Sleep had evaded me like that certain pencil you couldn't find when it mattered the most. On the plus side, replaying the entire concert in my head and reliving the lights and sounds felt like a good use of my time. My senses remembered everything from yesterday—something I loved about being hypersensitive. After dropping off Nora at a bus stop from which she could navigate to her home, I'd driven back to my apartment, wrote the beginnings of a new song, and searched the house for stock paper before realizing I'd run out of my diorama supplies. My markers had also dried out. That might have explained why I dreamt of city planners criticizing the drab colours of my paper metropolis.

Since I woke up late the next morning, it meant some frenzied hours of catching up to my regular morning routine: an outdoor walk, working on my songs, going to my Kumon workplace, and cooking tender shrimp for gỏi tôm--a quick Vietnamese salad with carrot and radish strips. Eating it with my never-ending supply of giant lobster crackers was my Friday celebration.

And just when I thought this would be the extent of disruptions to my schedule, someone messaged me on Instagram.

PHIONA: Hello Tai. Thanks for filling in for me during the show on such a short notice. I liked your songs; I can see you made them with a vision, and I respect that. I'd be up to work with you as your music manager if you're interested. You can find information about my qualifications on my website. -Phiona

I covered my mouth, inhaling the semi-sweet and salty flavours of shrimp that stained my hand.

"They're the same person?" I asked myself dumbly. With my sticky salt-covered fingers, I compared DeFye's picture with Phiona's Instagram. But when I really looked at her face, I recognized the same hairline and shape of the eyes. It made sense though, separating your administrative career from your creative one. Brand image mattered.

Something nagged at the back of my mind. But my mind raced, and since that thought couldn't keep up, it was left in the dust.

Phiona—as DeFye—had sung some of her traditional soca pieces at the Elizabeth Theatre, fused in with the modern rhythms of rap. Her music featured bittersweet harps, guitar and drums.

Anticipation grew like a helium balloon inside me. As I took another bite of shrimp, I felt like I was on the edge of a cliff, ready to fall into the endless sea below. But for the first time, there was the possibility that I could fly, too.

—

One week and a bunch of text messages later, I was racing to the university's snowy campus to meet Rajethiran. I was seventy-nine minutes late. Sticking to a change in my schedule was hard, and my past friendships had gone down in fire after I failed to show up on time. Over time, I gathered tools like calendars and alarms to help me, but that wouldn't change the way my executive functioning worked.

I bent over to catch my breath, cold air scraping my throat. Rajethiran was nowhere in sight. They'd been adamant about letting them introduce me to Phiona. They promised they would be on time, but since I was already running late on schedule, I couldn't be mad at them either. That didn't make the daunting mound of unpredictability seem any smaller.

Finally the doors swung open to reveal Rajethiran. In one smooth motion, they swung themselves onto the staircase rail, slid down the stairs, tumbled in a safe roll on the ground and popped back up, backpack and all. Icicles snapped from the staircase rail.

With the energy of an adventurer, they blew long strands of hair from their mouth. "I'm sorry about being late. I was cleaning my room and I found the homework that I'd been looking for a couple weeks ago, and...well, I'm sorry."

Such a hypocrite I was. I apologized all the time because I was sincere, yet, when hearing it from others, I had to remind myself that sorry didn't mean they wouldn't do it again. Sometimes, sorry didn't mean they knew what they did wrong. "It's okay. I was late too."

"Then let's go! Are you excited?"

"Yes."

"But you don't look excited," Rajethiran said, disappointed.

"I am."

Rajethiran adjusted their backpack. We walked to my car and got in. Setting up the GPS, I wondered if there was something I'd missed. I never understood banter. Breaking the awkward silence, they continued, "I know how scary it is meeting a new person, so that's why I'm here. I haven't seen her in a while anyway."

"Don't you have exams?"

Beside me in the shotgun seat, Rajethiran huffed, but their lips curved upward. "I'm a risk taker first, a student second."

They seemed content with leaving it at that, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I had to drive in comfortable silence, maybe with the wind whooshing in and the engine running, but I couldn't do it alongside talking.

Driving had its own thrill, but I missed the luxury that came with riding in the backseat. Back when my parents' places of employment switched around a lot, my dad used to drive my mom to work. This was for a couple years after moving to Canada from San Francisco. My parents said they had trouble taking care of me and my three siblings in-between work, and my grandparents had a hard time understanding my needs as an Autistic child. So while my dad was still job-hunting, he'd drive my mom to Mississauga to Toronto at 5 A.M. in the morning with me in the backseat.

I loved going over the Gardiner Expressway because its elevation gave you a sweeping view of Toronto's Waterfront, The water glistening with the early's dawn rays, the buildings looming in the sky like giant Lego blocks, and the roads below that parted and looped together in the only logical manner possible kept me up for the whole drive. Sometimes. My sleep schedule was non-existent because I kept getting distracted by a bunch of stimuli. My parents found it baffling that I had a higher chance of dozing off in the car than at home. All I knew was that the gentle engine's humming soothed me.

Reaching our destination, I pulled up to a one-story bungalow nestled deep in a suburban neighbourhood. A red and black Trinidad and Tobago flag hung from inside a window. Patches of unmelted snow blanketed the wild shrubs leading up to the house's front porch, where a small sculpture of stacked ceramic jars sat. It might have been a fountain.

We approached the front door. Rajethiran rang the doorbell. I adjusted the strap of my guitar case. What seemed like ages trickled by. Phiona and I had exchanged emails where I'd sent her performance videos and she confirmed what I should bring. She told me instruments wouldn't be necessary, but experience told me they liked to hear you sing in person rather than in a video. People didn't say what they meant after all.

"Hold on, coming!" a deep voice called.

On our right, the garage door rattled. A hand appeared and lifted it up, revealing a tall woman with long wavy hair, a dark complexion and a fluffy jacket over her camouflage outerwear.

"Come on in!" Phiona called.

Rajethiran skipped up to their friend, and the two shared a sequence of handshakes. They made it work despite the height gap. I stood off to the side, thrown off by how natural it felt, as if it was greeting a friend instead of a business partner. How did the two meet, I wondered? Was Phiona a teacher or mentor to Rajethiran at one point? Making friends with people much older than you had a different, sometimes easier set of social rules attached.

Phiona led us inside to her living room, which was set up to mimic an informal receptionist area with chairs and a coffee table, but I felt oddly at home. I stroked the textured sofa and pushed the tips of my shoes into the soft Persian rug. A decorative clock with reflective metal petals—were those spoons?—silently told the time on the adjacent wall. Below was a table with angular wooden carvings, where you could see the transition as the carver improved. The last one was a pair of hands holding what looked like a flute.

Phiona slowly swayed from side to side. When we made eye contact, my heart leapt in my mouth and I averted her gaze.

She cleared her throat. "I'm probably more nervous than you. But let's get down to business. What are your goals?"

My mind went blank. "Um, can you explain what your job is actually? Do artists managers help musicians with improving their music? I thought that was the job of a music producer."

"You're right. Artist managers help you book gigs, network, manage your finances, and so on. It depends on the specifications of the client. On the other hand, music producers are the ones refining your music, giving you technical suggestions, and they ensure that your music will be successful in the current industry. But I'm familiar with the guitar, bass and drums—all the instruments I heard in your songs. I am confident in my ability to give you technical feedback without being mean.

"I need to caution you though. Although I have expertise in music as well as marketing, I'm not an instructor. Most of the things I can do are to guide you in the lyrics refinement process."

I could do nothing but nod, reassured but overwhelmed at the same time. Something stupid might come out of my mouth otherwise. Why hadn't I made a list of my goals before coming? Sitting across from Phiona, who also happened to be a rapper on the side, I was at a loss on how to further my own music career.

"Phiona, why don't you show Tai your music studio?" Rajethiran suggestd.

Phiona jutted her thumb behind her. "It's the second room on the right of the stairs. Touch stuff only if you know how to use them, and return everything to the way it was, okay?"

Relieved for a chance to be alone, I thanked her and found the room. Inside was a couch, a keyboard, a microphone, a laptop, headphones, an electric guitar, and a steel drum. Everything was colour-coordinated so the objects blended together in a comforting pastel haze. I walked in and ran my hands over the walls, which were soundproofed with green fabric-wrapped fiberglass panels. When I closed the door, I couldn't hear a word of Phiona's and Rajethiran's conversation.

"Wow," I said.

This studio spoke of my future. Where my passions could materialize around me, where I could feel right in my comfort zone. Still, my doubts lingered.

There was a hard rap on the door. I must have spent more time here than I thought. "Did you have enough time to think it through?" Phiona asked, coming in.

Caught off guard, I fished for an answer. Phiona had her hands on her hips—so that was either a relaxed stance for her personality, or she was waiting for me to say something. I shrugged. "Is it-Is it hard being self-employed? And you're a music manager and a singer, right? How does that work?"

She twitched her lips and leaned against the wall. "For your first question, there's a lot more things to manage on your own, but overall it's easier than putting up with toxic work environments. I used to work with a bigger studio, but I got sick of the drama and left. I studied music in university and played it for my entire life. Guitar, piano, saxophone and drums are my strengths. Most of what you see here are second-hand equipment I got at discounts, so you might find that some parts aren't working, like the lowest C key on the keyboard. I also got help to make this room sound-proofed..." She trailed off. "I might have overdone it, but it's a nice place to rest.

"Oh, and for your second question! Well, the organizers gave me a hard time for being late," she sighed. "I couldn't balance both jobs at once, so I'm toning down my singing side. For now."

Phiona crossed her arms and looked at me. "Is there anything I can do to help you feel more comfortable?"

Anything? "Not canceling things at the last minute, preferably planning a month into advance, and giving me a window of time to show up instead of at a certain time, since I tend to be late. A lot. Like today."

It sucked that no matter how much I studied human interaction, I could only anticipate how horribly it'd gone afterwards.

But she nodded. "That'll do. I need to get my laptop to type this down, otherwise I'll forget..." She nearly left the studio but turned back to look at me. "I don't know what's holding you back, but this is a safe space for everyone, from anywhere, with any identity," she stressed. "Tell me what you need, and I'll do all I can."

—

"See? That wasn't so bad," Rajethiran remarked as they strapped on their seatbelt.

Finally, we were ready to go. I pulled down the sun visor. It was late afternoon, but the sun was nearly setting. "What took you so long with Phiona?"

"Just talking," they mumbled, sporadically bouncing their knee.

"What?"

"Nothing," they snapped, but quickly reined in their anger. "Sorry...exam stress is getting to me."

"Then why did you come?"

"I didn't think you would want me to come," they confessed. "But I said I would, so I did."

I couldn't drive when their nervousness was making me nervous. What could I say besides good luck? "Exams aren't everything. They don't test you on what matters. You have a yoga non-for-profit thing going on too. I think you'll be fine."

They crossed their arms and turned away. "I'm in my last year of my masters degree! And you can't do shit with only an undergrad in kinesiology. Even then, I don't want to think about how others are so much more qualified...they've accepted twice the number of students in my year, and it's not enough to be good. You have to be stellar. But I'll think about it when I get back on campus."

I prayed they didn't look away from the window, because right now, I was invisible. I gritted my teeth and dragged my foot forward. Like emerging from water, my body rippled and reappeared. It was so hard to talk to people. Sometimes it was hard to listen, too.

They threw me a smile that stretched tightly across their face like plastic wrap. I didn't know how long they were looking. "Let's go?"

"Let's go," I agreed.