None of it hit me, not until I walked through the swinging kitchen doors and out onto the floor to prep my setlist for the night and saw that my seat was already taken.
It all hit me then — the dark, empty restaurant, the candles flickering from where they sat on top of the piano, the fact that I was completely alone in a place that should have been buzzing to life right now in preparation for a busy night ahead.
Well, almost completely alone.
Sarah sat at the bench I usually occupied, a soft melody flowing through the space between us as she let her hands glide over the keys. Her eyes were soft, hopeful, and yet I saw the fear in them as she watched me from across the room.
I stepped closer, broaching the circle where the piano sat under the chandelier. It was funny, the way the room was set up, because I was in almost the exact same proximity to her as when we were together in my home — her at the piano, me off in the right-hand corner. As soon as I crossed that threshold, Sarah paused, letting silence fall over us. Her eyes met mine, and I saw goodbye written all over them as I waited for her to speak.
But she didn’t.
Instead, she closed her eyes, blew out a long, steadying breath, and began playing a song I’d never heard before.
The song struck violently to a start, a crescendo of sharp, dramatic notes causing my heart to kick harder in my chest as I watched her play. There was violence in that music, and pain, and sorrow — and she moved with every beat of it. Her shoulders were rounded, relaxed, her fingers flying over the keys as she brought the unfamiliar song to life. Her face screwed up as the harmony shifted, the volume of her playing softening in a gradual decrescendo until she stopped playing altogether.
She took a long rest, eyes fluttering open and meeting mine. She held my gaze, and the softest, sweetest smile touched her lips as she started playing again.
The new melody was strong and hopeful, romantic and sweet, like what you would imagine if you were strolling along the river boardwalk with a lover’s hand in yours, the moon full and bright above. It felt like home, and adventure, like something fresh and new and somehow familiar all at once. I wanted to pull her up from that bench and dance with her, that’s how powerful the music was.
Instead, I leaned a hip back against the low wall that circled the piano, watching as the shadows from the candlelight danced over her face, instead. She pulled her gaze back to her hands, moving with them as the song progressed, and the longer she played, the more dramatic it became.
Her fingers pounded the keys in a crescendo, the brazen forte making me suddenly feel uncomfortable, like I was in danger or on the brink of a discovery I didn’t want to make. I felt every flex of her body as it moved with the beat, every tap of her foot on the pedal, every dramatic scale she took me on.
And it was then that I realized there was a reason the song was an unfamiliar one, one I’d never heard before.
It was because she’d written it.
I didn’t know what it meant — her being here, the song she was playing — but I couldn’t fight against the hope that bloomed in my chest. I tried to tamp it down, to quiet it and hold onto the moment for whatever it was worth. She’s leaving, I reminded myself. But still, hope bloomed.
When she played the last note, long and soft and bittersweet, it felt like the music you’d hear at the end of the saddest movie you’d ever watched in your life. It was laced with goodbyes, with regrets and sorrows.
And still, somehow, hope bloomed.
Silence fell over us like a sheet being spread out over a bed, the fabric slowly descending, surrounding us in a bubble of the last note before it deflated altogether. And when the quiet blanketed us completely, Sarah stood, the fear back in her eyes as she took a careful step away from the piano and toward me.
“Did you write that?” I asked.
Sarah nodded.
“Did you write it for me?”
Her face broke at that, tears welling in her eyes as she rolled her lips together and nodded again. And that hope that had bloomed slowly in my chest exploded like a comet, searing a path across my heart.
“I’m so sorry, Reese,” she finally said, eyes brimmed with unshed tears, the candlelight making them glisten like diamonds. “I’m sorry I left you that night, that I believed you would ever hurt me, that I took something so personal and shoved it in your face the first chance I got. I wanted to hurt you, Reese. I did. And I’m so sorry.”
I frowned, torn between the urge to reach for her, to pull her into me and soothe her and the urge to run from her all at once. There was the proof, her admittance that she wanted to hurt me.
And she had.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
“I don’t have any excuse for the way I’ve behaved,” Sarah spoke after a long pause, inhaling a deep gulp of oxygen before blowing it out again. “None that matter or make up for anything. But, I want to explain, if you’ll listen. God knows I didn’t listen to you, so I can’t blame you if you walk out of here right now without letting me say another word.”
She paused, like she was waiting to see if I’d bolt. When I didn’t, she continued.
“Reese, from the very first time I met you, I couldn’t fathom a world where you could ever be interested in me. The way I see myself, the damage I feel like a floor-length gown that I permanently wear, it stops me from every even considering a life where I could be happy with someone else. So when things escalated between us, I ran away. I ran because all I could see was him. All I could picture when someone touched me was Wolfgang.”
I swallowed hard, jaw clenching tight at the acid laced in her truth. I wanted to murder him, to torture him until his last breath to make him pay for what he did to Sarah.
But more than that, I wanted to hold her until she realized that what he did had nothing to do with who she was.
“And then, we set boundaries again. We fell back into our roles.” Her lip quivered. “But I couldn’t let you go. No matter how I insisted that you should go on a date with Jennifer, that you should move on with a woman your own age. I hated it. And when I showed up at your door that night, when I broke in your arms, I realized that even if it didn’t make sense and even if you were completely out of my league, I wanted you, anyway.”
I had to fight back a laugh when she said I was out of her league, like I was even on the same playing field as someone as beautiful, smart, and strong as she was.
“But it was still there, Reese,” she said, taking a tentative step toward me. “That voice in my head that said I wasn’t good enough, that said I was only good for one thing — my body. I’d quieted it, I’d tried to silence it, even. I was trying to listen to you, to my heart, to anything other than that voice. But all it took was one conversation with Jennifer Stinson to unleash its power again.”
I frowned. “Jennifer?”
Sarah nodded. “She was here that night, before our fight. At the bar. And she told me you’d slept with her, that your hands had touched her, that just like every other woman, you had used her as a distraction from Charlie before tossing her away.”
I fumed at that, taking a step toward Sarah as my neck heated. “I never touched her. Ever.”
“I know,” she said quickly. “I know that now. Hell, I think I even knew it then. But I couldn’t see it, couldn’t hear the truth past the voice in my head. Jennifer told me you’d do the same to me,” she said, eyes tearing up again. “And then we went home, and you told me about Jason, and that voice inside my head just… it took over. It screamed that everything Wolfgang had said about me was right.”