Her posture crumples, and she folds in on herself, shaking her head and breaking eye contact. “The first time I kissed you. You said you tried to stay away because of our age difference. At the time I didn’t see what the big deal was, but I get it now. Us getting involved was never a good idea. You’re leaving, and I’m—“ She swallows hard. “I’m staying.”
“Gabby. Look at me.”
She shakes her head. “I can’t.” Her voice is a tortured whisper.
I want to grab her. Shake her. Make her see sense. Instead I ask the only question pounding in my head now. Why? “Why are you doing this?”
Her hands spread in front of her in a gesture of helplessness. “What other choice do we have? You’re—You have to move to California. Maybe at Christmas. Maybe you’ll stay through May.”
“I’m not fucking quitting this close to graduating.” That would be stupid, and even thinking that makes me angry.
She nods, her eyes flicking over my face, her expression forlorn as she looks away again. “Okay. So you’re here till May. We have a few more months to get even more attached, and then what? You’ll go to California, and I’ll go to Texas for the summer. And in the fall? I’ll be back here. And you’ll be—who knows where you’ll be? You’ll have a new album coming out soon.” She shakes her head again. “No. It’s better this way. It’s better to end this now before we’re even more invested. Before …” But she stops, not finishing whatever she was going to say.
“I’m already invested. All the way. I’ve been all in all along. I thought you were too.”
Her eyes meet mine, shiny with tears, and my gut twists at the sight. “I was. I am. But don’t you see? That’s why this has to end now. It’s—I can’t—“ She looks all around, searching for the right words. When she speaks again, her voice is low and full of tears. “This is already breaking me. I’ll shatter into a million pieces if I wait any longer. I can’t do this. I can’t go with you, and I can’t ask you to stay. It’s … better if we both have time to heal before you leave. It’s pointless to delay the inevitable anyway.”
My mouth falls open, unable to come up with any kind of argument to counter what she’s saying. “I thought we could figure something out. I love you.”
The tears overflow her eyes at my tortured whisper, running over her cheeks and dripping off her chin. Her lips tremble, but she doesn’t give an inch. “I love you too. Which is why this is so hard.” She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “But it’s still for the best. I’m sorry.”
With those last whispered words, she heads for the door.
“Gabby. No. Wait. Please don’t do this.” My own tears are rising to the surface, but I fight them down. This isn’t how this was supposed to go. She was supposed to come over and stay the night and spend the day with me tomorrow. We were going to make love and watch movies and play music together. She was supposed to celebrate my success with me. She’s what makes the music happen, what makes the music worthwhile. I don’t want to do this without her.
But I can’t get any of those words out. They crash together in my brain, clogging in my throat, my mouth open, but no sound coming as she pauses at the door, looking me over one more time, her gaze sweeping up and down my body like she’s taking a mental picture.
And then she’s gone.
Chapter Thirty-One
Gabby
With my violin tucked under my arm and my case in my other hand, I head out of the recital hall, relieved to be done with my jury. The faculty maintained stoic expressions while I played, but Clara gave me a big smile and a thumbs up as I exited the stage.
Lauren looks at me as I come through the doors. Her violin case sits at her feet next to one of the chairs in the lobby. She stops talking to Damian and bounces over to me. “How’d it go? You don’t look happy, but you haven’t looked happy since before Thanksgiving, so that doesn’t tell me anything.”
I force a smile, setting my case across the arms of one of the plush chairs and opening it to pack up my instrument. “It wasn’t perfect, but when is it ever? I think it was pretty good, though. Clara gave her approval.”
Lauren pulls me into a hug as soon as I finish zipping my case closed. “Yay! I knew you could do it. The Mozart sounded beautiful when I heard you in the practice rooms the other day.”
“You listened to me play and didn’t say anything?”
She shrugs and gives me a smile after letting me go. “I wasn’t sure if you’d want to know. You’d pump me for critiques, and I didn’t want you to psych yourself out.”
“Well, thanks.” I know other people can hear me when I’m practicing, because I can hear them too. It’s muffled through the walls when you’re in a room, but the sound seeps out of the doors and is audible in the hallway. Lauren and I were both there late over the weekend on opposite ends of the hall so we wouldn’t clash with each other. I had no idea she’d stopped and listened.
Normally, that would make me uncomfortable. And it does a little. But since breaking up with Jonathan, I can’t muster up the energy to care much about anything. I’ve been going to classes, still doing my homework, making sure to study for finals this week, because that was part of the point of breaking up with him, right? So I could focus on school and my own goals and leave him to focus on his.
But instead, I’m a zombie going through the motions. I haven’t been sleeping well, replaying the look of shock and dismay on his face as my words sunk in. Remembering the feel of his body against mine, both in bed and when we were just hanging out, cuddling on the couch watching movies or whatever. All the little moments of affection and tenderness. Playing through his music with him. Practicing at his house. How supportive he was of my music, and how much he valued my opinion about his.
The only positive about the breakup so far is that my performance anxiety seems to have disappeared. It’s hard to be anxious about something when I can’t even be bothered to care about the fact that I’m performing.
I still care about the music. But I care a lot less about what anyone listening thinks. In reality, I probably wouldn’t have asked Lauren for a critique of my playing if I’d known she listened the other night, other than maybe asking, “What’d you think?” in an effort to make conversation.
Even though Lauren sees through all my efforts, I’m still trying to behave like everything is fine. Despite the fact that it’s as far from fine as it could possibly be.
At least I only have two more finals, and then I fly home on Friday. I’ll have a whole month away from school where I can wallow in my misery and figure out how to move on. Hopefully I’ll have managed that before Jonathan’s new album comes out and his name is on everyone’s lips again.
He texted and called a bunch the night I broke up with him. I read the first few texts and listened to one of the voicemails. They were all variations on the same theme—please reconsider. Since I was still at Lance and Abby’s until the next day, I asked Lance to call him back. I’m not sure what was said because Lance took my phone outside while Abby fed me ice cream in the kitchen. When Lance came in, he handed me my phone, his expression solemn. “He’ll leave you alone now,” was all he said.
I wanted to ask more, but couldn’t bring myself to find out what my protective brother might’ve said to convince Jonathan to stop calling. I decided I didn’t really want to know.
“You’re done for today, right?” Lauren’s voice pulls me back to the present.
“Right. I just need to put my violin away. I want to take it back to the dorm so I don’t have to come back and get it before I leave in a couple of days.”
“Sounds good.” She turns to Damian, who’s still sitting quietly in one of the chairs. “What about you? You done for today?”
He nods. “Yeah. And my tests the rest of the week are easy, so I don’t even need to study.”
“Great.” Lauren rubs her hands together. “That means we need to go celebrate the end of our first semester. This is the perfect opportunity. Know anyone els
e free that should come along?”
Damian and I shake our heads, and Lauren snags each of us by the hand, tugging us along behind her. She lets go long enough for me to grab my case, and then she has ahold of me again. “Come on. We’ll head back to our dorm and get my car. What’ll it be? Ice cream? Coffee? Early dinner out somewhere?”
I shudder. “It’s freezing outside. How can you suggest ice cream?”
Lauren scoffs. “You’re such a wuss. You’ll get used to the cold weather eventually. Ice cream is good any time of year. Especially when we’re celebrating. Come on, you guys! We need to have some fun!”
Damian has a goofy grin on his face, and I feel a little sorry for him. Lauren went out with him once earlier this semester. He seems to still be smitten, even though she’s clearly moved on.
Though we’re kind of in the same boat now. Both pining after someone we can’t have. It’s a little different since my exile is self-inflicted, and I actually had a relationship with Jonathan, not just one date that probably ended with a kiss on the cheek. Lauren’s been a serial dater since we got here. Most of them don’t go anywhere. She just wants to have fun.
That seems to be Lauren’s main goal in life right now. Sure, she wants to be a professional violinist and all of that. But she’s a lot more focused on living in the moment and getting everything she can out of the experience on her way there.
Maybe she’s onto something. She’s been trying to cheer me up since she got back after Thanksgiving. I’ve gone along with some of her antics halfheartedly. Maybe I should embrace it. Maybe that’ll help me move past whatever could’ve been with Jonathan and get to what is now.
It’s my own fault, after all. All of it. May as well embrace it.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Jonathan
My fingers idly strum over the guitar strings, and the notes jangle against each other, out of tune. I know they’re out of tune. It should bother me more than it does. But I’m not playing anything anyway. Just noodling. Hoping it’ll jar something loose.
So far it’s not working.
Since Gabby tore my heart out and took it with her, I haven’t been able to write. Not anything worthwhile anyway.
I didn’t try much for about a week. First I was focused on trying to convince her to change her mind. That we could manage to work things out.
But she wouldn’t take my calls or text me back. When my phone lit up with her name and picture flashing on the screen, nervous hope rose in my chest. All that came crashing down when the voice on the other end was low and masculine.
“Hi, Jonathan. This is Lance, Gabby’s older brother.” He put special emphasis on the words older brother. “I know we haven’t had a chance to meet yet, which I’ve thought is a damn shame for a while now, seeing as how we live in the same town. But you and Gabby have been busy and wrapped up in your own bubble, so I get it.”
He spoke calmly and reasonably, telling me that if I cared about Gabby as much as I said I did, I’d let her go.
“I love her,” I said. “I’m in love with her. I don’t want to let her go.”
He sighed. “I get it, man. I really do. But this is what she wants.”
“I need to talk to her. I want to hear it from her. Then I’ll leave her alone.”
“I’m pretty sure she was clear about what she wanted when she was there earlier. Gabby’s many things, but indirect isn’t one of them. When she has something to say, she always gets to the point. It’s a family trait. We get that from our dad.”
I was speechless for a minute. Because he was right. She was always clear about what she wanted. From the beginning, she’d made it clear that she wanted me. And now she didn’t anymore.
“Is she—“ I had to clear my throat to get the words out. “Is she okay?”
He snorted. “What do you think, man? She told me she loves you, but she broke up with you because she can’t come up with a way for your relationship to work out. She’s heartbroken, but she’s trying to save herself from worse pain later.” He paused for a beat. “And as much as it kills me to see her this way, I can’t say I fault her logic. I know it’s not what you want to hear, but it’s probably for the best in the long run.”
“Right.”
He said a few more things, but I stopped listening after that and just made agreeable noises on autopilot until he hung up.
She loved me but she didn’t see a way for us to be together long term.
I’ve been wracking my brain for weeks now, trying to come up with a way to prove her wrong. Figuring out a plan that would end with us together.
Because I’ve never found anyone that makes me feel the way she does. Ever. And I can’t fathom coming across that again any time soon.
The door to my bedroom in my parents’ house pushes open, and my brother Brendan leans against the doorframe. “Are you going to keep strumming out of tune chords? Mom’s about to leave just to get away from that obnoxious sound, as she calls it, or come in here and tune it for you.”
A half smile pulls at my lips. “Sorry. I’ll tune it.”
He waits while I pluck at the strings and turn the knobs to get the fourths to line up before speaking again. “What are you working on?”
I shake my head, and strum through another slow chord progression. “Nothing, really. I’m supposed to be writing songs for my upcoming album. But I haven’t had any luck lately.”
He cocks his head as I play through the same five chords again. “That sounds interesting. Got a melody to go with it?”
“Nope.” I play them again, and he stares at my hands moving on the instrument before meeting my eyes again.
“She did a number on you, didn’t she?”
I grunt in response. I know they’ve all been steering clear of me since I got back. Between Gabby breaking up with me almost a month ago and being blocked ever since, I haven’t been the best company.
“Try playing through the individual notes in the chords a few times. Rearrange them and throw in some extra ones. See if anything pops.”
I stare at Brendan for a minute, surprised he’s making songwriting suggestions. He was our drummer, but as far as I know hasn’t touched it in years. And songwriting was never his thing.
But I do as he suggests, breaking up the chords I’ve been messing with, once through in order, then I start pulling them apart further, starting at different points in the chord, adding in a few extra notes to fill in the gaps. Passing tones, I think Gabby always calls them. My grasp of theory is much more elementary than hers. My mom taught us all to read music when we were kids, but since she didn’t learn how to read music until she was in college, she didn’t emphasize it as much as Gabby does.
“Tuning helps, doesn’t it?” Brendan’s voice pulls my head up, a smirk on his face.
Chuckling, I nod. “Yeah. It does.”
“No wonder nothing’s been working. You’ve been half-assing it so much that you can’t even bother to play in tune. How do you expect anything to sound good?”
“That’s not—“
“Yeah,” he interrupts, his voice softer, losing the teasing quality it just held. “I know. But you’ve signed a contract. You have to produce. You’ve always been the one to channel your feelings into your music the most out of the three of us. Now’s the time to do that.”
I stare at him as I pick a few more notes, considering his words. Clearing my throat, I drop my eyes back to the guitar. “Good point.”
The notes start rearranging themselves into something like a melody, and I hum along as I play. When I decide I have something worth writing down, I look up to find Brendan gone and my door closed again. I’ve been so caught up in figuring something out that I didn’t even notice him leave.
But he did what he came to do—kick my ass in gear and get me writing again.
I dig my notebook and a pencil out of my backpack. I brought it home for the break because I knew I needed to write new songs, but haven’t gotten it out yet. Nothing was coming before
now.
Picking up my guitar again, I play through the melody, cementing the notes in my mind before committing them to paper. But all of this reminds me of Gabby. Scribbling the notes on the staff paper, the angled slashes for note heads, the vertical slashes for stems. She’s changed so much about me, about my music, and the difference in how I write things down seems to embody all of it.
Toward the bottom of the paper, I start to scribble out words, the beginnings of lyrics. It’s rough. This one’ll take some work on the poetry side, a little more polish to make it sound right. But for now I’m roughing out my ideas, needing to capture them before they float away, never to return.
As the lyrics and melody start to take shape and come together, so does a plan. Because even if she doesn’t change her mind, I need to communicate to Gabby what she’s done for me, what she means to me. And it’s more than just her help with my music, though God knows I already miss that. It’s more than any one thing.
It’s all of it.
All of her.
She is everything. And she needs to know.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Gabby
“Gabby, have you seen this?”
I move around behind Lauren’s desk to look over her shoulder. “I don’t know. What is it?”
Looking back at me, Lauren bites her lips, her eyes troubled. “Um. It’s Jonathan. He put out another YouTube video.”
“No. I haven’t. I’m good, thanks.” I step away from her desk and go back to unpacking my suitcase, putting my clothes back in my closet and dresser. Classes start tomorrow for the spring semester, and I’m determined to focus on me—on the violin, music theory, whatever other random classes I have to take, and having fun with my friends. That’s it. Maybe I’ll even take Dr. Lolo’s advice and not let myself have any free time. Just spend all my time in the practice room perfecting my skills.
Double Exposition (Songs and Sonatas Book 1) Page 19
