What He Never Knew (What He Doesn't Know, #3)(73)

He slid me one of the waters, staring at the one in his hand before shaking his head. He dipped back inside the fridge, this time pulling out a beer and leaving the glass of water behind. He cracked the can open, chugging half of it in one go.

I stared at the glass in my hand.

“Why are you here, Sarah?”

I lifted my gaze, and I wanted to die when I met his eyes. He watched me like me being in that house with him was the most painful thing, like he was trying to breathe clean oxygen and I was a roaring fire, causing him to inhale hot, black smoke, instead. And when my eyes fell to his lips, my stomach twisted painfully at the smudge of red that marred them.

He’d kissed her.

Of course he’d kissed her.

“I… I told you,” I said, swallowing, hands still fastened around my full glass of water as I tore my eyes away from his lips. “I think I’m ready to play the song.”

“Right.” Reese’s grip tightened on the can of beer in his hand. “But, our lesson is tomorrow. Why did you come tonight?”

Tears stung the corners of my eyes, and I ripped my gaze from his, taking a tentative sip of water before I pushed the glass away. I couldn’t even drink that without my stomach churning in protest. I felt sick — from the day, the week, the news from Reneé, the sight of Reese dressed up for another woman.

But I couldn’t say any of that.

There was only one way I could communicate in that moment.

“Please,” I finally said, voice barely a whisper as I looked up at him once more. “Just… please, let me play. I think I have it. I think I can play it now.”

Reese finally looked at me then — really looked at me — his eyes softening as he considered my plea. After a long moment, he sighed, running his hand over his face before taking another sip of his beer. Then, without a word or a nod or a confirmation of any kind, he turned, leaving me in the kitchen as he rounded the corner into the piano room.

He was just like the man I’d first met.

Gone was my warm, tender Reese who laughed and played, who skated in the park with me and rubbed his dog’s belly in the sunshine. He’d been replaced by the cold, quiet Reese I’d first met.

And somehow, I felt like I was to blame.

I followed him into the room where his piano was, and he was already in his corner, arms folded over his chest where he waited in the shadows. He must have wiped his mouth, or perhaps it was the beer, but the traces of red lipstick he’d worn before were gone now. The room was dark, save for a candle I assumed he’d just lit, and the flame of it flickered around us as I took my seat at the bench.

I flipped the wood cover up, exposing the ivory keys as I tried to steady my breath. I didn’t expect to be nervous, not when I’d played at that piano so many times for Reese, but I was shaking, too aware of the man in the corner of the room. My hands floated over the keys, touching each one softly as I warmed up, the pedal giving way to my foot under the bench. I took my time, loosening my wrists and relaxing my shoulders as I played.

Once I was warm, I pulled my hands away, stretching them up above the keys and rolling my wrists a few times. I cracked my neck next, blowing out a long, slow breath. I felt Reese there in the corner, watching me, waiting — but when I closed my eyes, he was gone. When I closed my eyes, I was exactly where the song said I should be.

At the piano in my mother’s home.

I could see it — our old house, the octagon-shaped window with the crack in the veneer. I could feel the sun shining through it, touching that same spot it always did on my left forearm as I played. I smelled the vanilla and lavender, two of mom’s favorite scents, and I felt the long, shaggy carpet under my toes as I played. I was no longer in Reese’s home, but in ours. In the one we’d left behind. In the one I’d never forget.

There, in the corner, instead of Reese, it was her. It was Mom.

And Dad was there with her.





Reese



The minute Sarah opened her mouth and sang the first line of Sampha’s song, every ounce of pent-up frustration I’d been carrying around with me all night melted away.

Her eyes were closed, body moving with her hands in a dramatic bend and flow as she poured her heart out at my piano. The strong, raspy voice that came from that girl nearly knocked me off my feet. It was the last thing I expected — the power, the strength — and yet once I heard her, I wondered how I could have ever imagined anything else.

How could I have ever assumed her voice would be soft, sweet, gentle and tentative when everything about her screamed the opposite?

Sarah was the embodiment of strength, of pain, of healing. And in that moment, in my dark little piano room, I watched the woman I’d always known was inside her all along bloom to life.

She emerged from the shadows like an angel, breaking through the shell of the girl who had imprisoned her. But unlike an angel, she didn’t glow softly or sing lightly — she roared, like a wildfire or a lioness, and she belted out the lyrics of Sampha’s song like she were the creator, herself.

Her fingers moved over that piano like I’d never seen before, her shoulders relaxed, face twisting up with emotion more and more as the song progressed. And when she sang the part of the piece I predicted would hit her hardest, when she sang of the time coming, of the loss of a loved one and how the piano held her close and never let her go, she broke.