Sarah had found hers again, even if it was different than before. And I knew more than anyone what it felt like to find that joy again when everything seemed hopeless.
“I know,” I said, smiling at her bouncing joy. “I felt it, your reconnection.”
“Thank you,” she breathed, then her brows tugged together. “That was it, wasn’t it? A sort of… homecoming.”
I smiled wider then. “I think so.”
Her eyes were bright and shining, and she bit her bottom lip against a giant smile before shaking her head, like she was afraid to feel joy over how she’d just played, like she was afraid it wasn’t real.
I knew that feeling, too.
“Any notes?” she asked, a sort of cringe on her face now.
“A few, but we can go over them on Monday. Tonight, be proud of how you played. It was truly magical to watch.”
Sarah narrowed her eyes, like she still didn’t believe I’d enjoyed her performance. I held my steady, confident gaze as her eyes searched mine.
Then, before I could register what I was doing, I pulled my hands from my pockets and opened my arms.
Sarah swallowed, and for the longest time, she just stared at me — like I was a stranger offering her poisoned candy instead of her teacher offering her a hug after a performance. My chest tightened, and I wondered if I’d crossed a line, if I’d assumed it was an appropriate celebration when it wasn’t.
But I wanted to hug her. It didn’t feel wrong to me.
I was just about to drop my arms and apologize when she took a tentative step forward.
Her hands lifted, wrapping around my upper back in a light, awkward graze. I wrapped my own arms around her, and then, with a gentle laugh, her long, slender body relaxed in my arms. Her hands slid up, draping around my neck, and she squeezed me tight, a relieved sigh leaving her lips.
“Thank you, Reese,” she whispered, and it wasn’t until she spoke those words that I realized how close we were, that I felt her presence like a weighted anvil pressing down on me from every angle. “Thank you.”
My hands were on her lower back, and I swallowed as my fingertips brushed the small sliver of skin exposed by the back of her dress. It was the most skin she’d ever shown, and I hadn’t even noticed it until that exact moment that our skin connected. I swallowed, hands splaying over the bare space, reveling in the smoothness of it.
Sarah stiffened in my arms, and her reaction snapped me back to reality.
I pulled my hands away, clearing my throat as we both stepped back from the hug, Sarah’s arms immediately crossing over her chest once they were no longer around my neck. Her eyes flicked between mine before falling to the ground between us, another blush shading her cheeks.
“I haven’t felt that good playing in a long time,” she said. “I think we’re making progress.”
“We are,” I assured her. “You are. And now that school is out, we’ll have more time to work on the areas you’re struggling with. Which, if I’m being honest, aren’t that big.”
“If I want to play at Carnegie, they are. You and I both know it.”
I sobered at that, because as beautiful as her performance had been, Carnegie Hall was a whole other ball game.
“We’ll work on it. Like I said, we have more time now that school is out.”
Sarah’s eyes floated somewhere behind me then. “Are you going to miss it?”
I followed her gaze, a knot the size of a rubber band ball forming in my throat at the sight of Charlie. She had her hands clasped together near her smiling lips as she watched the performers on stage. Even being a mother of two now, she was still so slight, so small, like the birds she loved so much. A familiar pain zipped through my chest, but somehow, it didn’t hurt the way it had even four weeks ago.
When I turned back to Sarah, I tried not to question why.
“Not at all,” I answered.
And it was the truth.
***
I’d never been much for routines.
When I was studying in New York, I’d often skip classes to wander aimlessly around the city, convinced that watching the people who lived there and taking in that concrete jungle for all that it was would have more of an impact on my piano playing than listening to some stuffy professor would. And after, though I had a steady job, I never filled my time outside of work in the same way. Every day was different. To me, routines were synonymous with comfort and complacency, and those two C words were the death of artists.
Of course, after the actual death of my family, everything changed.
I slipped into a routine in Mount Lebanon because I had no other choice. If I didn’t get a grip on something in my life, I was going to float out into space and never come back to Earth. I believed that as much as I believed there was no religious entity that could save a shitty soul like mine. And so, Westchester became my routine. And it wasn’t until last summer that I realized without it, I found myself slipping into old bad habits.
Like drinking before noon and well into the night, or sleeping until most people were eating lunch.
But this summer was different.
This summer, I had Sarah Henderson.
After the recital, we fell into a routine, and I found myself depending on it just as much as I did the one I had during the school year. Every Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday I was with Sarah. Every Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, I was at The Kinky Starfish. If I wasn’t playing piano, I was teaching it. And if I wasn’t with Sarah or at work, I was preparing for the next time I would be.
My time was filled with purpose, and that’s exactly what I needed.
Not seeing Charlie was the icing on that routine cake. It wasn’t that I didn’t love her, that I didn’t want her to be happy, or that I didn’t want to spend time with her family. But something over the past few months had helped me realize that I was far from healed, far from moving on from what had happened between us.
As much as I wanted to be her friend, I wasn’t ready to be her friend. That was just all there was to it.
Still, I wasn’t exactly ready to get out there and start dating, either. Jennifer Stinson was no stranger to my text messages, making sure I remembered that I’d promised her an evening together once school was out. But I’d tried dating in the aftermath of Charlie, and all it’d done was enhance my depression and make me want to throw my phone into a dumpster and set it on fire.
Filling my summer with piano was much more appealing.
So, I kept pushing off the date, telling Jennifer I was wrapped up, but that we’d make it happen. Eventually.
Non-commitment suited me well.
And as for my time with Sarah, it was becoming more and more specialized. We’d still work on technique and tension, on scales — though those were becoming almost obsolete as I gave Sarah more challenging pieces to play. The truth of the matter was that we’d reached a point where it was less about what I could teach her, technically, and more about what she still needed to learn musically.
It was becoming a matter of sensational versus Carnegie Hall phenomenal.
And it was almost impossible to explain the difference until she got there on her own.
“Ugh!” she screamed one afternoon, tossing her hands up in the air before her elbows landed hard on the keys, her face burying between her hands. “I suck. I suck, I suck, I suck.”
I chuckled, taking a seat next to her at the piano. “You do not suck.”
It was a beautiful day outside, the sun shining and a cool breeze cutting through the heat that big star in the sky brought. We had all the windows open, the fresh air sweeping in, but it did nothing to calm Sarah in that frustrating moment.
I’d been there.
She removed her elbows with a pouty lip as I started to play the piece we were working on, one that challenged her reach. “We only have ten fingers to play with,” I said as I played, Sarah’s eyes on my hands. “You know the scales. You know how to get to the notes that need to be played, but some
times, that knowledge works against you. Sometimes, you have to play a little unconventionally to achieve what you desire.”
Her little mouth popped open as my fingers moved across the keys like ice skaters on speed, hands hopping over one another in a way that would have made any piano pedagogue cringe.
“The way I’m playing right now is wrong,” I said, foot tapping on the pedal below us as my fingers stretched and curled. “But no one sitting out in that audience gives a fuck about technique. They care about the music, what they’re hearing, and what they’re feeling.” I nodded toward her. “Close your eyes.”
She did, inhaling a long breath through her nose as she relaxed.
“Listen,” I commanded.
I worked through the piece, taking artistic liberties in my favorite sections, and when Sarah opened her eyes again, they were wide with wonder. She watched my hands to the finish, and kept her gaze on them even after I’d pulled them back into my lap.
“You’re a freak,” she whispered.
I barked out a laugh. “Wow. No need to abuse the teacher, Miss Henderson.”
She rolled her eyes.
“The difference between what you just did and what I just did has nothing to do with me being a freak,” I said, still smiling. “It has everything to do with me playing the piano, versus the piano playing me.”
Sarah frowned, eyeing the musical beast we sat at like it had offended her. I tapped her temple, and she looked back at me.
“You know how to play,” I said. “You know the music, the scales, the keys, the notes. You have all of that knowledge, but you don’t trust it. You think about it every time you sit down to play instead of trusting that your fingers will catch up to your mind if you just let it run free.” I shrugged. “Who cares if the way you play isn’t technically correct, if it leaves the audience stunned and begging for more?”
She nodded, but her brows were still furrowed, and I could see the doubt lining every crease of her skin.
“Look,” I said, turning more toward her. My left knee touched her thigh with the motion, and her eyes flicked down before she looked at me again. “Certain trees yield certain types of fruit, right? No matter what you do, an apple tree is never going to give you lemons.”
She nodded.
“Well, that’s how it is with the piano. It will never help, nor hurt you. It will give you exactly what it has always given you, time and time again. It doesn’t change.” I leaned down a bit, capturing her gaze. “But you do. You learn and grow, and become better. In the same breath, though, I’ll point out that you are also a product of what has happened to you on the specific day you sit down to play, as we all are. If you approach the piano impatiently or impetuously, it’s going to show. But, if you come intelligently, patiently, and with an open mind, an open approach to how you play?” I shrugged. “Well, you might just be lucky enough to be called a freak by one of your students one day.”
Sarah closed her eyes on a snort-laugh, shaking her head. I chuckled, too — but that noise died in my throat when she opened her eyes again.
Her gaze lingered on mine, both of our smiles slipping away as an unfamiliar weight pressed on us. She’d never looked at me like that before, though I couldn’t place what was different about it. All I knew in that moment was that I couldn’t look away.
She glanced at my lips, and in the first time in two years, a line of heat scorched a path from the back of my neck all the way down my spine. Warnings flashed in bright, hot neon somewhere in my mind, but they were muted, the present moment too loud to hear anything else.
Sarah’s lips parted, her next breath touching my own, and it was like that whisper of air broke the spell I’d been under.
I swallowed, breaking all contact as I stood and crossed the room.
“Work on this piece tonight, and we’ll try it again tomorrow,” I said, pretending to look through the folder that held my lesson plans. My heart was thundering under my ribcage so loud it might as well have been the percussion line in a high school band.
Sarah didn’t move at first, and when she finally did, it was like she was in a daze as she slowly gathered her things and packed them away in her messenger bag.
She slung it over her shoulder, and I turned, smiling at her like everything was fine. “See you tomorrow?”
“See you tomorrow,” she said, returning my smile, but I felt the uncertainty of it as she turned and let herself out.
As soon as she was gone, I dropped the folder on top of the piano with a slap, taking a seat on the bench with my hands running back through my hair.
What the actual hell, Reese?
It made sense for Sarah to look at me like that, to think that she maybe wanted to know what it felt like for her teacher to kiss her. It was normal. She was a young girl, we were spending nearly every day with one another, and we both had to be vulnerable to work together. It was the nature of the agreement we’d entered into.
But it was my responsibility not to let it go past that.
Maybe she had a crush. I involuntarily smiled at that, and then shook my head so hard I nearly broke my neck to reprimand myself.
No.
I said that one word as loud as I could out loud, then repeated it mentally as my hands moved to the keys, playing nothing and something all at once. It was similar to the song I’d played after the first time I’d met Sarah, but something in it had shifted, revealing a more dramatic, emotional element beneath the notes than I’d originally played.
I let myself get lost in that melody, in that piece of music being brought to life by my hands. And all the while, I reminded myself where our boundaries existed.
Maybe she had a crush. Maybe she wanted to kiss me.
Maybe I wanted to kiss her.
I let out an audible growl, playing with more gusto as I shook my head again.
No, Reese.
I thought of Charlie, of her and Cameron, of the way I’d given my heart to her even though I knew hers wasn’t for the taking. Sarah was off limits to me in the same manner. She was my student, and she trusted me to be her teacher — nothing more. I wouldn’t take advantage of the vulnerable place I had her in, in the time she was forced to spend with me.
I wouldn’t mistake that vulnerability for actual feelings, because I’d learned that lesson once before.
And once was all it took.
A crush was one-sided, as long as I didn’t entertain it. And that’s what I had to remind myself.
It was in my hands, our relationship. I had to draw the lines, trace them with a permanent marker, and constantly be the one to point them out. It didn’t matter that I wanted to kiss her, too. It didn’t matter that every day made it more and more impossible to look at her and see a girl, a student, instead of the captivating young woman and artist she was.
I existed in her life to help her reach her goals in piano, and that’s what I would do. It was my job. It was my responsibility — both to her and to myself.
I liked our routine. I liked being her teacher, and I liked that she trusted me to teach her. That was what mattered most. That was what I would do anything to protect.
And I sealed that sentiment with the last notes of a song she was creating inside me.
One she’d never know about.
CHAPTER EIGHT
* * *
Sarah
I tried to let go, tried to focus on my breathing and nothing else as I followed the guidance of Deepak Chopra. His voice was calming, smooth and steady as it floated through my Bluetooth speaker. He asked me to set an intention, to repeat that intention when other thoughts made their way into my meditation. My mom sat on her mat in Atlanta, meditating with me over a video chat, and I even tried to channel her focus in an attempt to keep my own.
But for twenty-two minutes, instead of clearing my mind and re-centering my spirit, all I did was think about Reese Walker.
It was the first day in a full month that I hadn’t seen him. If I wasn’t sitting in his home, at his p
iano, I was watching him play as I bussed tables at The Kinky Starfish. But, today was Wednesday, which meant no lessons. And I had the night off from work, too.
I had no idea what to do with myself.
Though it was still technically spring, summer seemed to be in full bloom in Pennsylvania now that school was out, and I often played at Uncle Randall’s piano with the curtains drawn so I could watch all the life happening outside the window. There were mothers pushing their newborns in strollers, laughing as they caught up on the latest gossip. There were kids riding their bikes up and down the street, dogs chasing their wheels, cars slowly passing by with camping gear strapped to the top. The weather was hot, the days were long, and everyone, it seemed, was happy.
Myself included.
Maybe it was just the long, warm, spring-almost-summer days that had lifted my mood, or maybe it was that I felt my wrists getting stronger, my hands stretching farther, my playing ability shifting into something it had never been before. Maybe it was that music was alive again for me, that it was speaking to me instead of lying there like some heavy, dead thing any time I tried to find comfort in it.
I was finally sitting down at the piano and finding joy again instead of fear. I was finding comfort instead of anxiety. I was feeling like I was home instead of just wandering this Earth aimlessly.
Something inside me had shifted since working with Reese Walker.
And maybe that was the real reason for my happiness.
I shook him out of my head with an exasperated huff near the end of our guided mediation, anxious to get through the last few minutes so I could talk to my mom.
Happiness shouldn’t have made me feel so uncomfortable, but it was such a foreign feeling now, one I never thought I’d get back.
I found that happiness scared me more than numbness did.
So, I spent the entire mediation trying to figure out why that was. If my mother knew what had happened at Bramlock, I imagined she’d peg it down as something near the lines of Stockholm syndrome. I was abused by my piano teacher, and since I hadn’t worked through the tragic ramifications of that, my stupid female brain was latching onto my new piano teacher as a safety net.
Best Kept Secrets: The Complete Series Page 61
