He raises his brows. “Easier said than done.”
“Yeah. No shit. But what other choice do I have?”
In the silence that follows, I know what he’s thinking: I can make the same choice my mother did. I can quit. I can let music fade, then I can let everything else fade, too.
But that’s one thing I get about my mom now.
She didn’t quit. When she stopped playing, she didn’t lose music. Even as lupus stole her strength and her focus and—ultimately—her life, she still had music to wrap herself up with at night. I remember hearing the sound of old Liszt recordings drifting from behind her shut bedroom door, my mother humming softly along, even when she only had days left to live.
Music will always be there. Music is a constant, a friend that never gives up on you, and I’m not going to give up on it, either. Even when MS steals my hands, it won’t be able to steal my heart.
“I’m going to be okay,” I tell him. “I mean, I’m going to win this thing, obviously.” I laugh. “But even if I don’t…I’ll still be okay.”
“Big change from the way you were talking two weeks ago,” he says. “Who are you, and what did you do with my Goldie?”
I grin, and all of a sudden, my chest feels full to bursting—I’ve missed seeing my dad’s face, and I didn’t realize how much until just this second. I’ve missed the way his eyes crinkle at the corners when he smiles, so many lines it looks like his skin is crumpled paper. I’ve missed the faint pattern of vitiligo around his mouth and nose, the gray threaded through his hair like fairy dust.
“Still here,” I tell him. “Just trying to be a grown-up about things, I guess.”
He pulls me into another one-armed hug, lips pressing a kiss to my temple. “You’ll always be my little girl,” he murmurs.
And I know that to him, that’s true.
As for Jamie, I hardly saw him at all last night. Celia texts me to say she’s secured us a practice room before my dad’s even finishedsettling in. And she keeps me there until nearly midnight, until finally even she has to admit that a good night’s sleep will serve me better than another six renditions of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30.
Jamie’s at the keyboard when I get back, noise-canceling headphones crammed over his ears; he doesn’t even look up when the door falls shut behind me. I creep past as unobtrusively as I can, stripping off my clothes and crawling into bed in my underwear, burying myself as deep under the duvet as I can.
I don’t know how anyone is supposed to sleep on a night like this. My phone has been going off with congratulatory messages ever since the list dropped online, and I haven’t been able to bring myself to respond to a single one besides Cessy’s. There’s no room in my brain or body for anything but the buzzing crescendo of fear and elation that all but consumes me.
The sound of Jamie’s playing is a dull percussion, the actual music filtered into his headphones and inaudible. It’s impossible to sleep listening to that, but I can’t bring myself to throw a balled-up takeout napkin at him, either. So I just watch from my position under my blanket fort, until finally he lets out a heavy sigh and pushes his headphones down around his neck.
“Don’t freak out, but I’m right behind you,” I say.
And of course he jumps, startled, and I’m grinning by the time he twists around to look at me properly. He looks pale and slightly waxy. I wonder if he’s even bothered to eat today.
“How was your practice?” he asks.
“It was okay. I’m dying of anxiety, but okay.”
“At least you’re going in first session tomorrow,” he says. “Get things over with.”
“Yeah. I guess.” I’m honestly not sure that there’s a better or worse time to play. I’m going to be equally panicked either way.And even if I get my own performance done first thing, I’ll just spend the rest of the day overanalyzing it and comparing it to everyone else’s, trying to see how I measure up.
Nope. Tomorrow’s going to be fucked, period.
He stretches his arms overhead, cracking his spine—I try not to visibly cringe—then stands and strips off his own clothes, crawling into bed after me in just his boxers. His body is like a furnace when he curls in close, but his hands are icy cold as they settle against my spine.
I don’t even care. I bury my face in the crook of his neck and breathe in the musky, steadying scent of him.
“We’re going to do great,” I say, as much to convince myself as him. “We made it this far. That’s enough. Even if we don’t place. We made it this far.”
He just presses a kiss against the top of my head and doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to; I know what his mind is doing, circling around the same rigid demands he’s placed on himself since day one, convincing himself that nothing short of first place is enough. That until he’s proved himself on this stage—on every stage—he doesn’t really belong.
If we fell asleep right now, we’d still get five hours of rest before needing to wake up for breakfast and warm-ups and hair and makeup. But we make love anyway, all but silently, chasing the heat of each other’s bodies with both hands and mouths. Afterward, we lie tangled up with the sheets kicked down around our ankles, sweaty and breathless. I close my eyes and wish it was as easy as just willing myself to sleep.
I wish that I could ignore the electric feeling that zips down my spine when I tip my head against his.
“It’s gonna be fine,” Jamie says, like he can hear what I’m thinking. “No matter what. We’re both gonna knock it out of the park. And by this time tomorrow night, it’ll all be over.”
