Chapter12
Ipretended my future wasn’t on the line for the entire day before the audition. It was easy with Forrest on the other side of the wall. He said nothing about my piece, and while I thought that was going to gut me, it allowed me space to unwind and center myself before the big moment.
He played me his favorite songs instead. He gave me long, strangely beautiful histories of all the punk bands he was obsessed with. He described in intimate detail the horse he’d carved for his brother when he was thirteen, and how that spawned a hobby that had turned into something more.
I still didn’t know exactly what he did for a living, but I knew it was art. I knew he worked with his hands. I knew that texture and weight and sensation were more important to him than the way things looked.
He ordered delivery—sandwiches from the deli—and when a pastrami with mustard on rye showed up at my door, I laughed until I cried.
“I’m too afraid to eat it,” I told him.
“Baby, never be afraid of that.”
We napped, we jerked off one more time, then we had dinner. I listened to him cook pasta and felt the smallest ache because I wanted to be there with him. I wanted to sit at his table and let him feed me bites and kiss me between them. And I believed with every ounce of my tiny, fragile heart that he wanted it too.
But neither of us approached the line again.
We curled up in bed, and I stared across the room at my cello and the stack of music tucked securely in the folder sitting beside it on the rickety dresser. Weighting it down was the wooden box holding my rosin, and the cello that was meant to grip it was in my hand.
I couldn’t stop running my fingers over every dip, every groove, every flaw, and every perfection.
“I’m scared,” I finally said. I knew it was nearing midnight, and I knew that on his schedule, Forrest was nowhere near ready for sleep. It was a comfort knowing I could open my eyes at any point and he’d be there. “What if I fail?”
“Then you try again,” he said simply. “I know your music, Jules. I know the pieces of you that you’ve sacrificed for it. If they don’t see that now, someone will.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, and my uncle’s voice rose in my memory. “I have to tell you something.”
Forrest hummed. “You’re married?”
“What?”
“Engaged?”
“Forrest—”
“You have owl eyes.”
I laughed and rolled closer, thunking my head against the wall. “No. I don’t have owl eyes. They’re regular bluehumaneyes.”
“What’s regular blue?” he asked.
“Like… the taste of mint,” I said. “You know that icy rush from Christmas candies? The kind that makes your whole body shiver?”
“I know it,” he said very quietly. “Jesus, you do that so well.”
I leaned up on my elbow. “Do what?”
“The way you talk about things? Tastes and textures. Scents, and warmth, and cold. Why didn’t you tell me they’re blue like the sky?”
I bowed my head. “I don’t know.”
He said nothing, and I wasn’t sure if maybe I offended him or not, but I didn’t think so. The silence felt comfortable.
“What did you want to tell me before?” he asked, and I startled out of my thoughts.
It seemed wrong to tell him now that my uncle was selling the building and that I’d be forced to move. I didn’t want to end things like that. Not tonight. “It’s nothing,” I told him. “Nothing that important anyway. We can talk about it later.”
“If you’re sure,” he said.