Chapter Nine
Pizzicato: pinched, plucked; in music for bowed strings, plucked with the fingers as opposed to played with the bow
Damian
I jog to the main entrance of the music building, glancing at the time on my phone. One minute to spare. People should be mostly inside the recital hall, and I can sneak in at the back and avoid questions and looks.
While everyone’s curiosity has died down over the last month and a half, it’s become a habit to avoid conversation with anyone other than my roommates and friends. My roommates gave me shit for the first few weeks, mostly for holding out on them and still keeping them in the dark about everything, but between all of us getting our junior recitals ready and school in general, the appeal quickly waned.
The underclassmen don’t have the same set of distractions, apparently. Charlie’s former classmates are the worst, constantly asking me about her. Which makes it impossible for me to put her out of my mind and move on. And God knows I’ve been trying.
Lauren’s finally given up on talking to me about her, at least.
A familiar sounding giggle drifts out of the greenroom, catching my attention as I hurry past. I stop, and the answering laugh sounds even more familiar. My gut clenches. Charlie? Here?
“You coming in?” One of the sophomores who’s working for the music department this semester as a recital usher has put up the doorstop and is holding the door, waiting for me to respond. When I don’t say anything, he lifts his brows. “The recital’s about to start. That’s why you’re here, right?”
I lick my dry lips. “Yeah,” I croak out. The laugh hasn’t sounded again. Maybe I was imagining it.
Forcing my legs to move, I step forward, taking a program from the sophomore and stepping through the door so he can close it behind me. I turn right and head up the steps in the back, scanning for an aisle seat. There’s one on the next to last row. Not the best seat, but it’s a small enough hall and the acoustics are fantastic. The recital will sound good anywhere.
Lauren’s repertoire is almost as familiar to me as my own. She’s in the practice rooms as much as I am, so I hear her playing daily. It’s a pleasure to hear her like this, though, dressed in a shimmery green and gold gown, looking like a goddess descended to gift us with beautiful music.
She nails the Sibelius, playing perfectly with the piano. When I see the student on the other side of the accompanist lean forward to turn a page, my gut clenches again. After hearing the laughter that sounded like Charlie, I wonder if that’s her. She has short dark hair, too, like Charlie. And for a second, I think maybe it is. Maybe the last couple of months were all a bad dream, and it’s still last semester. She’s a normal student, doing normal piano major things like turning pages for the accompanist during recitals. Sitting next to me. Coming home with me after.
But Charlie’s hair isn’t brown anymore. The pictures I saw of her at the Grammy’s showed her with blond hair. A little longer than I’m used to. And no glasses.
No, that’s another student. Another piano major.
I shake off the nostalgia and twist of pain, refocusing on Lauren as she starts her Bach sonata.
After it’s all over, I wait till after we’ve clapped her off the stage once and she’s come back out for another bow and to accept a bouquet of flowers from her parents. As everyone claps again, I slip out of my row, crouching down next to the professor in the aisle seat on the row in front of mine and offering him a pen and my program to sign so I get credit for being here.
He raises his eyebrows at me in question as he takes the pen. “I have to be somewhere,” I whisper, just loud enough for him to hear me. It’s a lie, but he accepts it without question, nodding and scribbling his signature across the front of my program before handing it back to me.
The clapping continues as Lauren leaves the stage again, tapering off as I slip out the door to the lobby, the sophomore from earlier catching it before it closes and propping it open.
The violin professor’s voice follows me out, announcing the reception in the lobby. The tables were already set up when I got here, covered in white plastic tablecloths, green plates and napkins set up next to the cake in its box, dishes of candies and nuts flanking it. A punch bowl is on the other table, and Glenda, the woman who actually runs the music department, is already there dumping raspberry sherbet and 7-Up into a large plastic punch bowl. The standard post-recital reception punch.
I’m tempted to stay, even though I already told that professor I couldn’t. Recital cake and punch is always good. But I need to practice. And I don’t want to end up either trapped in conversation with a freshman lusting after details about Charlotte James or forced to be rude by just leaving. Better to duck out early. I’ll congratulate Lauren when I see her in class on Monday.
But before I can turn and head for the instrument storage room to grab my cello and head upstairs, the door to the greenroom opens. I hear whispering, and that laugh again that sounded just like Charlie’s. Two figures emerge dressed in heavy coats with the hoods up. As the second lets the door go, the first turns and locks eyes with me, her pink lips open in a gasp.
“Charlie?”
“Damian.” My name on her lips is the best and worst sound in the world. A knife in the gut and a balm to the agony that’s dogged my steps since she left. Since I pushed her away.
I take a step toward her, unable to stop myself. I’m peripherally aware that Glenda has stopped mixing the punch to stare at us.
“Damian?” That’s Gabby’s voice, and my eyes flicker to where she stands next to Charlie. Gabby looks at Charlie, who’s still staring at me, frozen.
People are coming out of the recital hall, and Gabby tugs on Charlie’s arm. “We have to go.”
“Wait.” I take another step as they move toward the door, like I’m being pulled by some kind of force that connects me to Charlie.
Charlie casts a glance at me over her shoulder, her mouth moving, but no sound coming out.
With an exasperated sigh, Gabby gives Charlie’s arm another tug. “Come on.” Then she looks at me. “You too, Damian. Now.”
I follow after them without thinking, not even sure where they’re going or what they’re doing. I just know that if I don’t, I won’t get to talk to Charlie. Knowing she’s here, this close, and not talking to her is impossible.
I pushed her away before, refusing to return her calls or make contact before she left town. Now she’s here, in front of me, everything about her calling to me again. I know it’s a bad idea. I know I’ll get burned. But like a moth once more, I hurl myself through the darkness, aiming for her light.