“Shit,” I mumble, and it’s my turn to grip Marigold’s hand too hard, my throat swollen with the wet, hot throb of my own heart.
“Sixth place,” the emcee says, “goes to Bazyli Dunajski, Poland.”
Backstage, only a few people manage to clap, although some do pat Dunajski on the shoulder as he heads toward the wings, beaming, to accept his prize. Nausea crawls in the back of my throat like an insect. Where would I even throw up right now, if I had to? Maybe I could just puke politely behind a curtain and clean it up later.
“Fifth place: Naoki Yoshida, Japan.”
Four places left. Four chances to win. Or at least, not want to die.
My view of the stage is blurry, as if I’m trying to squint through tears—even though I’m not crying. Can your optic nerve just…shut off from sheer anxiety?
“Shit,” I mutter, and Marigold’s hand tightens on mine.
Naoki was a sure thing, anyway. And I heard Bazyli was great. I should have watched the other performances. What if I have no idea where I actually stand in the rankings? HowcanI know? Out of seventy-five participants, I haven’t seeneveryoneplay. What if my calculus is all wrong? I’d thought Xinyan was a sure thing, after all, and she hadn’t made it past the second round.
“Fourth place…”—Jesus fuck god please—“…Marigold Gensler, United States.”
“Fuck!” Marigold exclaims, and something electric bursts in my chest. All at once, that dizzy fear is gone as Marigold twists to throw her arms around my neck, laughing. I grab on tight, squeezing her whole body as I press a hard kiss against her cheek. “Fuck,” she says again, and I’m grinning, grinning so hard my face hurts.
“Go!” I whisper in her ear. “They’re waiting for you. Go!” And I push her away, still buzzing with adrenaline as she wavers on her feet like she’s about to pass out. I nudge her gently toward the wings, and at last she goes, all but floating toward the stage like she’s walking on clouds.
I wish I had my phone on me so I could capture the elation on her face as the announcer shakes her hand and passes her the bouquet of flowers. She has never looked as beautiful as she does right now.
Of course, now that she’s onstage, I have no one to crush my hand while waiting to hear the remaining three winners.
Third place goes to Iza Krajnc from Slovenia. Second place: Lijing Ming, Canada.
Each time someone else walks past me to go and receive their adulation, the pit in my stomach digs a little bit deeper. One more chance missed. One more prize I didn’t win. One more fucking…failure.
“And first place in the sixteenth annual Stockholm International Piano Competition goes to…James Larson, United States.”
Wait, what?
I can tell people are clapping. Someone slaps my shoulder and says something I can’t hear. There’s only white noise roaring in my ears, crescendoing to a fever pitch.
James Larson, United States.
No way.
Someone nudges me forward, and my legs start to move of their own accord, carrying me out onto the stage and into the white glare of the lights, where a smiling woman hands me flowers and a little trophy shaped like a golden piano. Marigold is beaming at me, her face as radiant as the sun, and I start to walk toward her before the emcee gently pulls me back, keeping me in line. Keeping me next to her. Where the winner stands.
It should feel different. Right? I shouldfeelsomething. I should be elated, overflowing with joy, all but vibrating with it. Instead, I stand there like an idiot while the announcer keeps saying things that my brain doesn’t bother trying to process.
I glance back over at Marigold. She’s still watching me, her own bouquet clutched between both hands.Shelooks happy.Shelooks like she is grateful to be here.
I just feel tired.
Finally it’s all over, and they usher us offstage. Celia is waiting there in the wings, grinning at me like a lunatic.
“I knew it,” she says, dragging me in for a one-armed hug, which is the last thing I expected to get from my grumpy old piano instructor. “You were wonderful, James. Good work. Good work.”
Wonderful. I was wonderful—I’m always so damnwonderful,so wonderful but so soulless, and nobody ever bothers asking why. Why it’s only when I’m on that stage at the restaurant, playing for strangers, that I remember I love piano. When my life feels bracketed into sequences of practice-class-competition-recital-repeat and there’s nothing left for me anymore, nothing left tolove.Because how can you make good music when you aren’t really living? What kind of feeling can you pour into your work when you don’t give yourself time to feel anything at all?
The revelation careens into me fast enough that I’m left reeling, breathless with the power of it. How had I not realized? How, in all these years of dragging myself to lessons, grinding away at my desktop keyboard and in the practice rooms until three in the morning, all those nightmares where I woke up sweaty only to realize I still had to go to class in the morning—
How had I never said it in these simple words:
I don’t want to be here.
