I was packing up all my sheet music Thursday evening when my phone buzzed.
Jonas: I keep missing you. Is everything okay?
He’d called. Several times. And I hadn’t answered any of them. I couldn’t take personal calls when I was at work, and most of the rest of my time was spent with Sean.
Also, I was a coward. I could have made time to talk to Jonas, but I felt paralyzed where he was concerned. If we talked, then he’d want to get together. If he wanted to get together, I’d have to say no. Then I’d have to tell him why. Then I’d have to explain about Sean. Except that I couldn’t actually explain about Sean, because I was the best of the best friends and I was a vault where Sean was concerned. I couldn’t tell Jonas about him. And I knew that if I got together with him, I’d want to tell him. Or I’d be so preoccupied by not telling him that I would be totally distracted and I just…couldn’t. I couldn’t go make a good impression while I was in the middle of Sean-crisis mode. I couldn’t compartmentalize that well right now.
However, I’d been ignoring Jonas for long enough that I had to say something. So I’m ashamed to say, I blew him off.
Me: Sorry. I’ve been busy with personal stuff. Hopefully I’ll have time to catch up later.
Three dots appeared, showing that he was typing back. And then they disappeared and didn’t show up again. He didn’t respond to my blow-off. Not that day. Not the following day.
♪♫♪
The next few weeks were surreal. I went to work each day and then went to Sean’s house each evening. We spent more time together in those weeks than we had in the last year combined. He was still on narcotics, so he slept a lot during the day but tried to stay awake when I came over. I always made sure that he ate dinner. I counted the number of pills that he had left to be sure he was stepping down off of them, and I kept an eye on the liquor cabinet to be sure that all the levels stayed the same.
It was hard, being this person for Sean. Day after day.
One silver lining was that Naomi had texted me and we’d struck up an odd sort of friendship. She couldn’t talk about her family and I couldn’t talk about my best friend, so at first, we mostly just entertained each other with gifs and memes. Then we realized we had entire lives that weren’t a secret and I found out that she was a structural engineer and she was engaged to a man who lived in a different state. She’d grown up on Staten Island and had never been farther west than Pennsylvania, though she’d visited every state on the east coast.
Talking to her was different from talking with my other friends. I didn’t have to lie to Naomi. Yes, there were names never mentioned and situations never referred to, but we both knew that we weren’t telling each other everything. And we understood why.
Talking to her helped me maintain my sanity more than anything as I juggled a busier work schedule and a full-time patient in the evenings.
Sean and I played games once in a while. We watched TV a fair bit. And we did a lot of singing. I would settle behind his baby grand and play whatever I wanted, and he would sing along. Imagine Dragons, Billy Joel, Adele, the Beatles. Other times I would just play for him. Concertos and three-part movements and movie scores. And he would stop me once in a while, yelling, “Go back! Do that part again. I love that part.”
I played through the accompaniment of all the songs my high school students would be singing at competition. He was less impressed with those but still listened and smiled.
When I would play “Shenandoah,” we would sing it together, the same arrangement we’d sung back in high school.
“You know you don’t have to spend every evening with me,” he said fifteen days into his recovery. I was playing Broadway numbers for him and he was working through some simple hand exercises now that he’d gotten his stitches out.
“Your piano is better than mine. And I don’t have to pay for dinner if I’m here.” I gave him a snarky look.
He snorted. “I love it when you use me for my money.”
“Hey,” I protested, pounding through several bars of “Satisfied” before answering. “I’m paying you back with brilliant musical performances.”
“Play Phantom,” he requested.
My fingers stilled on the keys mid-song as a wave of grief washed over me, unexpected and sharp. “I don’t want to.” I picked up where I’d left off, not wanting to talk about it.
“But I love that one,” he whined.
I had loved that one too. But that was the soundtrack that had been playing in my car the night that Serena died. I hadn’t played it or listened to it since.
I’d never told Sean that.
It was amazing how things that you loved could become things that you hated.
♪♫♪
Sean was off the pain meds. I patted myself on the back for that one. I had been vigilant and made quite a nuisance of myself, but it had been worth it. Sean had even let me get rid of the extra pills.
It had been a full month since the accident. Two weeks with his hand immobilized, and then he’d started physical therapy a week after that. He hadn’t taken many pain killers after the first week, but once he started the therapy, his doctor told him to take some so that he’d be willing to really move it.
So I held my breath, hoping his body wouldn’t latch on to it.
Giovanni, the physical therapist, would come to the house each day while I was at work, so I was able to skip any drama that resulted from the “torture” (Sean’s word, not mine). A week into therapy, he was pill-free and tolerated Giovanni without complaint.
And finally, I could breathe again. With the pills out of the house, I was no longer in a constant state of DEFCON 1 status. Or was it DEFCON 5? Whichever one was the worst, that’s where I’d been the past month.
Once I felt the immediate threat had passed, I pulled away, disconnecting almost completely from Sean. I had to. As soon as I knew that he was off the meds and back to some sort of work schedule, I was gone. There were things I had to do, a life to be lived, and most of it did not involve Sean.
I went out with Tara and Felicity, celebrating the fact that my “dad” had recovered and no longer needed my help. I was such a liar. But they hugged me and took me out to dinner.
“This band is awesome!” I exclaimed as we sat out on the patio of a downtown restaurant.
Tara looked at me like I was a little crazy. “You usually have better taste in music than that.”
“Yeah,” Felicity agreed. “Are you feeling okay? You’re not usually this complimentary.”
“Are you saying I’m a music snob?”
“No,” she laughed. “You’re just not this enthusiastic most of the time.”
I shrugged. “I guess I’m feeling extra good tonight.” I got to my feet, pulling them both up and forcing them to dance with me even though no one else was.
I let myself sink fully into the joy of normalcy, allowing the weight that had been strangling me for the past several weeks to slip from my shoulders.
♪♫♪
Two days later, I sat with my phone in my hands, nervously drumming my thumbs against the blank screen. I wanted to text Jonas, but I knew that a simple Hey, how ya doin’? wasn’t going to cut it. Plus, he might not want to hear from me.