Free This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales Page A

arguments and dog barks, my father’s house is filled with music and newspapers and books. Other people’s words, not our own. If I want to spend all night trying to transition between songs without leaving a gap in the music, then my dad spends all night alphabetizing his record collection, and we are both content.
    The problem with my dad’s house, of course, is that it’s miles and miles away from Start. Which meant I had to come up with a way out of there for next Thursday night. Already some of the shininess I’d felt was disappearing from memory, my sparkle flaking off me like chipped nail polish. Friday morning, six hours after I’d left Start, I strode into Glendale High like no one could touch me. I saw Amelia Kindl looking at me out of the corner of her eye all through English class, and I didn’t even flinch. I thought about that moment of power, playing “Cannonball” for a room of strangers, and I thought, Amelia Kindl, you cannot hurt me .
    That was the morning. But by noon, my armor had already started to wear away. At lunch, Emily Wallace paused at my table next to the bathroom and said, “You know you’re wearing my vest, right?”
    I said, “Excuse me?”
    She smirked and pointed. “That vest. It’s mine. I donated it to Goodwill last year.”
    “Oh,” I said. I looked down and touched the buttons on my vest, which had looked so pretty and normal when I put it on earlier. I wanted to say to Emily, So what? I tried to call upon the power of Start, to remind myself of that moment when it was just me and the music and a roomful of people loving me and the music.
    But that seemed so far away from me and Emily in this fluorescent-lit cafeteria right now. So I said only, “Oh,” while my friends, Chava and Sally, stared at their celery sticks and said nothing at all.
    So, no, I couldn’t wait to go to Start again.
    On Wednesday evening, as I prepared myself a mug of hot chocolate, I asked my father, “Is it okay for me to spend tomorrow night at Mom’s this week?”
    Dad looked up from his newspaper. “Why?”
    I’d been hoping he wouldn’t ask why . I didn’t mind lying by omission. Like how I’d just never gotten around to mentioning that I spent hours every night roaming the streets of Glendale. But I preferred not to lie directly.
    “Because I have a big history project that I need to finish working on and hand in on Friday,” I answered. “It’s at Mom’s, and it would be a huge hassle to bring it over here.” Dad didn’t respond for a moment. “It’s a diorama,” I offered.
    Dad nodded at that. He knows from experience how big my dioramas can get. “All right,” he said. “I hope Mr. Hendricks appreciates it.” He pulled out his phone and switched the dates on the Elise Calendar, and that was that.
    And it’s a good thing he did, too, because Thursday … Thursday was bad. Thursday, I really needed Start.

 
    6
     
    Sometimes you just have those days. When you know, from the moment you wake up, that everything you touch you will break, so the less you touch, the better.
    Thursday was one of those days.
    My alarm didn’t go off, so I didn’t have time to shower before school. Dad was in a grumpy mood because his band’s show the next week had been canceled, and then he was in an even grumpier mood after I missed the bus and he had to drive me all the way to school. In Chem I realized I had forgotten my lab report, even though I had been working on it until midnight, so that was an automatic ten-point deduction. And then we had scoliosis testing.
    For scoliosis testing, all the girls had to line up in the gym and then go behind a screen, one by one. It was unclear what happened once you went behind the screen. Presumably the nurse checked you for scoliosis, but it was equally possible that she made you recite the alphabet backward or perform an interpretive dance.
    I wound up standing in the scoliosis line directly in front of Amelia Kindl. I could hear her sighing