Page 25 of The Dark Before Light

“Do you know her?” whispers the woman next to me. I think her name is Claudia. Maybe Flavia. She’s a petite, pretty blond. Exactly my type.

I lean over so I can keep my voice low, regretting the move when I get a nose-full of flowery perfume. “No, but she looks familiar. Is she an actress or something? Should we ask for an autograph?”

Claudia-Flavia giggles. “No. She’s some celebrity sex therapist. Buzzfeed did an article about her and it kinda blew up.”

“Sex therapy, huh?” I grin, and she blushes like I knew she would.

I’m relieved when the musicians file across the stage and take their seats, then the first chair violinist. As the orchestra begins warming up, I close my eyes to listen. A prickling sensation overtakes me at the familiar, harmonious chaos. My eyes stay closed as the conductor’s entrance garners more applause.

Alistair whispers to me, “You okay?”

I nod, murmuring back, “Just miss her.”

“Same.”

Our mother loved classical music with a passion. Baroque, Renaissance, Opera, it didn’t matter and changed by the day. She played it so much—all the damn time, really—that Alistair and I hated it as teens. Little shits that we were, we’d crank heavy metal in our room to drown out the record player that sat outside the kitchen.

Now the music is a barbed comfort. For five years, we’ve come here every month to feel close to her. Even though most days she doesn’t remember her love of music. Or even her love of us.

Shubert’s Symphony No. 6 in C major unfolds, carrying me back to a rainy afternoon in our flat. Mam in the kitchen, the smell of a roast floating out. Dad dozing on the couch with a book open on his chest. Alistair and I running around attempting to murder each other as silently as possible.

The music swells and ebbs around the memory. I float on the surface of it, out of place and time.

A kick to my shin jerks me from my stupor. My eyes fly open to find everyone standing and applauding. I join them quickly and put my hands together. The vestiges of dreaminess cling to me as my gaze drifts to the back of Stirling’s head. A wisp of hair curls against her bare neck, the rest drawn up in a loose bun. I have the sudden, ridiculous urge to rip out the clip and watch her hair spill like a waterfall.

The applause tapers off, voices rising and bodies shuffling toward the lobby for intermission. Stirling’s date—I’ve already forgotten his name—says something about using the restroom. When Stirling nods, he just stands there like an ape.

She finally says, “I’ll stay here, thanks,” and he beats a retreat. She sighs and sits back down.

Alistair and Gail have also disappeared. Clavia presses close to me, her fake breasts against my arm. “Do you want to grab a quick drink, Kieran?” she asks, her voice unpleasantly loud.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Stirling’s spine stiffen to a plank.

“Go on ahead,” I tell her, pulling out my phone. “I have to answer a few emails.”

“On a Saturday night?” she whines.

I grin. “No rest for the wicked.”

Wrongly interpreting the words as foreshadowing, Clavia blushes and titters, then finally leaves. I sit down and scoot to the edge of the seat, leaning forward until I’m close enough to Stirling to count the individual hairs in that little wisp and the tiny gold links in her necklace.

“Psst.”

Her head falls forward a moment—in resignation, most like—before she straightens and turns around. “Hello, Mr. Hayes.”

Goddamn.

Surprise punches me, like my brain deleted how beautiful she is so it could appreciate her again for the first time. Or maybe it’s the fact my wall of defensive denial crumbled at the end of our session Wednesday.

As aggravating as it is to admit, I’m attracted to her. Very, very attracted.

Bronze eye shadow makes her eyes look like pools of gold, and the subtle, rosy tint on her lips somehow packs a bigger punch than red lipstick. A few loose tendrils of hair frame her face. The snug, long-sleeved green dress doesn’t show nearly as much skin as I imagined from Toasty’s drooling; on the other hand, I can’t blame the man. This woman would make a burlap sack sexy. At the base of her throat sits a tiny gold pendant of a bird, vibrating above a fluttering pulse.

I clear my throat. “I was a jackass on Wednesday. I’m sorry.”

The coolness in her eyes shifts to wariness. “Is that so?”

I nod gravely. “I meant to call you today to apologize, but between all the healthy meals and exercise, I didn’t get a chance.”

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