“Get up, Roxy!” I hear someone say. In the near week that I’ve been calling off work, I’ve rarely left my room, preferring instead to spend as much time as I can wrapped in the blackness of my blanket and sleep.

I groan from underneath the covers, barely awake. “Leave me alone,” I moan. “I took a shower yesterday!”

“No!” snaps the voice, whom I finally recognize as Mindy. “I’m not going away. I have to leave in a few days and you’re being disrespectful to your family. Now get up!”

I look at Mindy, but my tirade dies on my lips as I see her. She’s standing there, her hands on her hips, pissed like I haven’t seen her in a very long time. “Look at you. You look a hot mess. You’ve fallen apart. I already checked with Hannah. You won’t go to work. You haven’t eaten in three days. And why?”

“Because I—”

Mindy cuts me off. “Because you feel sorry for yourself! I know you feel bad about what happened, but you can’t let it control your life.”

Her words hit me hard, and I look down, catching a whiff of myself. I am a fucking mess. I feel so horrible, guilty and ashamed that my family came all this way to see me, and here I am avoiding them because I can’t deal with the shame and hurt I feel. “Mindy . . .”

Mindy won’t relent. “The past five days, every time we called, you wouldn’t answer. I called your home phone and even talked with Hannah, trying to get you to come to the hotel. Then I come by today, only to find out that Hannah hasn’t even been able to get your ass out of bed? Your room smells like the zombie apocalypse, and I’m not putting up with it anymore!”

I feel like the worst person in the world. I swear I’ve almost had a mental breakdown over what happened. Starting a fire in the club, feeling responsible for Sophie getting in a crash, the music guy telling me I was done, and I feel like I’ve lost Jake. I’m just ready to give up. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, tears trickling down my cheeks. “I just feel terrible for causing a shit storm.”

Mindy reaches down, pulling me to my feet. “Well, we’re changing everything starting now. Do you know what today is?”

“What?” I ask, and Mindy wipes a tear from my cheek with her thumb, just like she used to do when we were kids.

“The day you said you were going to the studio to record that song you wrote.”

I immediately shake my head, trying to pull back. “No way, not that. What’s the point? That’s a waste of time.”

Besides, the man I love and wrote it for won’t even be there. He’s never going to hear it. It hurts to even think about Jake. When Mindy says I haven’t eaten, that’s why. I think about Jake, and my stomach hurts so much that I can’t even imagine food.

“Yes, you are. You’re going to shower and eat, and we’re heading downtown to record that song.”

“There’s no point!” I protest. “You heard that asshole. That was my one and only chance!”

Mindy grabs me by the shoulders, looking into my eyes. “The point is, you owe it to yourself. Do it for you. Fuck everything and everyone else. You go in there, and you put that thing on disc for you. Or so help me God, I’m going to introduce you to realms of pain you can’t even imagine!”

Her corny line breaks through, and I smirk. “Oh, how’s that? I’ve already heard you sing.”

“Yeah, but you’ve never heard Gavin sing,” Mindy says. “Don’t make me get ugly on you.”

* * *

You better bring it, boy,

I’ve only got tonight

I’m leaving town tomorrow, I can’t stay the night

Have places to go, Catching an early flight

If you want me to stay, you gotta come correct

My heart’s almost yours, take that final step

Heartstopper, Heartstopper

Can you feel it in my chest?

Heartstopper, Heartstopper,

Fingers on my breast

Your touch is electric,

Has been from the start

Give it to me, baby,

Or I’ma stop your heart.

I let out a breath, gasping for air as I sing the last note and the club banging beat plays in the background. I don’t know how they got the music mixed so perfectly so quickly, but it’s amazing.

Maybe I’m wasting my time. Maybe this is nothing more than a final middle finger to anyone who’s doubted me. But for the past hour and forty-five minutes that I’ve been in the recording booth, I’ve felt a change coming over me. All the worries and pains I’ve been going through fell away. It was just me, the music, and my heart.

“That’s the one!” Oliver shouts in elation to the studio engineer, a nerdy looking blond guy with tiger-striped wide-rim glasses sitting beside him in the system room. “You got what you need. Get to work!”

I tilt my head, watching as Gavin and Oliver start chatting together excitedly while the studio engineer gets his computers together. Scowling, I pull off my headphones and talk into the mic. “What the hell are you two so excited about?”

I seriously don’t know what these two are up to. They’re nearly buzzing as they come into the studio.

They both grin at me like a pair of mischievous school boys, not saying a word.

“Spit it out!” I beg as their smiles become infectious. “Or I’ma make Mindy come up in here and sing Barney.”

They both laugh at me, but Oliver is the one to speak. “Gavin and I have decided to invest a little in you using what I like to call ‘fuck you money’. Tomorrow, in ten different time slots on the local radio, Heartstopper is going to be played.”

“Yeah,” adds Gavin. “Not only that, but we’re going to release it on iTunes, Amazon, all that. You don’t need a label to self-publish.”

I blink, shocked. “You two . . . you’re batshit crazy!” I exclaim heatedly. “You realize this isn’t going to sell shit, right?”

“Who cares?” Gavin says with a shrug. “This isn’t about the sales.”

“I care!” I protest. “Guys, I tried iTunes already. I put a whole album on there. It sold exactly one hundred copies, and I suspect five of them were you guys!”

“Seven,” Gavin says matter-of-factly. “I wanted it to be a round number.”

“See!” I say. “You prove my point!”

“Girl, stop with all that fussing. You’re amazing,” Mindy, who’s been out in the hallway and talking with the sound guy, says, coming in. “It’s going on there or so help me God, I’m going to turn into Iggy Azalea and treat you guys to my first rap song.”

I throw my hands up in immediate surrender. “Oh, hell no. You win!”

Everyone in the studio laughs and Mindy says, “Girl, I promise you, Leigh’s going to be singing all the lyrics and copying her auntie’s twerk routine by lunch tomorrow.”

I grin, the first one I’ve had in awhile. It feels unfamiliar on my face—that’s how down I’ve been over the past few days. “Well, someone has to teach your daughter some life skills.”

Everyone laughs while we close up the studio, turning in the keys to the front desk.

“Mindy,” I say as we leave the studio. “Wait up.”

“Sure,” she says, waving Oliver and Gavin on. “You two go. We’ll see you at the hotel.” The guys leave, and she turns to me, smiling. “What’s up?”

“I can’t go back to my job,” I say, shaking my head.

“Is it the job or is it Jake?” Mindy asks, and I shrug. She pulls me in for a hug, and I gotta admit, it feels good. “I see. Well, if you find that you can't, why don’t you quit your job and come back home with us?”

“After what happened, I feel so guilty. I can’t face Jake. I just can’t. Not only because of the club, but it will just be so awkward after what we had going.”

Mindy nods. “We can help you back on your feet. Hell, I might even have a job for you in the cafe.”

When I think about it, what is here for me if there’s no Jake? Work is going to be so awkward. I just can’t imagine it. I want to go to Jake, but now I can’t bear to look at him, not after destroying his hard work and his relationship with his sister.

“I think I might take you up on that offer. Give me the weekend to think about it.”