A shiver racks my body, and my heart shakes in my chest. “You haven’t played since that day, have you?” I whisper.
He nods, then exhales a sharp breath. “I don’t know if I can.”
I push from the table, take one step until I’m sliding onto the fake leather seat beside him. Our feet touch when I reach for the sustain pedal, and I can feel Chase’s curious eyes watching me at his side.
“Was it this?” I ask, pressing down on the sustain and playing out the riff I’d heard Jade drill more than a hundred times that same day.
He draws breath.
“Ye-yeah, how do you…what the fuck, Laik, you play?” Chase can barely hold on to his surprise, and he can barely string his words together, too.
Shaking my head, I drag my sweaty palms over my thighs, sucking back air. “No.” I leave it at that, because I don’t, my mother loved the piano before she lost herself to the drugs. Shehad taught me little pieces here and there, tried to get me into it before my father died, but after his death, she lost everything—her music, her will to teach me, her entire vibrant soul. Devil’s Peak took that from her, and the town took her from me.
“Chase…” I can’t look at him when I speak. “That same day, after you dropped Jade off, she dragged this outside with us before we started getting ready for the night. I had no idea what she was doing, she’d never touched the keys here before.”
Chase sounds reluctant to ask, “Did she add anything to it?”
When I turn to look at him, I notice the way his dark eyes seem to be almost begging for something. Something his sister, and my best friend, may have left behind.
Tears well in my eyes. I nod.
He drops his chin to his chest, and I listen to him sniff and I know this is breaking him.
He jerks his chin to the keys. “You remember it, Laik?”
I reach for his hand, and he takes mine, cupping it so tightly. He brings it to his mouth, and something wet touches my skin when he drags it back over his cheeks.
“Yes,” I whisper.
“Show me.” His voice is broken, and I feel myself whimper through a crackled cry when he pushes a kiss to the top of my hand and lays it over the dusty keys. “Please, show me.”
My body is racked with cries, quivering violently, though I suck back a breath, find the strength.
Chase stands and steps away, takes a seat on the coffee table. His elbows to his knees, his hands fisted at his mouth, his eyes bloodshot and bleeding when he nods.
I turn away, and even though my hands are riddled in cuts, I play the pieces of herself that Jade had left behind, and when I’m done, I let the final note ring out and turn to Chase.
Tears roll down my face. I push off the seat and step into his arms. He reaches for the back of my thighs, drags me betweenhis legs and settles me over him until I’m straddling his lap. He’s not crying outwardly, but he buries his head into my thumping chest, and I hold him, breathing over the top of his head.
“She left this for you, Chase.” I reach for his face, cup his now wet cheeks, bringing his deep brown eyes to mine. “What are you going to do with it?” I ask, lips quivering.
Chase bites into his bottom lip, reaches for the lock of hair laying over my eyes. He curls it behind my ear, lets his thumb trace down my throat, right where my vocal cords sit.
“I’m going to make sure everyone hears it,” he whispers.
And I press my lips to his mouth, more tears rolling down my cheeks. I sob quietly, “I think that’s exactly what she would want.”
But something silent and invisible presses down, tugging between us. A dark cloud.
Chase doesn’t kiss me back, and I furrow my brow, watch him take my hands from his cheeks.
“But there’s something I needyouto hear first.” Chase’s voice sounds soft and reassuring.
I shiver, violently. “Wh-what?”
Chase closes his eyes, inhales, and on his exhale slowly peels them open. And the way he trembles now, terrifies me.
My eyes oscillate frantically between his, my spine turning hot, sweaty.
