike won’t be sitting here rocking her head from side to side, smiling. Wait. Why isn’t she singing?

As song ends, I elbow her in the ribs. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

“I have some bad news, Sparrow.”

My heart sinks. She doesn’t need to tell me the news, it’s in her voice—the voice that has gone from froggy to hoarse to barely audible just in the course of the hour we’ve been up. It’s seven thirty. The show starts at twelve. We are so, so, so completely screwed.

We go to in Heart and wait for Lara and Tanasia. They sit down with their breakfasts, waffles all around. Lara looks at hers lovingly; it’ll be a long time until she sees a waffle again.

“Guys, I’m not ready to go back to food prison,” she says.

“It’s so unfair,” says Tanasia. “I’ll mail you cookies.”

“We have a big problem,” I say. “Has no one noticed that someone here is unusually quiet?” I gesture to Spike, who’s miserably poking her oatmeal.

“I lost my voice,” she mouths.

“What?” Lara looks up from her soon to be long-lost waffles.

“Spike lost her voice,” I say. “What are we going to do?”

“Let’s go find Ren,” says Tanasia. As if she could tell we needed her, Ren is just finishing in the breakfast line.

“Go get her!” My heart is beating too fast for this early in the morning.

Ren walks over with Tanasia. She doesn’t look as alarmed as she should. “Listen, guys, this is a rough break. And, Spike, I’m really sorry. I know how hard you’ve worked. But it happens sometimes. Particularly when you scream your face off and then sing all night long before a show.” Spike blushes. “But listen, the show must go on. Figure it out, guys.” She heads over to the counselors’ table and digs into her waffles without a care in the world.

“Okay, what are we going to do?” asks Lara.

“We could just do the instrumentals,” I say.

“I think that’ll be lame,” says Tanasia.

“Why don’t you sing, Tanasia? You have a great voice.”

“I can’t. I don’t know the melody well enough. I sing harmony, remember?”

“Well, I can’t do it,” says Lara. “I have enough on my plate just making sure my arms and legs are moving in time. I know there are people who can drum and sing at the same time, but I’m not one of them.” She concocts the world’s best bite of waffle (small corner, slice of strawberry, single blueberry, drizzle of syrup) and forks it. We go around and around, and don’t notice that Spike has dug a pen and a pad out of nowhere and is pointing at it.

Sparrow does it, it reads.

“Like hell I do, Spike.”

“Honestly, Sparrow, I don’t know what else we can do,” says Lara.

“Have you met me? There’s no way. I’d die.”

“You won’t die, and we can’t do it without you.”

“Sparrow, the band needs you. I’m sorry. I know you don’t like it, but there’s nothing else to do,” Tanasia says.

“There has to be something else. I can’t.”

“Come on, Sparrow. It’s not like you don’t know the damn song. After all, you wrote it.”

“We all wrote it.” I shoot Tanasia a look like, What are you talking about?

“Yeah, but only one of us wrote the first three lines. It’s your song, Sparrow.”

“I can’t.” My legs push my chair out and don’t let me stop until I’m far away from Heart, from ESG, from Nina, and from the Boom Chachalacas. The bench behind Heart will be full of smoking counselors by now. I run and keep running until I find myself at Narnia.

Narnia is a weird patch of pine trees in the middle of an empty field behind the gym that we don’t use. It was Lara who named it Narnia the first time we saw it. I think of the story, of the kids who disappear into a closet and find themselves in a different land. Sounds like a good deal to me. In Narnia, no one expects you to sing in front of hundreds of people like it’s no big deal.

I pull up my hood and lie down on the pine needles. I’m waiting. For what? Birds? I guess. I watch them hopping from branch to branch above me, indifferent. There’s not going to be any swoop swoop in my chest, my eyes won’t grow small and round, my arms won’t lift me up and out, wide and feathered. I am not about to become anything I’m not.

I watch the sky move against the branches, watch the waxwings above me move easily from limb to limb. The world feels quiet and almost as far away as I wish it were. I stare up and up and wait. Wait to be far away from here. Wait to stop caring about what happens to the band. Wait to stop feeling my heart try to escape from my chest.

I think about Dr. K and how disappointed she’ll be. She told me to enjoy this day, not to hide in the bushes. The thought of enjoying this day makes me laugh. How could anyone enjoy this? Enjoy feeling terrified? Enjoy disappointing their friends? Oh, God, and it’s not just friends; Mom is on her way up here with Aunt Joan and Curtis, and it’s going to be the same as always—sorry, everyone, Sparrow is too crazy to pretend to be a normal person today, show’s over. Mom will worry about me, make me switch from Dr. Katz. She’ll probably send me to boarding school for crazy, friendless children.

I can hear the little kids warming up. Kendra must have asked them if they’re ready to rock, because even from Narnia I can hear the sound of twenty-five eight-year-olds screaming “YEAH!” The weight on my chest grows heavier. I would love to be able to get up there, to show up for the girls who have been like family to me this last month. But I don’t know how. I think about Spike and how brave she is just being herself every single day, about how Lara’s gentleness, which I always think will make her seem weak, only ever seems to make her stronger, and about Tanasia, who has seen me so clearly even when I wanted nothing more than to be invisible. I think about Ty coming to find me that night in the studio, how worried he was, and how relieved. I think about Nina.

Tears roll down my cheeks. I won’t see these people after today. I won’t have Ty telling me to open my mouth and let people know me. I won’t get to see Lara take delight in all things carbohydrate. I won’t get to see Spike in her boxers and undershirt, shaking her bedhead and greeting the day like a Golden Retriever. I won’t get to sit in a room and play bass until my hands hurt. I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to miss this. I don’t want to spend the last day hiding from the people who make my heart hurt with how much they give me.

With every waxwing that comes and goes overhead, I think, Dr. K, Mom, Aunt Joan, Curtis, Spike, Tanasia, Lara, Ren, Ty. They fill up the space under the trees, the space between me and the rest of the world. Maybe they’re what I’ve been waiting for this whole time. They’re not coming, though. If I want them, I’m going to need to figure out how to get up. I can hear the notes from the sound check, the little kids trying out their jams before their parents come. I think of the Boom Chachalacas, how hard it was for us to come together, how hard we’ve worked, how it was that we ever became friends. It doesn’t seem right to screw them out of a chance to perform just because I’m more scared than I have ever been in my life. It’s funny. I’ve woken up in a hospital with an IV coming out of my arm, but this is the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me.

“Sparrow! Sparrow!” I hear Lara and Tanasia calling my name in the distance, and their voices get fainter each time. They’re headed in the wrong direction. I think of how Chocolate looked for me, how good it felt to be wanted, to know that someone thought it wouldn’t be the same if I wasn’t there. And when I put my hand out for Chocolate’s, she taught me how to fly. I keep waiting to feel ready to get up, and then it hits me—I’m not going to be ready. I’m going to have to do this without being ready.

When I come out from under the trees, the world looks the same, which surprises me. The sun should be brighter or maybe clouded over. Ty should be roaming the grounds with a concerned look on his face. Maybe a stray dog should be wandering by, or a toucan. Something to let me know that things are different than they were when I was in Narnia.

I run up to the performance tent they’ve set up next to ESG. Spike, Tanasia, and Lara are waiting anxiously backstage. I feel terrible for what I’ve put them through.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, out of breath. I say it over and over, tears pouring down my cheeks.

“It’s okay,” says Lara. Tanasia hugs me. Spike gives me a thumbs-up.

“Listen,” says Tanasia, “I didn’t mean to blow up your spot like that, about your poem—”

“You’ve found our prodigal Sparrow!” Ty cries as he walks over. “This is a bad habit you’ve got, girl.” He puts his hand on my shoulder.

“You’re here now,” says Ren, “and you guys are next.”

I peek around the curtain at the sea of people. “Cool,” I say, “I just have to go throw up real quick.” Spike puts her hand in mine and squeezes. She shakes her head. “You’ll be fine,” she croaks. She passes me my makeshift tuxedo, and before I know it, Ren is passing me the bass with one hand, and pushing me onstage with the other.

“Go love them fiercely,” she says, and I don’t know if she’s talking about the audience or the band, but before I have time to think about it, Lara’s drums start, Tanasia’s guitar starts, I’m playing too, but I just can’t open my mouth. Lara and Tanasia aren’t budging; they’re just repeating the first couple of measures over and over again. I get the feeling they’ll do it all day until I start singing. I see Spike in the front row. She nods at me with the beat. She smiles. She doesn’t say, Come on or What the hell is wrong with you? She just smiles and nods until my mouth finds its way open. I’m feeling restless, reckless; it all comes easy after that. I hear Tanasia’s voice mix with mine. Lara is killing it at the drums. I remember the day we all played together for the first time, the magic that lives in the four of us together. My voice isn’t strong at first but it gets stronger and stronger. The beat is in my sneakers, in my hands on the strings, in my voice through the speakers. At the last chorus, the audience joins in. Their voices lift me up, my limbs go light, a familiar but totally different swoop swoop inside me. I’ve never flown this way before.