It took me another whole five minutes to press send, but once I did, I laid back on my bed, and pulled a pillow over my face. I just wanted to hide from the world. I laid like that for almost an hour. I must've dozed off at some point, but I didn't hear any notifications come from my phone. Maybe I was already too late. When I pulled the pillow off of my face, I noticed that my room had gotten significantly darker; a storm was rolling in. It happened a lot at the beach, but it wouldn’t last very long. But, for some reason, it reminded me of when Levi and I used to run in the rain together. It also reminded me of where we used to go when the rain was too much, and we couldn’t get home.

When I played piano, there was an old theater on Main Street that had a baby grand that I used to practice on sometimes. Levi and I would run in the rain, and go to that piano. We had a blanket in one of the lockers that the crew used, and he would lay it out on the stage and listen to me play for hours and hours until we couldn't hear the rain anymore on the roof. The owner knew that we were there, and I think she thought our love story was romantic, so she just let us go. I wondered if the place was still open. I wondered if Levi even remembered those days. I was tempted to text him again. Tell him I was going there, but instead I found myself changing into running clothes, and lacing up my sneakers.

I tore down the stairs and ran out the front door, not even remembering to close it. As soon as I got outside, the chill of the rain felt like freedom. I hadn't even stretched and, only half a mile into my run, I was feeling it, but I didn't care. I pushed through, my legs screaming at me in agony. My body protested since I hadn't trained like this in years, but I didn't care. I just had to see that old theater, and I had to feel the keys underneath my fingers. My breathing was labored, and I only stopped once when I was afraid I was going to throw up. As I stood bent over heaving, the rain pounded on my back. But I was just two blocks away, so I took a deep breath, and kept going. When I finally stopped for good, I found myself in front of the dilapidated building in the pouring rain. I was soaked to the bone, and it was a colder day than I'd realized.

I looked at the old metal doors with the glass panes in each one. I traced my fingers along the wet glass, and pulled on a handle. Locked of course. I gazed up at the marquee and saw Anything Goes was the next show, and it didn’t start for another two weeks. Then, I remembered that there was a back entrance. I couldn't avoid the puddles as I walked through the dark alley to the back door, which was always left slightly ajar. I slipped into the darkness, and had to count my steps to remember where a small flight of stairs was. I had done it a hundred times with Levi, but it felt so lonely doing it by myself. I tried to shake off the chill of the water on my skin. I hoped I could make the loneliness dissipate as well.

As I reached stage left, I saw that all the stage lights were on. I could just see the tip of the baby grand piano sitting in the corner of the orchestra pit. I had to touch it. As I started to cross the stage, a woman approached me from the opposite side. If I remembered correctly, she was the owner.

“Oh, my dear! Were you out in this storm?”

I suddenly realized how cold I was, and my teeth started to chatter. “Yes ma'am. I went for a run.”

She cocked her head to the side, and studied me closely. “You're the piano player.”

I wrapped my arms around myself. “I was.”

The wrinkles around her eyes told me she was still giving me the once over. “I think you still are.”

She walked past me to stage left where I had just come from. I could hear her heels clicking on the hard wooden surface of the stage. She came back, and wrapped a towel around my shoulders. “You need to warm up, child. Those fingers have been resting a long time.”

I nodded, my teeth still clinking together unwillingly from the cold. “Yes, ma'am.”

She took her finger, and put it underneath my chin, lifting my eyes up to hers. They were a cool gray color, and the wrinkles around them told me about her years of wisdom in show business. “You still play.”

I pulled back. “Not for years.”

One side of her mouth lifted up in a smile. “He still wants you to play. Every time this summer it’s rained like this, he comes.”

I was shocked. “Who comes?”

She turned away, and began walking off stage right. “You'll see.”

I wanted to chase after her, and ask her more questions about Levi, about how long he had been coming here or when the last time was. But, instead, I was drawn to the piano. It was like an addiction, and I needed more.

I walked over to the side of the stage, and walked down the stairs into the orchestra pit. I pulled the towel tighter around me as I sat on the bench, and let my hands find their place on the keys. I only pressed a few at first, trying to remind my hands of how it felt to play. But they didn't need any reminding. Within seconds, I found myself playing one of Bach's most famous concertos. And, as the towel fell from around my shoulders, I let my fingers work out the frustrations that they had held in them for so many years. My body blamed me for what my heart hadn't allowed myself to do. I was meant to play. It was as easy as breathing, and I never should've stopped.

I played as the emotions and disappointment of the past five years pushed out of me. I had done this to myself. As I played, my tears fell onto the ivories. It was like I had found an old friend after years of being apart, but the conversation flowed so easily between us.

I felt a presence behind me, and spun around, hoping to see Levi standing on the stage with that old blanket. But when I turned, the stage was empty. I stared into the shadows behind the curtains, but the movement could have been from the wind coming from outside. Or the owner could be lurking, listening to my music. It would have been a beautiful moment had this been where Levi and I reconnected, but life didn’t always work that way. Right before I sat back down to continue playing, I swore I saw the curtains move behind the stage, but when I shielded my eyes from the bright lights of the stage to get a better view, I couldn't see anyone behind them. It wasn't my mind playing tricks; it was my heart. I sat and played until the drumming of the rain slowed and stopped. I closed the piano. It’s silence felt freeing, like I had finally told the world all of my secrets. I picked up the towel from the floor, folded it neatly, and laid it on the edge of the stage. But, just as I was about to leave, the owner once again came out of the darkness to see me.

“He didn't come.” I was crushed. For some reason, I thought that this could have been the moment that we would've found each other again. Where I would finally learn the truth, about Japan, the agent, everything. This could have been where we realized that we still cared for each other on the light of the stage where we had spent so many days together. I thought about how I had just cried all over the keys of the baby grand piano, allowing it to absorb my pain. That's what music had always done for me; it had fixed my whole world. Things started going wrong when I turned my back on it, and when I turned my back on Levi. She just looked at me blankly. So I repeated myself, “He didn't come. You said that he comes, but he didn't.” I turned on my heel, and began to run again. Running away was something I was good at.

But she called after me, “The boy?” I stopped so suddenly I almost slipped on the wood from my wet sneakers.

My head jerked around. “Yes. The boy. The boy didn't come. He doesn't love me.” He really did just want sex, no feelings. I needed to accept that. I could feel the tears once again rising in my chest like waves cascading on a beach. They would fall out of me in any moment.

“You only see what you want to see.”

“What? What does that mean?”

“He was here. He was here, and he watched you play.”

My breath caught in my chest. The shadow behind the curtains wasn't her; it was him. “Are you sure?” I choked out.

She simply nodded, turned, and walked away, her shawl billowing behind her as she crossed the stage. I checked my body for my phone, but realized that I left it back at the house. Hope rose in my chest as I sprinted out the back door of the theater into the cloudy day. I avoided as many puddles as I could as I sped back home. My chest hurt as I ran, but I had to know if he'd been there. I had to call him. My heart pounded in my rib cage, and I fought for air, but just as I rounded the corner to my house, something else struck me. Mackenzie was outside on the stoop, sitting with her phone in her hands. I realized I hadn't told her where I went, and maybe she was worried. When I arrived to my father's yard, she stood up with a solemn look on her face. “We need to talk.”

I put my hands on my knees, and tried to increase my airflow in my body: in through my nose, and out through my mouth. “What?”

“I don't even know how to say this.”

I stood up. “Then just say it.” I got out between labored breaths.

She sighed. “Charity's pregnant.”

My mouth dropped open, and I practically fell over. My worst nightmare. My father had finally decided to replace us. Suddenly, my love affair seemed small and insignificant. Mackenzie's eyes were filled with tears. “Are you sure?”

She nodded. “She just told me.”

“But why wouldn't they just tell us together? Why you by yourself?”

She shrugged. “Charity and I have been spending some time together since that day at the bridal shop. I guess she and dad thought that I was, I don't know, part of the family or something. Do you think this is the only reason they're getting married?”

I wasn't sure. And I didn't know how to tell her that. “I don't know, Kenz. But why don't we go inside, you order one of those ridiculous movies, and we sit and eat over it.” I also considered that I would be drinking while eating, but she couldn't do that yet. She still looked sad, but she nodded, and I put my hand around her shoulder as we walked in together. We went straight upstairs to her room, and after I changed, we watched that movie about the sparkly vampires, and we laughed at their ridiculous behavior. My phone sat next to me the whole night, but I didn't call Levi. That night was reserved for my sister. Not for me.