What He Never Knew (What He Doesn't Know, #3)(14)

“And where is that?”

She let out a long breath, and with the most confidence she’d had all evening, with her eyes locked on mine and her back straight, she said the last thing I expected.

“Carnegie Hall.”

It took every ounce of muscle control I had not to let my eyebrows shoot up into my hairline or my mouth flop open on the kitchen island. Instead, I took a drink of water, letting her words sink in.

“So, you want to be a concert pianist?”

Sarah nodded. “I do. But, I want Carnegie. I want a solo. I want…” She smiled for the first time all evening, hope shooting out of her eyes like visible stars. “I want to be on the Ronald O. Perelman Stage. I want to be one of the greats. I want to be at the top of the entire city’s list when they think of who they want playing their piano for an upcoming concert.”

Right then and there, I wanted to reach over and pet her hand like she was a young girl who didn’t understand what she was asking. But I knew better, because though Sarah was young, I knew just from hearing all she’d endured that she wasn’t stupid. She knew what she was asking. She knew the odds.

And still, she was here.

I stood without another word, draining the last of the water in my glass and wishing it was beer as I considered everything she’d said. It was far from what I expected to walk into, and far from what I felt I could achieve as a piano teacher. Still, I held my hand out toward the room that housed my baby grand piano, quieting my pessimistic thoughts as I looked down at the hopeful girl seated at my kitchen island.

“I think it’s time I heard you play, Miss Henderson.”





Sarah



He doesn’t think I can do it.

I knew it before I even sat down at his baby grand piano, feeling the keys under my fingers as I warmed up with his eyes on me. He’d listened to every word I’d said in that kitchen, and he hadn’t said anything that should have made me feel like he didn’t have faith in me.

He didn’t have to.

It was all in the way he watched me, in the way he didn’t smile, didn’t nod or assure me in any way that what I wanted was achievable.

But he wasn’t the first one who didn’t believe in me.

And he wouldn’t be the first one I proved wrong.

A candle burned in the corner of the room with a warm vanilla scent as I got familiar with the piano, my wrists and fingers warming up with each note. My stomach churned a little as I played, just like it had when I sat down at a piano ever since that last night at Bramlock. I used to feel the cool keys under my skin and get a tingle of joy, one that flowed from my neck to my toes. I used to smile, and instantly feel in my zone, in my element.

Now, I thought of what the bottom of the piano looked like from the floor, what the weight of an unwanted man between my legs felt like. I thought of my injury, felt every stiff, sore muscle that surrounded my wrist bones like hot barbed wire cutting me over and over again.

I didn’t just have to work on technique with Reese. I had to learn to love the piano again, to not be afraid of it, to not associate it with that night.

Perhaps that would be my biggest challenge.

Reese stood in the corner, giving me space, but his eyes watched me like no eyes had ever watched me before. I opened my mouth, but the words I wanted to say stuck in my throat. I wanted to tell him that I knew I was rusty, that I knew I needed work. I wanted to tell him that I was one of the top students in my class at Bramlock, and that I had potential. I wanted to tell him that I could do this — with his help.

But instead, I decided to let my hands to the talking.

Once I was warm, I stopped playing and stretched my wrists out in front of me, rolling them a few times before wiggling my fingers. I closed my eyes, cracking my neck once on each side, and I let out a long, smooth breath.

When I opened my eyes again, I wasn’t with Reese.

I was alone, in the house I grew up in with both parents. I was at the piano my mom bought for me on my tenth birthday, the one I’d lost entire afternoons with, the one that still sat in our little apartment in Atlanta. My father was there, too — standing in the corner instead of Reese — and he smiled at me with shining eyes, the same way he had when he was alive.

My heart beat grew steadier, my rib cage loosened its grip on my heart.

And then, I played.

I chose River Flows in You by Yiruma, or should I say, it chose me. I hadn’t planned a piece to play, but it was the first one that came to me, and I felt those beginning notes like a long walk home on a sunny day. It was a more modern song than what I typically played, but one that I felt so deeply every time I brought it to life. And with every new chord, with every second of the melody, I felt myself slip away, into that piano, into the music.

There was a sort of sad hope weaved throughout the song, with prominent rests that seemed to impress that hope into your soul, and it spread over me like the warmest blanket.

It was a short piece, but it showed my strengths, the arpeggios and rests so beautifully connected that I could display my emotion along with my talent. My nerves still fired to life with each stretch of my hands, the recovering muscles reminding me how fragile the human body really was. I used that painful reminder as fuel, letting it flow through me and into the song.

When I played the last notes, I held the keys down, eyes still closed. I didn’t want to open them yet, to see if Reese was emoting with me, to see if he believed me yet.