“Uh…a little? Are you fond of frostbite or something?”
He shrugs. “I mean, I am a Midwesterner.”
“I’m vetoing you. Sorry. But you can pick our table, if you want.”
He sighs and performatively rolls his eyes, but hedoespick a table, so really, I won. He chooses the one by the window, where we can sit and gaze out at the icy street as the sun dips closer to the horizon. A few figures bundled up in black hurry past, heads ducked against the breeze. Clearly none of them are Midwestern.
“How are you feeling?” he asks after a minute, once I’ve had a chance to take a sip of coffee and pick at my cinnamon bun.
It’s a heavy question, which Jamie knows. And it’s one that I’m not sure how to answer. “I guess okay. Nothing’s gotten worse in the past few days, anyway. But I still feel like I have a sword hanging over my head.”
It’s impossible to entirely shut out the knowledge that this could be it for me—my final competition, my last chance to prove myself on the world stage. The prospect of going home after this, not to my old life, but to an endless stream of doctors’ appointments and MRIs and new medications with unknown side effects, makes me want to curl up and die.
I have to get through this. Ihaveto.
“I wish I could fix this for you,” he says softly. “It’s so unfair.”
Somehow Jamie always knows the perfect thing to say. NotI’m sorry,no pity-laced platitudes. Just simple validation that yeah, this really fucking sucks. And there’s nothing either of us can do to make it better. Jamie might be the first person on the planet who has heard me talk about something like this andnotmade it all about themselves and how theyJust don’t know what to sayandCan I bring you a meal,like early MS means I can’t make myself a sandwich.
“I’ll be okay,” I say, and manage a smile. The last thing either of us needs right now is to wallow in my misery. “I’d better be, anyway. My prelim performance is tomorrow afternoon.”
“I’ll be in the back row, praying you fail miserably.”
“Oh, don’t I know it.”
And just like that, things are back to normal—at least a little bit. God, I wish they’d just stay that way. I need to worry about piano and Jamie’s jealous streak, not life-and-death-and-disability. Jamie being a little shit is the perfect antidote.
“What about you?” I ask, doing my best to transition us into a new subject as seamlessly as possible. “Are you dying of panic yet, or still trying to pretend your stage fright’s not terminal?”
He lets out a heavy breath. “Oh, you know. I’m practicing so much, I feel like my fingers are gonna fall off. And I keep seeing people around that I recognize and know are fifty times better than I am, which makes the whole thing feel a bit pointless.”
“Hey, now. Don’t count yourself out before we even start round two.”
“Not doing that, don’t worry. I still plan to crushyou,for one.” He gives me that gorgeously crooked smile that made me fall for him, and it finally feels like the weight between us is lifting, my lungs expanding with the first full swell of air they’ve had in a while.
“I think part of the problem is that I still kind of feel like…I dunno. We’ve talked about how I need to get more emotion in my work, but I just don’t…I can’t feel it. Every time I play, it’s like I’m going through the motions, like I’m a machine built to hit the right notes and that’s it. Being here makes it worse. Like if my brain can just focus so hard on the next step, winning the competition, the music is just a stepping stone to get there. It doesn’t have to mean anything else.” He shakes his head. “And that fucking sucks.”
“You’ll get it back,” I say. “Eventually. I really, really do think that. I mean…it’s like I said. Adam has only been gone for two years. There’s no timeline for when you have to get over grief. But maybe one day, you’ll be able to take all that pain and work through itwithyour music, instead of at odds with it.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
I slide my hand over and lace our fingers together against the cold table. His tighten back against mine, holding on like he’s afraid I’ll let go. “For the record…it’s noteverytime you play. I’ve heard you at the restaurant, remember? I know you feel something then. I can tell. It comes out in your music.”
“That’s different,” he says. “There’s no pressure there. It’s not for mycareeror whatever, it’s just for fun.”
“Isn’t music always supposed to be for fun?”
He shrugs and picks at the lid of his coffee cup, flicking his thumb against its plastic edge. “I mean, it’s a job, right? Jobs aren’t fun all the time. I feel like people think you have to enjoy every second of a creative job because you’re doing itfor the passionor whatever,but that’s just not realistic.”
“Sure. But if youhateyour job, you can quit it. You don’t have to go around playing these competitions. If you like playing just for you, there’s no reason you can’t do that.”
His hand stills, and he curls his lower lip under, chewing it with his teeth. I wonder if anyone’s ever suggested that to him before—that he canjust stop.Surely he’s thought about it. He’s best friends with Shrishti Menon, after all: gold standard for sayingFuck itto careers that no longer serve you. But it’s like this is the first time he’s ever considered the possibility ofnottrying to be the number one best pianist in the universe.
“I can’t,” he says after a long moment, finally lifting his gaze to look at me again. “I’ve put too much into this. Half my mom’s money…Adam’s college fund…”
“Money isn’t everything.”
“Easy for you to say.”
