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in unison. I’m in snarky shock that she just used “IDK” in a real-life conversation. She and the werepufferfish should date.
    “I’d be happy to offer you guys a free drink,” Lola says.
    One of the other girls shakes her head. “No, like, for music. I paid cover for music.”
    Lola’s brows furrow. I know she can’t afford to give them a refund, even though that’s what she’s going to have to do. Like, she really can’t afford it. She’s a single mom with a barely-getting-by business. Her life makes mine seem like a cakewalk.
    “I can perform.”
    Lola and the girls both turn to look at me in shock. I would too, if I were them. I can’t believe I just said that.
    “Yeah?” says the sorority chick. “I don’t think I know your band.”
    “That’s because I don’t have one.” Her snootiness sends a stiff bolt of courage up my spine. “I’m a solo act.”
    Sorority chick looks at me like I’m a calculus problem she’s trying to solve with a hangover from last night’s party. “What?”
    “I can sing and play some piano. And if you really don’t like it after I’m done, I’ll refund your money personally, okay?”
    What the hell am I doing? Yes, my mom spent ten years teaching me how to sing and play piano. And yes, I had my own little singer-songwriter act when I was in middle school. But I haven’t played in years.
    Lola raises her eyebrows at me as if to say, “Really, Honey Bunches of Oats?”
    I give a smile that’s much braver than I feel. Like my mother always used to say, commit to whatever you do on stage. If you do, no matter how bad your performance is, at least the audience will care.
    It must convince Lola, because she places her hands together in a gesture of prayer towards me before announcing, “Artemis is a real talent, folks. You’re in for a treat.”
    The pink posse heads back to their seats as I slowly walk up to the makeshift stage. I can feel the customers’ pre-emptive embarrassment, or maybe that’s just my own nerves.
    Calm down. You can do this , I tell myself.
    Settling onto the piano bench, I start to warm up, my fingers stretching from black key to white key and back again.
    I’m sure I’m going to do something easy, a collection of power chords, but then my right hand trips and lands into a tangle of sharps and flats that actually kind of sounds good.
    I take a breath so deep I’m sure I’ve sucked all the oxygen out of the room, then I sing the first thing that comes to mind.
    “By the waters, the waters, of Babylon.”
    With every note I dip deeper and deeper into the well of longing, grief and desire that’s been simmering inside me for ten years and just got unearthed last night.
    Since I saw him.
    Orion.
    God, I don’t even know what to think, let alone how I feel. Yet when I start to play, I can put all of my heart’s indescribable colors into sound. And let them go.
    “We lay down and wept, and wept for thee, Zion.”
    I had always thought the fervent, dreamy teenage girl I used to be died when my parents did. Or worse, that the werebeasts had stolen her somehow. I realize now that she’s still alive inside of me. She always was. That’s the thing about dreams: they only come to life when you share them. They’re like stories that way.
    The sorority sisters are standing now. At first I think they’re going to leave, but instead they’re moving toward the stage. They stumble around the chairs like they’re possessed. I notice this the way a star might notice a tsunami. It’s odd, but I feel so high.
    I crash through into the last chord change. Suspensions have infiltrated the piano like shadows, and the melody is different now, harsher, and almost all improvised. I’m more yelling than singing at this point.
    “We remember, we remember, we remember thee, Zion.”
    Everyone’s here now, gathered at the lip of the stage like little kids ready for story time: Lola, the pink posse, even another customer I didn’t see before who has a