What He Never Knew (What He Doesn't Know, #3)(35)

Why was it that I hadn’t seen her, not really, not until that exact moment?

All of that hit me in the one split second she held my gaze, and then, the hand of time kicked back in gear, and her eyes descended to the piano. In the next breath, her hands began to move, and I slipped away with her to another planet.

I’d listened to Sarah play in my home for the last month. I’d watched her sit there at my piano, her brows furrowed and delicate fingers stretching out over the ivory keys I’d played on for years. But in all those times, I’d never seen her play. We’d been practicing, working on technique, focusing on tension, tackling the hurdle of emoting while working.

That wasn’t how she played on that stage.

For the first time, I felt the song Sarah was playing. We hadn’t discussed which one she would choose, but as she played through the slow, melancholy notes of Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsody, I felt all the things that made me human slip away like she’d stripped me bare — along with the rest of that audience. Her body moved in time with the rests, her eyes closing in the most powerful moments before shooting open as her fingers moved quickly over the keys.

The song started with these long, dramatic and deep notes with purposeful rests, but as the song stretched, so did her fingers, picking up tempo and flying over the keys in what seemed like an impossible feat if you were anyone who hadn’t been studying piano your entire life. I knew the kind of concentration it took to accomplish the musicality of the piece she was playing, and somehow, she made it seem effortless, like her hands were moving of their own accord and she was just the body that hosted them.

She was spectacular.

Time shrank away with her on that stage, and before I could grasp what we’d seen, what we’d heard, Sarah was standing and the crowd was cheering in a deafening roar. Her uncle screamed from beside me, his pinkies shoved in his mouth as he whistled around them, tears glossing his eyes.

I scanned the audience and found he wasn’t the only one moved to tears.

The entire room was on their feet, many of the parents blotting wetness from the corners of their eyes. I knew Sarah had moved them, and perhaps they were even envisioning their own children being able to play like her one day. I wondered if they’d ask me, if they’d inquire if their kids stood a chance to do what she’d just done.

And I wondered if I’d have the heart to tell them there wasn’t a chance in hell.

We may have only been working together for a month, but it was long enough for me to know that no one worked as hard as Sarah Henderson. She would make it not just because of her talent, but because of the sheer drive she had to get to where she wanted to be.

Sarah was an unstoppable force, like a Category 5 hurricane, and we’d all just been wrecked by her power.

When she finally made her way backstage, the crowd still cheering, her uncle wrapped her up in a bear hug while talking a thousand miles a minute. It was actually quite comical to watch, since she was taller than him. I just stood to the side, letting them have their family moment before Mr. Henderson scurried back out to the stage to introduce the first group of students.

It was just me and Sarah, then.

She worried her bottom lip as her eyes found mine, one hand floating up to clasp her crystal necklace like she’d find the thoughts in my head if she rubbed it hard enough. “Well?”

I laughed. “Well?” I tucked my hands in my pockets and took a step toward her, shaking my head. My voice was low, meant for only her to hear when I spoke again. “You were sensational, Sarah.”

Her cheeks flamed, that bottom lip slipping from between her teeth as she smiled. She let out a long, exaggerated breath, like she’d genuinely been worried. That just made me laugh harder.

“I felt it, Reese. For the first time since…” She paused, swallowing. “Since my injury, I sat down at that piano and wasn’t afraid of it. I was ready — ready to bleed, to be vulnerable, to trust the keys again.”

I nodded, because I knew that feeling — that sensation of coming home again. It wasn’t the piano that ever changed, or ever left. It was the human who played it that shifted over time. And sometimes, that made it hard to ever come back together, to ever find that same relationship.

Sarah had found hers again, even if it was different than before. And I knew more than anyone what it felt like to find that joy again when everything seemed hopeless.

“I know,” I said, smiling at her bouncing joy. “I felt it, your reconnection.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, then her brows tugged together. “That was it, wasn’t it? A sort of… homecoming.”

I smiled wider then. “I think so.”

Her eyes were bright and shining, and she bit her bottom lip against a giant smile before shaking her head, like she was afraid to feel joy over how she’d just played, like she was afraid it wasn’t real.

I knew that feeling, too.

“Any notes?” she asked, a sort of cringe on her face now.

“A few, but we can go over them on Monday. Tonight, be proud of how you played. It was truly magical to watch.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes, like she still didn’t believe I’d enjoyed her performance. I held my steady, confident gaze as her eyes searched mine.

Then, before I could register what I was doing, I pulled my hands from my pockets and opened my arms.