If the authors of the self-help books were to ask me, I would probably tell them it ended because of Alan. He asked me not to burn myself and it’s as simple as that.

The answers are always simple if you let them be.

CHAPTER ONE

UC Berkeley, Fall Semester 1989

I hurry across campus, up the unavoidable hills I’m really starting to hate after only two months at Cal, and I wish I had time to stop to remove my sweater.

I’m starting to believe that UC Berkeley isn’t going to be any better for me than high school had been. In fact, I feel pretty much the same here: lost, a little sad, and as if I don’t fit in anywhere. I never expected to miss Eliza and her mob of pretty mean-girls from high school, but as I cut my way through the herd of students all going somewhere, I find that I do.

I never did fit in with the popular-girl clique, but having them antagonizing me and me suffering in return somehow made me connected with them. And by extension, connected to the high school experience. I don’t feel connected to anything here.

Here I just walk to class alone since I’m in the Music College and Rene is in the Science College, and for the most part, no one ever interferes with me beyond a sudden fixed stare.

I shake my head, realizing that in the two months I’ve been here I haven’t done myself any favors. I can’t seem to find a comfortable routine, I haven’t made any new friends, and how much I still hurt over Alan makes me do stupid things.

In my freshman composition class the first assignment was to write a fifteen hundred word essay introducing myself. I stared at the prompt and thought really, convinced that this exercise had been created by my professor just to add to the emotional heap already burying me.

After procrastinating over the assignment for days, I opted for concise, since there’s pretty much nothing left to share after those months of horrible tabloid press following my weeks with Alan: My father, Jack, is a music icon from the 60s who is still on an FBI watch list. My mother, a celebrated violinist, died of cancer when I was seven. I was practically raised by an illegal Nicaraguan refugee. At the age of eight, I watched my brother die in his bedroom of a heroin overdose. I hid in bathrooms from thirteen until eighteen burning my body with the infinity clasp of a Tiffany bracelet. I’m a technically proficient cellist who bombed an audition at Juilliard, deliberately. During my senior year spring break I had a three week whirlwind affair with a deeply troubled yet brilliant British Rock Superstar. Oh, and UC Berkeley is just my fallback plan and I don’t really know why I’m here.

One-hundred twenty-seven words. Concise: that’s what my professor wrote above the numerical grade equaling ‘F’. When I asked him why he failed me, he didn’t even respond to me verbally. Beneath the ‘F’ he rapidly scribbled: Sorry, Miss Parker, at Cal we start with following the prompt. Maybe by next Friday you can submit fifteen hundred words on why you’re here.

Why am I here?

Of all the prompts he could have given me, that’s the prompt I can’t answer even after two months in college. Somehow, I managed to turn out something. Fifteen hundred words as required, thankfully canceling my prior ‘F’ grade with a low ‘C’, but it didn’t help clarify a single thing for me.

Why am I here?

As I pull back the heavy door to the lecture room, that familiar question turns into another familiar question: why am I always late?

There is absolutely no way to make a subtle entrance in a lecture hall wearing flip-flops. I cringe as I hear the slap, slap, slap against the floor, and for some reason I always manage to arrive during a moment of quiet and there’s never a seat in the back of the room left for me. Nope, there’s only one in the front, that’s it, within range of Professor Lambert.

Slap, slap, slap. Stare, stare, stare. Glare from Professor Lambert. I sink into my seat. I set my tote on the floor beside me and tuck a stray lock of golden blond hair behind my ear.

The stare doesn’t lift. The silence doesn’t break. Professor Lambert doesn’t like me. I look up and smile at him.

“Good of you to join us, Miss Parker,” he says. “May I continue?”

I smile. I attended high school at a private Catholic boarding school. Like I’m going to fall for that one and answer a sarcastically put rhetorical question. And that’s what it is. If I were stupid enough to answer, the whole thing would just go downhill from here.

I focus on pulling my spiral notebook from my pack. I grab a pen, open to a fresh page, scribble the date, and begin to make little geometric shapes. I tune out the voices in the classroom and focus on the little city I’m inexpertly drawing on the paper where my notes for this class should be.

I wonder where Alan is today…

“Miss Parker!” a voice above me snaps loudly.

I look up to find Professor Lambert hovering over me and all the seats around me vacant. Oh God, what did I miss?

“May I continue, Miss Parker?”

Two ‘may I continues’ in a single day. A new record. I nod and quickly drop my eyes.

“Well?” Harsh. Imperative.

I look back up. Like a flight attendant he holds out his arms pointing at each side of the room. “There are two lines, Miss Parker. You’d know that if you paid attention in class. A little boy line. A little girl line. Please join the appropriate line.”

My cheeks burning, I snap my notebook closed and hurry across the room. Slap, slap, slap. Damn, flip-flops in a silent room again. I take my place at the end of the line.

“There are five solos in the ensemble,” Profession Lambert continues as he slowly walks the room. “They will be handed out based on class participation and exercises, so make sure you’ve all signed up for a lab with Jared and attend. And of course, ability.”

He sinks into a seat in the middle of the lecture hall. “Based on the selection you will sing today—and I do hope you’ve all come to class prepared—I will assign you to groups of four. These will be your permanent group assignment until the end of the semester. No changes will be made. And you will endeavor to master the extremely difficult contrapuntal harmony I will assign, due at the semester end.”

The girl beside me gives me a gentle nudge. “Why does Lambert have such a hard-on for you?” she whispers.

I shrug. If the girl didn’t know the answer to that, then it means she doesn’t know who I’m and doesn’t read the papers. Far be it from me to fill her in.

“I’m Teri,” she says.

“Chrissie.”

“Why don’t you ever talk to anyone?” she inquiries in an overly bright way that tells me this girl is both chatty and friendly. “I never see you talk to anyone.”

I shrug again, and this time Teri frowns. “I’m nervous as hell about this. Lambert can be so rude. What did you prepare?”

Prepare? Oh crap, I must learn to read the syllabi more carefully. I stare at the sheet music Teri is holding: a choral selection. This project requires a choral selection.

I shake my head.

Teri’s brows jerk upward. “You mean you didn’t prepare anything?”

I shake my head, praying Teri will let up on this. Hasn’t she figured out if I answer her verbally, Lambert will take it as an excuse to pounce on me again?

“Do you want to grab something to eat after class?” she continues.

I shake my head.

“Why not?”

I let out a ragged exhale of breath. “I can’t. OK?”

I do an exaggerated shift of my eyes to Professor Lambert and give Teri a heavy, meaningful stare. I can tell by her expression she doesn’t get the warning I’m trying to silently convey, and she sinks against the wall slightly pouty.

Now I feel bad.

“It’s not you, OK?” I whisper.

Teri shrugs.

“I’m almost failing this class. I can’t give Lambert another reason to fail me.”