Let Sylvie whisper a quietfuck.
Let Alice say her name, which she ignored.
Then she turned and walked away and didn’t look back until she found Adele, still chatting it up with her new friend Sam.
Chapter 29
It was truly amazing howmuch a string quartet could accomplish without ever really speaking to one another.
Charlotte attributed the successful London leg of their tour—sold-out performances at the Royal Albert Hall, packed lectures at the Royal College of Music—to the fact that the four of them had been playing together for long enough that they instinctively read one another’s body language, moods, cues. That, and they were stellar musicians.
Still, by the time a week had passed and they’d settled into their hotel in Paris, Charlotte had grown weary of Sloane’s silent treatment. Mirian, their manager, had been able to procure sponsors for a lot of their trip, so they each had their own room, which Charlotte normally would have appreciated.
Now, though, as she rolled her bag into the crisp modernity of her room at La Belle Ville, the silence felt oppressive. Granted, she hadn’t really tried to talk to Sloane about all that had happened in Winter River. She wasn’t sure how to broach the subject,and she kept hoping things would naturally smooth themselves over.
After all, Charlotte was…Charlotte. She was reserved, stoic, even a bit prickly at times, and the entire quartet knew this. She rarely shared intimate details about her life, and that had always seemed to work just fine. But as Charlotte unpacked, trying to focus on their performance at the Paris Philharmonic the next day, she knew this time was different.
Sloane was hurt, and it was about more than Charlotte keeping things to herself. It was about Charlotte shutting Sloane out on purpose, when Sloane had done nothing but invite Charlotte in.
She set her toiletry bag on the bathroom sink, stared at herself in the mirror. The woman staring back at her was strong. Self-sufficient. She didn’t need anyone’s approval or help. She didn’t need anyone’s love or kindness, didn’t need permission or forgiveness.
This was the Charlotte Donovan she’d become over the last five years—over the last twenty-eight years, really. A fortress. Impenetrable. Unflappable.
And she was miserable.
True, there were things in her life she loved—her work, her music, the beauty of creating, then hearing that creation unfurl with her quartet. She loved New York, loved Manhattan in the spring, the fall.
But she could love so many places.
She could love so much more than work.
She could love so many more people than just herself.
And what was more, shewantedto. God, she was so fucking tired of herself, of always and only keeping her own company, ofswallowing feelings and fears and convincing herself that by doing so she wasstrong.
She wasn’t strong.
She was a fucking coward.
With Brighton. With Sloane. With her mother, even. Desperate for love but convinced no one would ever fully give it, an insecurity that had only magnified after Brighton left her. Still, she knew it wasn’t Brighton’s fault—or not just her fault, at least.
Brighton had wanted to make Charlotte happy by staying in New York.
She’d always wanted to make Charlotte happy, and Charlotte had let her, over and over again, let her soothe Charlotte, let her make Charlotte feel secure, feel stable, feel loved, to the detriment of her own needs.
Charlotte braced her hands on the cool quartz sink, closed her eyes, and breathed, her forehead breaking out in a sweat.
Because she missed Brighton.
Fuck, she missed her so much. She’d told herself leaving was the right thing to do, a way to love Brighton when she’d failed at doing so before. Brighton was free to follow her own dream, without having to worry about Charlotte and New York and the past.
But, really, Charlotte was running scared.
Running away.
She knew it.
Everyone knew it.
