“Mr. Mathis says you’ve been playing better,” Lassa said.

Freya was shocked, as if Lassa had told her the Earth was about to crash into the sun. They were driving to Grayson, and there was very little danger of crashing into anything. Lassa was a very careful driver.

“No way,” Freya said.

She wondered what angle her mother was working. She’d seen very little of Lassa in the two weeks since she’d been left marooned at therapy. Lassa worked late every night and came home long after Freya was conked out on Lunesta, or not at all. Would she lie about this? Freya doubted it.

Ezekiel “Miracle” Mathis had played Spanish and Blues guitar for longer than Lassa had been alive. In the whole time Freya had been taking lessons, two things had never happened: He had never given her any compliment on her playing except “That’s right,” and he had never smiled.

She asked Randall why once, expecting some terrible tragedy had befallen him. But Randall had laughed. Mr. Mathis had staked a month of lessons against five hundred dollars in a game of nine ball, and Randall had sunk the nine on break. He said old Miracle had never been able to get the sour taste out of his mouth.

Mr. Mathis had long since made his five hundred back. For everything he lacked in charisma, he was an incredible musician and teacher. He regarded clean fundamentals with the same life-and-death importance as a heart surgeon regarded clean instruments. He hadn’t softened a bit in six years of lessons.

The first lesson she’d taken after Randall’s death, he had told her if she wasn’t going to bother practicing, he wasn’t going to bother coming.

Playing better. It wasn’t much of a compliment, but it was true. She had been practicing more seriously, even though she was busy two nights a week now with therapy and Krav Maga. Dr. Garbuglio had been mostly right about the class. Breaking down hadn’t made her an outsider, it had drawn her in.

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Vitko offered to let her step out during any knife drills, but she had said she wanted to just tough it out, and she didn’t cry the next time. She worked very hard in all the drills, trying to prove herself. When the boys groaned at the prospect of running laps, she kept quiet. She couldn’t afford to complain like they could. When she gave it her all, sometimes Vitko would give her a slight raise of his chin, letting her know he hadn’t missed it.

She was back at Grayson now, and the other Renanin students said hi to her in the halls, even the upperclassmen. But that was as far as it went. She was still eating lunch alone in the cafeteria with her back to the wall, as alert as a gazelle at a watering hole.

She felt tense whenever she was alone. She thought she saw Tammy in a crowd of faces. It was always someone else. Tammy was still serving in-school suspension. Since the incident at TacoTime!, unknown groups of people approaching made her nervous.

Freya kept having flinchy thoughts a fist was about to strike her out of nowhere and knock out her teeth. She had a dumb urge to wear the mouthguard while she was walking around, but it would make her look like a freak if anyone noticed.

When she admitted this to Dr. Garbuglio, he assured her it was normal to feel that way after being attacked. Talking would help, and the anxiety would fade with time. Freya knew better. Things didn’t fade, they sunk into you and stayed there.

She stared out the window as the hills rolled away, the words hung in her head. Playing better. That was all she was doing, playing the role of someone who was better so they would leave her alone. She’d been to therapy three times, and it wasn’t helping. Nothing was going to change.

Graduation was almost three years away. There was no way she could make it. If she wasn’t brave enough to leave or end it, she would remain a prisoner here. Caught in this busy cage of going through the motions. She slipped her hand into her pocket and touched the Starball, drawing a deep breath and letting it out through her nose.

Today, the microscope. She said every morning for almost two weeks, but it always seemed to slip her mind or seem like too much effort. She knew when she got a closer look, it was going to turn out to just be an ordinary rock. A strange olivine formation, unusual but totally natural. She wanted it to be something special.

They pulled up to Grayson, and Lassa told her to have a good day, and she said the same back, even though neither of them would.

Playing better.