I sighed, hating the truth in his words — hating the fact that he saw my fear even more than the fact that it was there at all.
“It’s not that I’m scared of it,” I tried to explain, watching his hands so I didn’t have to meet his eyes. “But, it feels… foreign. Sometimes. Like, someone who used to be my best friend, but now is so different, I hardly recognize them. And everything that used to come easy, doesn’t.” I shook my head. “Nothing comes easy anymore.”
Reese nodded in understanding, finishing the piece before he let his hands hit his thighs. He turned, eyes flicking between mine. “It won’t be like that forever.”
“How can you be so sure?”
He cracked his neck, debating his next words. “Well, for one, because you won’t give up on it. If you were going to give up, you would have already. And, for two, because this is a completely normal reaction to an RIS injury. Your body has failed you, betrayed you, and you don’t know how to respond to it. It makes you feel out of control, and no one likes that.” He smiled softly. “But, it will get better. We have work to do, but we’ll get there. If you trust me to help you, that is.”
Trust.
I hated that word.
I hated the sick wave that rolled through me at the sound of it.
“Take this home with you,” he said, reaching for the book propped on the piano. He shut it, handing it to me. “Try this piece a few times over the weekend. I don’t want you to get mad at it, though. I want you to really take it apart, try to understand it — why it was born, the emotions behind it, what your audience should feel as you play it. We’ll try it again next week and see how you feel about it then.”
I nodded, taking the book from his hands. “What if I still suck?”
He chuckled. “You don’t suck now, so don’t worry about that. Just, try to open yourself to the music, instead of just playing it. You can read the notes. You can execute the music. But, try to take it a step further. Try to connect with it, like a human instead of a song.”
I had to fight back the urge to laugh at that. If he only knew the only human relationship I’d been able to keep intact was with my mother, he’d have chosen a different analogy.
“Honestly, I think I can connect with it easier if I think of it as music. I’m not the best with humans.”
Reese laughed again as he stood, knocking his knuckles on the piano. “That makes two of us, kid.”
Kid.
I should have hated that, too.
But for some reason, it left me warm.
Reese
Saturday nights were like a concert at The Kinky Starfish.
With the weather warming up, guests were alive with the promise of summer, and I tapered my playlist to match the mood. Unlike in the blistering cold of winter, guests now would occasionally get out of their seats and dance on the small floor beside me, bringing my music to life with their movements. I smiled and bounced along to the melody of Mozart’s Sonata 17, nodding to a young girl hopping around on the dance floor before scanning the room. All the faces were bright with laughter around the restaurant.
It was almost enough to make even my poor, cold soul thaw a little.
Until I saw table thirty-two.
It took every ounce of brainpower I had to keep playing, to not miss a note when I realized who occupied that back corner booth. Of course, it was Charlie’s eyes that captured mine first, and she gave a smiley twiddle of her fingers when she realized I’d finally seen her. My smile was tight in return, and when I glanced at Cameron — her husband — his eyes were hard on me in warning.
And he held their youngest child in his lap.
I sniffed, tearing my eyes away and playing the last of the song with more gusto than was necessary. I took artistic liberties, plucking away at the keys with a fierce determination to finish the song and get the fuck off that floor for my break.
They were supposed to be having dinner at home. I wasn’t supposed to have to deal with Charlie until Monday, until we were back at school, in the space we shared.
It felt like I’d never truly escape her, not even for a weekend.
When I finished the piece, I stood with a quick bow and brief announcement that I’d be back in twenty. The young girl on the dance floor pouted before her mother steered her back to the table, and I was set on making a beeline for the back kitchen door where a cigarette had my name on it.
But I didn’t make it two steps before I was stopped.
“Reese Walker,” a smooth, familiar voice said as a warm hand grazed my arm. “Well, well. Fancy meeting you here.”
Jennifer Stinson smiled back at me, in almost the same way she had the first night we’d met. That had been in my first couple of months back in Mount Lebanon, and she’d asked for a dance at Charlie’s parents’ annual fundraiser. Of course, Charlie had been all I could see that night.
Not that much had really changed.
Jennifer still had the same, sultry blue eyes and thick lips — the bottom one with an indent that I was sure drove every man she talked to absolutely insane — and her long, curly blonde hair waterfalled down her back as she stepped closer. Her perfume was tangy and sweet, like a citrusy fruit, and I wished I could be a normal man for once. I wished I could be the man I was before I came back to Mount Lebanon, before my family died, before everything inside of me capable of love or lust was completely obliterated by Hurricane Charlie.
But I felt nothing.
“Nice to see you again, Jennifer. It’s been a long time.”
“Indeed, it has,” she said, her eyes crawling their way back up to my face. “I know you’re working now, but are you free later this week? I’d love to grab a drink, catch up.”
I swallowed down the sticky knot in my throat, the same one that emerged any time I thought of a situation even remotely close to a date. “I’m pretty busy with school and evening lessons right now,” I tried. “But maybe once the semester finishes.”
“I’m going to hold you to that,” she said, not fazed in the slightest by my dodge. She held out her hand, red lips curling into a smile. “Phone?”
I cleared my throat, so desperate for a cigarette now that I shoved my phone into her hand. She typed out her number, saved it, and handed it back to me.
“Talk to you soon, Reese Walker.”
With that, she winked, slowly and purposefully swinging her hips as she made her way back to her table.
I just blew out a long breath, picking up my pace toward the kitchen. And I was almost there, almost through that swinging door when my path was blocked again.
By the one person I was trying to avoid.
“Hey, you,” Charlie beamed, her cheeks pink like she’d just been walking in the snow when it was nearly eighty degrees outside. She held a smiling Daisy on her hip, and my heart squeezed painfully in my chest at the sight of them together.
At the sight of what could have been mine.
“I know you’re on break, but I just wanted to bring Daisy over. She’s been trying to wiggle out of my lap all evening to come say hi to you.”
Charlie grinned down at Daisy, who was holding out two chubby hands toward me. And I loved that kid, I did — but now when I looked at her, I saw Cameron’s eyes instead of my own. I saw the child who brought the woman I loved so much joy, and me so much pain, and I felt like shit that I couldn’t be happy to see her.