Jeremy said, “Oh, I don’t know if I’m the best.”

He would not brag, even in jest. This was the Buddhist in him or something. He’d become Buddhist around the same time he’d become Southern.

“You know what I mean. I’m auditioning for a Jeremy, and you’d be a Jeremy.” I paused at another store window. It was impossible to tell what some of these shops sold.

“You know I’m playing with another band, right?” he asked.

I knew. He wasn’t the only one with access to a search engine. I wasn’t offended. I’d been theoretically missing for more than a year and then theoretically out of the music business for several more months than that. I’d have found another band, too. “They are not as cool as me.”

Jeremy thought about this. “No. They aren’t. But I like them, and I don’t want to leave them in a tight spot.”

“It’s only six weeks. Then they can have you back.

Undamaged. Entire. The only thing different about you will be that your mind will be blown by the time spent with me.”

“I have no doubt of that. It wouldn’t just be six weeks, though. You’re touring for the album, right?”

I assumed so. That was what you did — make an album, play some shows, sell some records. There was a thrill to it, when it was going well. I was good at it, when it was going well.

It was just when things weren’t going well that it got dangerous.

Mostly to me, though. Not often to bystanders.

“So?”

He paused as if he were thinking about it. But like I said, I knew Jeremy. Back when we were in the band, we all knew one another better than we knew ourselves. That was the reason why we were the band. So I already knew what he was going to say. I just didn’t know quite how he was going to say it.

“I don’t think you and touring is a good idea,” he said. “It’s going backward.”

I knew exactly what he was talking about, but I said, “Sideways. Backward is unnecessarily negative.”

“Look, Cole, I’m really glad you’re . . .”

He didn’t finish the sentence, leaving it wide open for me to imagine what he was going to say. In Los Angeles. Making music again. Still alive.

What it came down to was that he didn’t trust me.

His doubt left a bigger dent in my Teflon heart than I would have expected.

Eventually, Jeremy merely asked, “Can I come to the auditions anyway? To watch?”

“Only if you help me choose your successor.”

“I’d like that.”

Neither of us said anything about Victor. Maybe I was the only one thinking about how we weren’t talking about him.

Maybe it was easier when you hadn’t been the one digging his grave. When you hadn’t been the one to put him there.

— What about Victor, Cole?

Remember how we did everything together? I convinced him to become a werewolf with me. Now I’m in a loft in California and he’s in an unmarked hole in Minnesota.

— He chose it, too. It wasn’t all you.

Sometimes I pretend that’s true.

“Cole, you still there?”

“I’m always here,” I replied, though I hadn’t been, really, for a moment. “Watching you sleep.”

“I know you are. I feel it. What’s the way? Today? What’s your way?”

My reflection in the store window finally smiled. The way.

The way. When we were on the road before, back before everything went to shit, every show was different. It wasn’t just that we’d play a different set. It was that we’d come dressed as zombies, or we’d play a song backward, or we’d soak a pumpkin in gasoline and set it on fire. It was about the music, sure — that was always the most important thing — but it was about the game, too. The hook. Somewhere in there, we’d started calling it the “way.” What’s the way, Jeremy? What’s the way, Victor?

Actually, it was always this:

What’s the way, Cole?

“I was looking for props here, but it’s useless,” I said.

“Anything I can do?”

I was about to tell him no, I had to think more, but then, all of a sudden, my brain turned over and something caught.

I narrowed my eyes. “How are the speakers on your sound system?”

Chapter Twelve

· isabel ·

Sometimes I took online quizzes to find out if I was a sociopath.

Society thinks there are more male sociopaths than female, but that is a dirty, dirty lie perpetuated by the media. There are more unfeeling girls out there than they would like to admit.

Maybe I wasn’t crazy. But if I wasn’t, then everyone else was.

I didn’t know why I kept being shitty to Cole. And by Cole, I really meant everyone else in the world.

He was only a few miles away from me. In California.

In L.A.

At work, the minutes seemed fuzzy and timeless. I redesigned a sparse pile of mauve boat necks, and then I dusted the plants, and then I went into the back room. Sierra was not in, but she’d left evidence of herself in a pile of fabric scraps and “inspirations,”

which was what she called the weird things she collected to influence her clothing. Since I’d been in the store last, she’d added a glass milk bottle, a freeze-dried leaf of some kind, and, grotesquely, a seagull’s foot.

I couldn’t wait to hang up whatever bit of fashion was inspired by a dismembered gull part.

Pushing Sierra’s stuff out of the way, I sat on the counter and pulled out my notes for my CNA class. The hardest part about the class, in my opinion, was trying to remember what CNA stood for. Certified. Nursing. Assistant. I’d been told that it was a good thing to have if you were trying to get into premed, but it was hard to imagine why. One of the browser windows on my phone was still open to a practice test question.

It was this:

If you walk into a client’s room and he is masturbating, what do you do?

a) laugh and close the door

b) ask him gently to stop

c) close the door and give him some privacy d) explain the dangers of masturbation

e) report him to the head nurse

I was taking a class in this. I was taking a class in this.

I was going to college. I was going to college.

I was going to be a doctor. I was going to be a doctor.