What He Never Knew (What He Doesn't Know, #3)(74)

Right there, at the same piano Charlie had once sat on top of while she listened to me play, the same piano I’d sat at as I mourned everyone who’d ever left me, and the same piano that had once sat in my mother’s home… Sarah Henderson broke.

Her eyes squeezed shut even tighter, bottom lip trembling as she tripped over the lyrics, the emotion too strong. Her fingers stalled, an unscripted pause somehow making the song even stronger as she succumbed to the tears fighting their way through her closed eyelids. I watched those tears stain her face, running over the same dried treadmarks I’d noticed when she was on my front porch, and my next breath burned with the need to hold her and wipe those tears away.

Just like I knew she would, she felt the song.

She felt it the same way I did.

And though she sang about no one knowing her like the piano, I knew now that it wasn’t true.

I knew her, too.

And she knew me.

Sarah was still crying as she sang the last few words, and I was already moving toward her, abandoning my spot in the corner of the room. Her eyes blinked open when I took the seat on the bench next to her, and my hands found the keys alongside hers. We finished the song together, playing the end with tears still streaming down Sarah’s face, and when the last note floated between us, my hands hovered over the keys, but Sarah’s flew to her face.

She buried her pain inside those beautiful hands — the hands that had just brought to life the most emotional piece of music I’d ever heard in my home — and softly, quietly, she sobbed. Her small shoulders shook, and every piece of me broke along with her.

I wished I could save her, wished I could go back in time and take away every single shred of impurity that had ever touched her. I wished I could undo the pain, the hurt, and see her as she once was — whole, untouched, unscathed.

But then again, I knew it was her pain that made her so beautiful.

It was her strength, her unyielding drive, her unwillingness to ever give up or give in that I admired most.

And it was everything she’d been through that allowed her to play with the emotion she just did.

Still, I wished it didn’t have to be that way for her.

The silence stretched between us as I pulled my hands from the piano, my heart breaking for the woman crying next to me. And though I knew I shouldn’t, though I tried to fight against the urge, I couldn’t help but reach for her. It was like trying not to watch the stars that peppered a dark sky — absolutely impossible.

And when I surrendered the fight, when my arms surrounded her and pulled her into me, when Sarah sobbed even harder, burying her face in my chest and twisting her tiny fists in my dress shirt, I knew there was no other place in the world I would rather be.

For the longest time, I held her there against me, soothing her as best I could as she fell apart. It was like she was shedding her skin in the most painful way, fully embracing the raw, ragged being beneath the exterior that had been begging to be set free. Her pain was palpable, and it bled into me like ink on paper, spreading over me in a way that would permanently change me forever.

Eventually, her sobs grew softer, her grip on my shirt loosening as she sniffed, but still, I held her. And she held me.

Even though the room was completely silent, I still heard her voice. I could close my eyes and see her moving with the music, changing right before me like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. And when her sobs had finally quieted altogether, her breathing steady once more, I pulled back, the tips of my fingers gently finding the smooth skin of her jaw. I lifted, reveling in the feel of her warmth against me as her eyes finally met mine.

“Sarah,” I breathed, searching her honey eyes as they glistened in the soft flicker of the candlelight. “What you just did, it was more than anything I ever could have expected. It was otherworldly,” I said, trying to explain, though words seemed to fail me in that moment. “It was more beautiful than I could ever say. And I know it hurt. I know it didn’t come easy.”

Her little face warped then, tears flooding her eyes again as she watched me.

“I’m so proud of you,” I whispered.

That broke the levy, the tears that had washed over her eyes breaking free and streaming down her cheeks. But before they could fall far, my rough hands were there, wiping them away, my eyes still searching hers for some kind of understanding as I tried to erase her pain.

Sarah leaned into my palm, closing her eyes as a long, slow breath escaped her parted lips. Then, her eyes opened again, connecting with mine in what felt like a new universe. She wasn’t the same girl who had walked through my door earlier that night. And when she looked at me, I felt her in a way I never had before.

In a way I’d never felt anyone.

“Reese?” she finally whispered.

“Yes?”

She sniffed, eyes flicking between mine as her fingers fisted in my shirt again. She pulled me closer, just a centimeter, and her gaze fell to my mouth before she spoke again.

“Will you kiss me again?”

I audibly groaned at her request, my next breath leaving my chest in a singeing burn. I couldn’t take my eyes off her, couldn’t pull away, couldn’t tamp down that feeling in my heart that her words had spawned. It beat loud and steady in my chest, urging me to answer her plea, to pull her into me and kiss her breathless.

“This is dangerous,” I said instead, the words croaking out of my dry throat. I still held her, and she held me, our eyes dancing across the short space between us. “I hurt you before, and I swore I never would again.”