“You’re doing the chin thing. Before you cry, you do this.” She imitates something with her chin that I refuse to believe I actually do. “It’s very recognizable.”
“I’m not crying. I’m just taking a moment.”
“She’s taking a moment,” Rowan announces to the room.
I look at my apartment, and I realize I keep waiting for the familiar contracted feeling. The checking and adjusting, but it doesn’t come.
Noah’s phone rings. He’s standing by the window with a lamp base. He looks at the screen before he looks at me. It’s a fraction of a second where he checks my face before answering.
“Hey, man,” he says, and steps outside to the landing.
The door doesn’t fully close behind him.
It’s Griffin.
The ache is so familiar by now that I’ve made peace with it. It isn’t an empty place. It’s a warmth that sits there quietly and waits. I haven’t reached out. He hasn’t either. I meant what I said in his kitchen. I want to show up to whatever comes next as the full version of myself, not the version that’s still learning what that means. I want to walk through that door having built the thing I said I needed to build.
I look at the yellow wall.
I’m nearly there.
Noah comes back in and catches my eye. We both smile.
“Shit.” I check my phone. “I’m late. I have a rehearsal.”
“Now?” Rowan looks at the boxes. “We just got here.”
“I know, I know.” I grab my keys from the counter and find my violin case by the door. “Be good sports and start unpacking. Love you.”
The responses that follow me out the door are a string of curses. I’m laughing as I take the stairs.
“Piper Callahan!” My mother’s voice floats down the stairwell. “We’ll see you at the concert tomorrow night! Break a leg!”
I hit the ground floor and push out into the afternoon. My violin case is in my hand, and my keys are in my pocket.
I have a rehearsal. I have a concert tomorrow. I have a new apartment.
I have a life I built from the bottom up that looks a lot like the one I would have chosen if I’d been choosing the whole time.
I break into a jog. I’m late, but I’m going somewhere.
That’s the thing.
I’m always going somewhere now.
Fifty-Two
The backstage hallway smells like rosin and hairspray.
Musicians mill around, tuning their instruments. Cathy is marching up and down like a general with a clipboard, shouting things like, “If you’re not ready, pretend you are!” and “Smile with your eyebrows. Your faces are useless to me!”
I’m dressed in a black fitted jumpsuit with a cinched waist and simple heels. My makeup is soft but bold enough that I feel present in my own skin. I can breathe here.
“Piper!” Cathy calls, waving me over. “You’re on for the solo after the second movement. Don’t be late. Don’t faint. Don’t embarrass me.”
“I’ll do my best,” I say.
She pats my cheek like I’m her prodigal child returned from war. “Good girl.”
