“No point dwelling on it,” Oli tells him. “What’s done is done, right?”

Lark sighs, puts his hands up over his eyes. “Yeah. Done.” He’s aware that one of the things he is worst at is knowing when to quit.

How many years had he spent practicing to get into conservatory? Three with focussed effort, and more before that. He changed over those years, he knew himself better, but he didn’t factor any of that new knowledge into his vision of the future. Instead, he played etudes and ground his way forward on paths other people had helped him lay. He wore some kind of psychological blinders.

Oli sits next to him in the grass and takes out Lark’s stack of Polaroids from the pocket of his sweatpants. There’s sheet music in the frame. Simple. A reminder to focus, maybe.

“Do you still play the piano?” Oli asks.

“No,” Larks says. “No. Not for a while.”

“But you were still playing then? Classical stuff?”

“Yes.” Lark wishes he could explain to Oli the pain of his desire. That all he wanted was to be recognized as a musician, then, and that all he wants now is to feel like one again. Without that feeling, his future feels like a black hole. “I would have quit, maybe, but Quinn really helped me find practice space and send out applications, and Jules—Jules had a lot of faith in my talent. It made me feel like—I don’t know. Like I had a chance.”

“A chance?”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. Whatever,” Lark murmurs. “I don’t know what I’m saying.”

He wishes he had someone, now, like Quinn, to nudge him in the right direction, to give him permission to dream. Or even just to tell him to stop: stop worrying, stop thinking of himself as something he is not, stop expecting some change to wash over him.

Sometimes, he wishes, instead, to be struck by lighting. To have his brain rewired by the electricity. To wake up someone new.

“What would you do if you couldn’t be an astrophysicist, for some reason? If you weren’t smart enough,” Lark asks.

Oli shrugs. “I’d do something else. That’s all.”

This, Lark thinks, sounds both reasonable and impossible.

By the time summer was rolling to a close, the grey skies of a northwest autumn closing over the city, I had started to feel normal again. I tired quickly, at first, but the lethargy became easier and easier to ignore.

Dana asked me to drive her to the food store, and was impressed I was still able to carry groceries after an hour of shopping. I pushed her along while she stood on the back of the cart; she pulled boxes of cereal from the shelves as we glided past.

I’m glad you’re better, she said, knocking my shoulder with hers while we put the bags in the trunk of my car.

Took long enough, I said, only starting to appreciate the change.

I texted Quinn that I was feeling almost human, and he told me to meet him at the college where he had started the final year of a master’s in cultural criticism. (I complain about films, he told me over the summer. Hundreds of thousands of words of complaining about films.) He wouldn’t tell me why; just said: I’ve got a surprise for you.

Quinn was waiting at the entrance in a black denim jacket and hoodie, sprawled casually in his wheelchair, wearing headphones that he pulled out when he saw me.

Push me, would you? he asked. I did, of course, but it was not something I had done before, not something Quinn even asked Jules to do. I asked if he was having a bad day, and he laughed and said no. He leaned way back in the chair to look up at me, gave me a wry look, so I knew he was up to something. Am I too heavy for you? he teased.

Quinn directed me to a reception window set a little too high for him to see over from his chair. He reached a hand up to tap it. I’ve reserved a practice room, he said.

When asked, Quinn showed his student ID. He rolled his eyes when the receptionist asked for mine as well.

He’s my personal assistant. He doesn’t study here, Quinn said, gesturing vaguely back towards me. I shook my hair out of my face and mustered a smile in an attempt to hide my surprise at my new job title. When the receptionist gave Quinn his ID back and passed him a key, Quinn looked back at me expectantly, and I wheeled him down the hall.

Your personal assistant? I asked.

Oops, I lied. Sorry. We turned a corner, and he took control of his wheels when we were out of sight of reception.

A plastic tag on the key said MSC106 and it opened the door to a practice room with a full-size grand piano.

Tada, Quinn said, opening his hands.

I had told Quinn, sometime during the weeks I spent in his house, that I had wanted to go to conservatory, that I’d failed to work it out two years in a row. He asked what my plan was for next year, and I covered my face with my hands, struck again by the weight of my failures. I didn’t have a teacher or a real piano or money for either.

In the practice room, he smiled. You’re trying again, right? Third time lucky.

I nodded, pushing down a swell of despair mingled with long-dead hope.

Are you going to stay and listen? I asked.

No. I’m going to the library. Text me when you’re done; I need to take the keys back with you.He made a face, and I understood he found the situation embarrassing, that he was doing me a painful favor sneaking me in.

Thank you. For doing this.

He waved away my gratitude. I can reserve the room once a week. You can play me your audition pieces when they’re ready.