My wolf’s eyes flashed in my mind like a bolt of white hot lightning.
“I… I don’t have any of that,” I whispered, mentally shaking him away. “My life has been pretty boring, I don’t really have scars to—”
“I don’t believe that,” Reese interrupted, voice firm. “And you don’t either.”
My mouth zipped shut at that, and I tried to stand taller, but somehow felt rooted so deep I couldn’t even gain an inch of height.
“Watching you play this week, I already know some areas we are going to have to target to help you overcome this injury and get to where you want to be.” Reese leaned one elbow on the railing, holding out his fingers and counting them off with his other hand. “Tension. Technique. Inflection.” He paused. “You know all those things, too. Those are the easy lessons, the ones you can go home and practice and see a gradual improvement in each week.”
Reese faced me, the warmth of his breath mixing with the night air that brushed my nose. There was a bright moon above us, and it cast his face in a haunting mix of glow and shadows, light and dark.
“But, do you know what you need to overcome more than anything?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“Vulnerability.”
That word hit me like an anvil, so much so that my shoulders sagged and my knees buckled from the pressure. Every part of my body reacted to the possibility that I might feel what Reese was saying, that I might open up that box that hid everything painful in my life, the one I’d worked so hard to put a lid on and shove away in a figurative attic. Those monsters stirred from inside that box, their growls rumbling through me, and I felt myself gearing up to fight them back into that box should they even think about escaping.
Reese must have sensed my unease, because he stepped a little closer, lowering his voice and his gaze to meet mine. “You sit at that piano, and I don’t know who you are or what you’ve been through.” He held up his hands. “And I don’t care to know, because you don’t make me curious enough to want to know. You play it like an instrument instead of like an extension of yourself,” he explained. “And that’s what is holding you back from where you need to be. From where you want to be.”
I swallowed, finally garnering enough strength to straighten my spine. “But, I’ve played my entire life. I was the top of my class. I have the technique, I play with emotion,” I argued. “I once made my entire class cry with an original piece. I—”
“You were. You once did. Both past tense,” Reese said. “I don’t doubt that you moved your classmates with the way you played, because you don’t play like the twenty-one year old girl you are.” He rolled his lips together, debating his next words. “You play like a woman twice my age, Sarah, but like a woman trying to hide instead of trying to share her experiences with the audience. And that’s what they want from you — they want to feel your pain so they know their own is valid. Just like any kind of art, any kind of expression…” He shrugged. “We are all just humans who want to feel like we’re not alone, even when we are.”
My eyes welled more with that, and I hated that my emotion was threatening to leak out without permission. I sniffed it back, nodding in understanding as I digested his words. I was more terrified in that moment than I had been the first time I’d been inside his house alone with him, or than I had been with my hand wrapped around my pepper spray on the way up here. Because although he was telling me I was hiding, what he didn’t realize was that he also told me that he saw me, anyway.
And that scared the hell out of me.
“I’m just telling you now,” he said after a moment, his eyes still fixed on mine. “If you want to work with me, you’re going to have to be willing to sit down at that piano and bleed.” He pointed to the empty space next to us, as if the piano were right there, waiting for my decision. “Are you ready to do that?”
My heart squeezed painfully, begging me to say no.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“Are you?”
I cleared my throat, nodding more emphatically as I quieted my pleading heart. “Yes, I’m ready. I want to do this. I…” I shook my head. “There is no other option for me, Mr. Walker. The piano is my life, it is an extension of me… even if I have lost a little of that connection.” I hated the truth behind that, my chest tightening with the admission. “I know I have to work, and I’m ready to do whatever it takes to make my dream a reality. Even if it is outrageous. Even if every odd is stacked up against me like a brick wall.” I blew out a long breath that seemed to unwind every ounce of tension around my ribcage. “Whatever it takes, I’m in.”
It wasn’t just for my father, who died before he could see me on that stage in New York City. And it wasn’t just for my mother, who had worked harder than anyone I knew to put me through school, only to watch me drop out a semester before graduation. I owed it to both of them, to my entire family — but more than anything, this was for me.
If I didn’t have the piano, I didn’t have anything at all.
And I wasn’t ready to die.
Reese watched me closely, his eyes flicking back and forth between mine like he was searching for any hint of doubt in that statement. Seemingly happy with not finding any, he nodded. “Good.”
Once his gaze was off me and back on the city, I let out another breath, releasing even more tension, as impossible as that seemed. We were both quiet, shifting until we faced the railing again, and I let my thoughts run wild with everything he’d just said as the silence stretched between us.
“Reese?” I asked after a long while.
“Mmm?”
I swallowed. “You said this is a painful place for you to be… why?”
Reese let out a long breath through his nose, like he suspected the question was coming and was almost disappointed that it actually did.
“I was in love with a married woman,” he answered nonchalantly, like he’d just said it was a nice night out. Then, he sort of laughed. “I still am. And this place reminds me of her, along with about a dozen other things that hurt.”
A thick, sticky knot formed in my throat and I couldn’t swallow it down as I stared at Reese. Maybe it was his hurt still permeating off of him and into me, but there was an icky twist of my stomach when he said he still loved her.
“I’m so sorry, Reese.”
He shrugged. “Don’t be. I’m the idiot who didn’t leave her alone when I should have. She was married, but she wasn’t happy. I thought I could save her,” he said, voice low. “I thought I could make her happier.”
I finally found the will to swallow. “She’s lucky, to be loved like that.”
Reese’s brows pulled inward, and he shook his head. “God, I’m sorry I told you all of that. I shouldn’t have… I brought you here to illustrate a point, not to vent about my own stupid shit.”
“It’s okay, really,” I assured him hurriedly. “I… I know I’m just your student, but I appreciate you sharing with me.” I swallowed when his eyes found mine. “Maybe it will help me share, too. Eventually.”
Reese nodded, but I could see it in his eyes that he was disappointed in himself, or maybe in the fact that he was still hurt by this woman who didn’t return his love. “Thanks for listening.”