A week passed, and I stared at the calendar because Christmas was two weeks away, and although I knew Joy expected me to stay at her place and play the loving uncle and grateful brother, I realized I wasn’t going to be able to do that. How could I?
I wasn’t angry with her about the bad dates. I very much doubted she had more than a passing relationship with either of those two men,andI very much doubted she understood the sort of person I was looking to spend time with.
Hell, evenIdidn’t know that one.
I didn’t talk to her about it because there was no point, and I didn’t want her to see how bad it had gotten. I didn’t want her to look me in the eye and see that I was on the edge of official defeat.
It was a Thursday afternoon, exactly seven days since I was left broker than hell and ready to curl up in my bed and never get out again. The bed was still pushed against the wall, and each night, I was put to sleep by the sounds of whining electric cello and the odd little lullaby of power tools.
Right then, where Forrest would have been working, the apartment was quiet. It was strange to think of him gone because he rarely ever left, but I decided to take advantage of the time alone. My sheet music was out, though I hadn’t touched it since Forrest had called it empty, mostly because I knew he was right.
It was a reflection of who I was, and in that moment, I was nothing more than a hollow shell. It was why I hadn’t turned up to the audition. How could I stand in front of those people and show them that I was nothing more than a husk? I was already Nicolai’s castoff. The last thing I wanted to be was the laughingstock of the New York symphony scene.
Still, there was a spark in me. It was a microscopic, burning ember like something living deep in the cold ash that no one noticed. But I felt the bare warmth it gave off, telling me it wasn’t over yet. I hadn’t peaked. I had more to give.
I just needed to find my way back down to that foundation.
Taking out my cello, I sat in the middle of the room and ran through a few of the older pieces I had written while I was a student. I noticed all the painful flaws in them now—awkward transitions and pauses, rising low to high instead of falling high to low to mimic a breath.
But there was something in the music from my untrained past that I was currently lacking.
And I knew exactly what it was: hope.
It was the sort of hope only a young person untouched by how deeply the world could screw them. It was naïve, and something about that made it sort of beautiful.
I played through one of my favorites—the piece that had earned me first chair my senior year and a whole set solo for the spring concerto. I closed my eyes and ran through the notes that had been seared into my soul, but when I hit a bump this time, I moved past it. I smoothed it over.
I changed tempo, I bowed my body and dug my bow against the strings harder. I heard my new pain crashing into my old optimism to create this entirely new emotion that had no name at all. When it was finished, I sat back, slightly out of breath with damp cheeks and blurry eyes.
It wasn’t some musical miracle that would save my life, but it was something. It was a match thrown into the empty pit in my chest, lighting that ember into a burning flame.
“Who wrote that?”
I startled so hard I almost dropped my cello, and it took me a second to steady myself. Forrest’s voice was faint, so I stood up on trembling legs and made my way into the bedroom.
“What did you say?” I asked, though I’d heard him perfectly well.
“That piece. Who wrote that?”
“A seventeen-year-old boy,” I answered.
He laughed. “You?”
I dropped to the edge of my bed, then flopped over and let my hand fall on my chest. My heart was racing like I’d run a mile. “Yes.”
“What happened to that boy?” Forrest asked.
“A lot,” I said. I’d already told him some, but I was feeling fragile in that moment and didn’t want to go any deeper. “I think he’s still there.”
“It sure as hell sounded like it today, sweetheart. There wasfirein those notes.”
I closed my eyes and let his words wash over me. “I’m scared that when I wake up tomorrow it’ll be gone.”
“Or it’ll be a raging blaze,” he said.
I wasn’t sure I could trust myself or my circumstances. Rolling onto my side, I shuffled closer to the wall and pressed my hand against it. It was cool, and I swore I could feel the hollow space between our apartments. I wondered if I hit it hard enough if it would create a hole where I could finally see him.
I was too afraid to explore that thought any further, so instead, I changed the subject.