Reese
In my brain, there was always music.
It had been that way since I was born, or at least, ever since I could remember. I saw the world in music notes, heard every bird and passing car and laugh on the street as a beautiful symphony. I was, in my opinion, way too in tune with the sound of voices, with the noises made by inanimate objects when they were shuffled around by human hands.
When I was younger, I would often zone out during class to write a piece of music, instead. Or wake up from a dream only to frantically scramble for a notepad and pen to write down the music living inside me.
Music was everything — my release, my kryptonite, my pain and my pleasure all in one.
When I heard certain songs, they transported me to another time, to another place, and sometimes, to another person. There were songs that reminded me of my move to New York City, songs that took me back to the first time I drank alcohol, and, sometimes, songs that took me back to my family. To Mom. To Dad. To Mallory.
Winter: Ghosts of a Future Lost by Clint Mansell always took me back to them.
It was the song I’d been playing at the piano, the one at Mom and Dad’s in Manhattan, when I’d received the call from the hospital. The call. The one that told me the absolute last thing I’d ever expected to hear.
They were gone.
So, when the first few notes played at the Reid’s Valentine’s Day fundraiser Saturday night, they hit me like a brick to the chest.
I was just standing there in the middle of the grand ballroom, watching from a distance as Gloria talked to each of the guests surveying the silent auction table. Maxwell was flirting with the crowd, jumping from group to group to ensure everyone had made it over to check out the items up for bid.
They were a team, just like my parents had been.
Sometimes when I looked at them, I saw my parents, instead. It was easy to merge them, especially since our families had been so close. We’d gone on summer camping trips together, spent days out at the lake, and way too many evenings we’d end up in each other’s back yards or living rooms. We were one giant family unit before, but now, it was just me.
I pulled at the collar of my dress shirt, loosening the tie just a bit. Wearing a suit and tie felt like punishment to me. It always had. The only time I’d ever even marginally enjoyed it was when I wore one for high school graduation and Charlie told me I looked “dapper.” I’d teased her for using the word, but inside, I’d made note of the colors I’d worn and the way I’d styled my hair.
I liked it when she noticed me.
And she always did. I was aware of her crush from a young age, from the way her eyes widened when I was in the room, the way her cheeks flushed, the way she shied away from any conversation I initiated with her. She grew more confident with age, waiting up for me when I’d go out to parties with her brother. But even sitting on top of my piano, Charlie had a hard time meeting my eyes.
She’d always watch me when I was playing, when my eyes had to focus on the keys.
And then she’d look away when I looked up.
That’s what I was thinking about when the first notes of Clint Mansell’s song played. At first, I didn’t really notice them. The song starts out so slowly, so softly, that I convinced myself it couldn’t possibly be what I was hearing. But as the notes stretched and morphed, as the song grew to life, I knew I wasn’t imagining it.
And I was instantly transported back in time, back to that day, to that piano, to that call.
“Hi.”
The voice was sweet and smooth, just like the song, but I jumped at the sound of it. I hadn’t noticed the woman who’d slid up next to me just as the song of my nightmare began to play.
Long, slender fingers wrapped around my bicep, and she smiled up at me with sultry eyes. She was strikingly beautiful — long blonde hair that curled down and over her shoulders, crystal blue eyes glowing in the soft light from the chandeliers above, and lips that could have put Angelina Jolie to shame. There was an indent right in the middle of the bottom one, and I watched a smile curl on those sexy lips as the hand around my bicep tightened.
“You’re Reese Walker, right?” she asked, and I just nodded, eyes still fixed on her lips while my brain was fixed on the music.
It felt like a dream, the way the music zapped me back to another memory even though I was standing in a ballroom so far removed.
A flash of my father’s face hit me subtly, quickly, and then it faded away.
“I’m Jennifer Stinson, family friend of the Reid’s,” she said. I tried to focus on her. “Gloria was just raving about you, and I knew I needed to come over and introduce myself.”
I thought I heard Mallory’s laugh, and I looked over my shoulder, but there was no one there. She wasn’t there.
She’s not here.
“Nice to meet you, Jennifer,” I said, forcing the words out through my cotton mouth, trying to clear my mind of the memories set to attack me. I was an ant, and the song was the magnifying glass, setting the sun’s aim directly on me to burn me alive from the inside out.
“Dance with me?” Jennifer asked, but she was already tugging on my arm before I could answer.
I followed her a moment, the song still assaulting my senses, but before we could reach the floor, I came to a halt.
“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head and pinching the bridge of my nose. “I just… I have a bit of a headache.”
Jennifer’s eyes bounced between mine, the sultry smile on her lips never wavering. “Maybe dancing will help.”
I wanted air.
I needed out.
But just as I opened my mouth to tell Jennifer that, Charlie walked by behind her.
Cameron held her hand in his.
She glanced briefly at me before her eyes flicked to Jennifer, and her cheeks shaded just a tinge of pink. Neither look lasted longer than a split second, but I’d felt each of them like the slow, burning singe of a branding iron.
Cameron pulled her to the far-left side of the dance floor, wrapping her in his arms as they began to sway to the music. She looked up at him like that dance was everything she’d ever waited for, and he looked down at her with what I saw as a patronizing smile. Maybe it was sincere, but it didn’t look that way from where I stood.
Maybe I was tainted by the rumors I’d heard, or by my love for Charlie that still burned bright behind my eyelids — the same ones blinding me with memories of my family at the current moment. Either way, one thing was sure.
I hated him.
“You know,” I finally said to Jennifer, covering her hand around my bicep with my own. “Maybe you’re right. Let’s give it a try.”
A wide smile split her face. “Excellent.”
I wanted to blame the song for making me crazy enough to pull Jennifer into my arms right next to Charlie and Cameron. I smiled at both of them, earning me a timid return smile and a swallow from Charlie, and only a nod of acknowledgement from Cameron.
Jennifer fit nicely in my arms, her chest pressed against me as we moved in time with the music. I tried to keep space between us, especially because it was easier to dance with her that way, but she was hell bent on sealing us like a seam from hip to chest.
She wasn’t subtle about what she wanted, and on any other night, with any other song, she likely would have gotten it.
But I was dancing next to Charlie. To a song that reminded me of my family.
And with that realization, a flash of my mother crying on the day I graduated from Juilliard slapped me like a tree branch.
I squeezed my eyes shut tight, fumbling the steps of our dance a bit before I bounced back.
Jennifer just giggled, holding onto me tighter, and I forced a breath and a smile in return.
Charlie’s eyes caught mine over Jennifer’s shoulder.
She watched me like she knew what I wasn’t telling anyone, like the song somehow showed her the same things it showed me. Her brows bent together, her lips parting, but I tore my gaze away and back to Jennifer.
“Ready for a spin?” I asked, twirling her out before she could reply.
Her hands wrapped low around my waist on her return, her laugh soft and melodic, hair swinging over one shoulder. She wet her lips, finding the timing of our steps again. “That was smooth. I’m so glad we met tonight, Reese Walker.”
“Likewise,” I assured her, but the song was getting to me.
The more it played, the more I remembered how bored I’d been that evening. I was just sitting there, smoking inside my mom’s house, knowing she’d hate it. I played that song just to pass the time, never knowing it would soon be branded in my brain forever — a constant memory, an imprint that would never let me forget.
I kept fumbling as I tried to dance, which earned me jokes about having already drank too much from Jennifer. I didn’t have the energy to tell her I hadn’t had a drop. And I realized quickly that I also didn’t have the energy to keep trying to dance with her, not when my chest was splitting with an unhealable loss, not even when Charlie’s attention had somehow shifted from Cameron to me.
“I’m sorry, Jennifer,” I said when the song was nearly finished. “You’ll have to excuse me. I need a bit of air.”
She pouted, still gripping at my arms as I peeled her off me and made my way off the dance floor.
“I can come with you!” she called out, but I was already several feet away, and I didn’t give her permission to follow.
I pulled at my tie as I weaved through the crowd, eyes set on the doors that led to the outdoor garden across the room. Gloria tried to get me to stop as I passed her, to speak with whomever it was she was talking to, but one look at my pale face must have clued her into the fact that I couldn’t converse at the moment.
I kept pushing and weaving, the song growing louder and louder with every step even though I knew it was ending. When I finally pushed through the doors and the icy cold Pennsylvania air hit my face, I choked out an exhale, hands wrapping around the first railing I could reach.
It was freezing, the forecast calling for the possibility of sleet and snow that evening, and even though there were gas-heated lanterns littering the veranda, I was the only person outside.
I was thankful for that — for the silence.
Even with the cool whip of the wind, I was still too hot. I shrugged off my tuxedo jacket, tossing it over the railing before placing my hands on it again. I hung my head with the song still echoing inside it, trying desperately to pull my focus to my breaths.
In and out. In and out. Breathe, Reese. It’s just a song.
I faintly heard the doors open behind me, the rambunctious laughter and a new song from inside filling the silent space on the veranda before it was muted again.
Charlie’s shoulder brushed my arm as she slid up beside me. She was bundled in Cameron’s gray tuxedo jacket, a shawl the same lavender color of her dress wrapped around her neck like a scarf. I swallowed at the feel of her near me, my entire body reacting to her presence like she was a warm sip of whiskey. My breaths evened out, the song finally fading from my mind, and I reveled in the silence it left behind.
“It’s freezing out here,” I said after a moment. “You should go back inside.”
Please don’t go back inside.
“I’m okay, needed a bit of fresh air,” she lied. I knew it was a lie, because she was shivering already.
Charlie’s hair was down and curled at the ends, her makeup done unlike I’d ever seen it done before. I wondered if she’d worn makeup like that on her wedding day, if she learned how to do it herself or if someone had done it for her. She didn’t need makeup — not with the classic beauty she possessed naturally. But the way she’d lined her lids and darkened her lashes made her eyes pop even more against her fair skin as she glanced over at me.
“You okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah… yeah, I’m okay.”
“I knew Jennifer was a lot to handle, but I’ve never seen her chase a guy away so fast before.”
“Oh, she’s a man eater, that one. I can tell,” I said with a chuckle. My grip on the railing in front of us loosened, and I stretched my hands, the knuckles still white from holding on so tight. “She seems fine, though. Just caught me at a bad time.”
Charlie swallowed, lifting her thumbnail to fit between her teeth. She kept her eyes focused in the darkness ahead of us. “She’s a great girl. Beautiful. I met her at Garrick, but I think she’s always gotten along with my parents more than me.”
I couldn’t help but notice the tinge of jealousy in Charlie’s voice when she’d called Jennifer beautiful.
“I’ll have to get to know her a little better.”
Charlie smiled, but it wavered quickly. “You definitely should.”
We were both quiet then, and Charlie cleared her throat after a moment, turning to face me. She leaned her hip against the railing just as another shiver shot through her.
“What happened in there?” she asked at the same time I said, “You should go get warm.”
We smiled.
“I’m fine,” she assured me, and she stepped a little closer, her eyes begging mine to find them. “Reese, what happened?”
For a moment, we were kids again. Charlie was my little sister’s friend finding me sulking on the back porch, smoking a cigarette I’d snuck out to inhale. She was young and innocent, an easy person to lean on, to talk to, to let in. I was the fucked-up teenager, lost and confused, and she was the one person who somehow still saw some speck of good in me.
“Nothing, I just… my parents would have been here tonight, you know. If we still lived here, if we’d never moved to New York. They went to this thing every year…” I paused. “And that song… it was what I was playing on the piano in my parents’ house in New York on that day.”
Charlie clasped her hand over mine.
“I was waiting for them to come home for dinner that night. I didn’t even know they’d been in the park, or that Mallory had been with them.” I choked out a laugh. “And I was just sitting there, smoking a cigarette and playing that song. I don’t even know why I was playing it. I was bored, it was the first thing that came to me. I think I heard it the first time at some point when I was at Juilliard, but I don’t even remember. I was just smoking and playing, waiting for them to come home.” I paused. “I was there to ask them for money.”
Charlie didn’t speak, just kept her hand over mine, letting me work through the thoughts in my head. I didn’t squeeze her hand in mine or meet her eyes. I just stared at where her fingers overlapped mine.
“I didn’t even know the shooting had happened. I was so immersed in myself, in my own selfish wants. It was three years ago. I mean, I was thirty-two. It’s not like I was a child or like I was young. I was just immature. I treated my girlfriend like a substitute for my mother, and I blew my paychecks on gambling and partying because I knew my parents would always be there. They’d always give me whatever I needed. They never even asked why.”
I blinked, and a flash of the television sparked behind my lids.
“The hospital called me. That’s how I found out. They called my cell phone, told me they believed they’d identified my sister as one of the shooting victims.” I sniffed. “I just said, ‘What shooting?’”
Charlie did squeeze my hand then, and I covered her thumb with my own, but I still couldn’t look at her.
“I was such a piece of shit,” I whispered, shaking my head. “It should have been me who died that day. Not them.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” I challenged, looking at where our hands touched. “It’s how I feel.”
Charlie was quiet, but her fingers ran over the back of my hand in a soothing line before she squeezed gently again. “I know how it feels,” she said. “That loss, that unfillable void left behind when someone you love is inexplicably ripped from the earth.”
A burst of air swept through the veranda then, brushing her hair back as if it’d heard her.
“It never gets easier, no matter how many days or months or years pass. Some days are quieter than others, but on the loud days, on the days when everything you see and hear and do and feel reminds you of their absence…” She squeezed my hand once more before tucking her arms tight over her middle. “Those days are brutal.”
Charlie used to be the unbroken one.
She used to be the positive voice of optimism to balance out my angsty teenage depression. So many nights she had brought me some kind of hope, even if I’d laughed at it in the moment she’d given it to me. But tonight, she didn’t attempt to fix the splitting of my soul. She only crawled into the fault line with me, giving me company in the hollow loneliness of it all.
“I know you hate your stretch marks, but I’m jealous of them.”
Charlie frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“They’re a memory forever etched into your body,” I explained. “They’re proof of existence, proof that those boys lived inside you, that they were a part of you and, even if only briefly, a part of this world. A part of your life.”
She touched her stomach carefully, her hands disappearing under Cameron’s jacket as her eyes lost focus somewhere off in the distance.
“I don’t have that,” I confessed. “Sure, I’ve got pictures. And I’ve got an old house that someone else lives in now. I’ve got three small things I kept from each of them, little tokens I hoped would bring me comfort down the line. But they don’t, you know? Nothing ever does. And really, all I have is music. I have songs that bring me back to holidays spent in our living rooms and road trips in Mom’s van.” I swallowed. “And some that bring me back to that day, to that immediate emptiness that seeped into my bones like a cold flood the moment I realized they were gone.”
Charlie let out a long exhale, closing the small bit of space between us. “You have years and years of memories with your family, Reese. I only have nine days.” Her eyes glossed. “And that’s only with Jeremiah. With Derrick, I have nothing.”
I blew out a frustrated breath. “God, I’m sorry. You’re right. I should be thankful, and I am. I didn’t mean that I was jealous of your scars, I guess I just meant that I think they’re beautiful.”
“It’s okay,” she assured me quickly with a smile, her hand rubbing over her belly again. “I think I’m starting to see the beauty in them, too.”
We were both silent for a moment, eyes balanced in the distance.
“Not that I think there should be any comparison,” she said after a while. “Or that one loss is more than the other, or that we can measure a loss in the scars and memories left behind — but you have them, too. You have scars.” She pressed a cold, tiny hand over my heart, and I felt the beat of it through her palm. “They’re just not where you can see them. But you can feel them.” She shrugged. “You always will.”
“It hurts,” I admitted, voice breaking, and Charlie hugged me in an instant, wrapping her petite arms around me. It took every ounce of manhood I had left not to give into the urge to cry in that instant. I hadn’t cried since the day my family died, and I’d never cried in front of Charlie. I didn’t want to break that streak now.
But she felt like home. That hug, it felt like the only thing I had left in the world, like the missing piece to a puzzle I didn’t know was incomplete.
“I know. I’m sorry.” Her voice was just a whisper. “I wish I could say that hurt goes away, but I know you know as much as I do that it doesn’t. And I know it’s hard to hear, that it’s easier to just put the blame on yourself and wish it was you in their shoes, but there’s a reason you’re still living, Reese. And they would want you to live happily.”
I didn’t dare say another word, not when I had her in my arms like that. The comfort I felt just from her being there, from her warmth pressed against mine, from her being tucked into my chest like that — it was more than I deserved. It was more than I knew I was allowed to have from a woman who wasn’t mine, but I took it greedily, like a hot meal offered to a starving man.
“And you?” I asked after a moment, pulling back only enough to capture her gaze with my own. “Are you living happily?”
“I am.”
“Don’t lie.”
She blinked, taking another step back — enough to break our hug. She crossed her arms again. “I didn’t come out here to talk about me, Reese. Tonight isn’t about me.”
“It could be,” I countered. “You made me feel better, maybe I could do the same.”
“I feel great,” she said with a smile that was almost convincing. To anyone else, it would have sealed her lie with a perfect little bow — but it didn’t fool me.
The doors flew open then, and Mr. Reid’s voice bellowed my name. He had his arm around a guy my age, and he immediately launched into his name and role at Westchester and why I needed to know him.
I barely registered any of it, because my eyes were still locked on Charlie.
She kissed her dad’s cheek, clueing into the conversation well before I did, then she offered me one last smile and flash of those doe eyes before she slipped back inside.
The rest of the night was a blur of handshakes and dances, of stories shared over dinner and jokes shared over bourbon. Charlie and I did a sort of dance around each other, never existing within the same space for long before one of us was swept off somewhere else. But I was aware of her, and she of me, just like we always had been.
I wondered, distantly, if I would ever find a woman to make me feel the way Charlie made me feel. Would my future wife know what to say on the hard nights, how to bring me comfort only by existing. Charlie didn’t even have to have the right words that night — she just needed to be there. To exist.
With her, with the way I felt for her — that was enough.
She’d always been enough for me, even when I’d had to sit on my hands to keep from touching her when we were younger. Five years had separated us then — five long, cruel, forbidden years. I didn’t have the power to change those years, to warp time, to make it okay for a twenty-one-year-old to fall for a girl still in high school.
But as Charlie and Cameron said goodnight to everyone, I realized those years weren’t what separated us any longer. I held her a beat longer than normal when she leaned in for a hug, thanking her for what she’d given me that night, and then I shook Cameron’s hand, all the while wondering if what I’d heard about him was true.
And I realized it then.
He was what separated us now.
And he was only a man.