What He Never Knew (What He Doesn't Know, #3)(13)

“No, it’s okay, call me Reese,” I assured her. “And videos aside, there’s no need to be nervous. This,” I said, motioning between us. “Us working together? It’s about you. I know every student is different, and I’m hoping to take this opportunity of our first lesson tonight to get to know a little about you.”

Sarah nodded, brows narrowing in a confident focus.

“But,” I said, taking a sip of water before continuing. “I want to be clear about one very important thing. I demand excellence from my students, Miss Henderson. Working with me will likely not be your favorite thing in the world. I won’t take it easy on you, and I won’t dance around something just to save your feelings. Piano isn’t easy, it isn’t for everyone, and I won’t be too shy to tell you if I think you fall into that category.”

Her eyes softened at that, like she was afraid she actually would.

I could tell just by the way she carried herself that it wasn’t possible.

I’d always felt like I had an eye for phonies, for people who wanted to play piano for all the wrong reasons. There was a difference between someone wanting to be the center of attention or have a party trick to pull out when someone has a house piano, and someone who genuinely loved music, who had to play it to breathe, to exist.

Sarah was the latter.

“I want to hear more about your injury first,” I said. “Then, I want to know what your goals are — short and long term. Finally, I’ll have you play a piece for me, and then we can discuss how I can help.”

“Okay,” Sarah said, letting out a long breath. She finally took a seat at the barstool across from me, and she splayed her long, thin fingers out on the counter before tucking her hands in her lap. “I was in my last year at Bramlock. I was supposed to be graduating this month, actually,” she said. “But…”

“The injury,” I finished for her.

Her eyes clouded over then, and she sniffed, taking a quick sip of water. “Yeah. The injury.”

“Tell me more about that.”

She swallowed. “It was last summer when it first happened. I was taking summer classes, and there was a performance exam coming up. My professor…” She paused, taking a sip of water again before continuing. “He was riding me really hard. And I don’t blame him,” she said quickly, her eyes snapping up to mine before they fell to the counter again. “It wasn’t his fault I took it all so seriously and played nearly every hour of every day for that whole week.”

I could already feel where the story was going before she finished, and though I applauded her for not placing blame on her professor, something told me he did play a big part in it. Any experienced teacher would have seen the signs, the duress, long before the injury occurred.

But at a university, when there are hundreds of students to look after, it’s harder to do.

“I knew I needed to rest before the exam,” she continued. “So, I gave myself the weekend off before the performance on Monday. I knew my wrists had been hurting, my hands, but… I didn’t realize how badly I’d been pushing. And when I stopped playing…”

“Everything seized up.”

She nodded, eyes glossing over. “Like an old car engine.” She extended her hands out toward me. “My wrists swelled up like balloons, I couldn’t even hold a pen.”

Sarah let her hands fall to the counter again, staring at them like they were someone else’s, like they’d betrayed her the way an ex-boyfriend might have. She started picking at her nails for a second before she pulled them back into her lap. Her eyes had changed, had darkened with her story. And we both knew there were no words I could say to take back what happened to her.

I let her sit in silence for a moment, refilling her glass and waiting.

“So,” she finally said. “I went to the doctor, obviously. Essentially, I had completely shredded the primary muscles I needed to play and then fucked up my secondary muscles, too.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

I smirked. “It’s okay. Trust me, my vocabulary is at least thirty-five percent curse words.”

“Fifty percent,” Randall called from the other room.

We all laughed, and Sarah seemed a bit relieved at that, folding her hand back in her lap.

“Anyway,” she said. “I couldn’t play all fall semester. I was falling behind, and I knew I was about to be faced with more school time if I didn’t figure it out. But there were so many steps before I could even play again.” She counted off on her fingers. “Nerve testing, deep tissue therapy, all these trips to the doctor… it was terrifying. My professor said he could help me, he could keep me on my trajectory to get where I wanted to be if I worked with him…”

Her eyes grew even darker at that, her face stone. I didn’t like the way she spoke about her piano professor, because I knew without her having to say it that she didn’t trust him and he didn’t favor her. Not that a student needed to be favored to be successful, but if all you ever had was someone riding your ass, it was hard to ever feel like anything but a burden and a failure.

And that’s why she’d pushed herself to injury.

“But, we just didn’t mesh well. And in the end, I left Bramlock for winter break and I never went back.” She sat up straighter. “I’ve been working on my own,” she explained. “And I’m finally playing again, but… I’m rusty. And I’m far from where I need to be at this point… to get to where I want to be.”