Page 111 of Crescendo

It hurt me—something about the music, about the song, felt like a bleeding wound in my chest. The longing melodies on the upper register, haunting chords below, rising together in wistful harmony before crashing away into dissonance and conflict, ached deeply in my chest, in a way that impossibly made me want to break down crying on the floor right now. A song that felt impossibly like a woman who meant everything to you, reaching her hand out to you, and pulling it away when you tried to take it.

I slipped inside, shutting the heavy door quietly back behind me, and I leaned against the door watching her play with my heart in my mouth, a thick feeling in my throat, until, finally, she trickled out to a soft sound, rounding out the song on a long, haunting chord and letting the sound slowly fade, and I clapped, slowly, the only thing I could bring myself to do. She jumped, pushing the piano bench back as she shot up to her feet, whirling on me with wild eyes.

“Bloody—Lydia?” She put a hand to her chest. “The hell are you doing here?”

“What are you playing?”

“How long were you creeping in the corner?”

“What are you playing?”

She scowled. “It’s a little song I wrote calledit’s none of your fucking business.”

“Can I see it?” I said, my voice small, quiet.

She folded her arms, hunching her shoulders. “You don’t take a fucking hint, do you?”

“It’s for her, isn’t it?”

She leaned on the piano, giving me a deadly look. “I am telling you to fucking drop it.”

I walked across the room, leaning against the base of the stage, my hands on the wood. “I think I get it,” I said quietly. “What it’s like… having someone right there, someone who’s the center of your world, and yet at the same time, is an entire world away.”

Her expression faltered, staring at me, and she went to speak before she stopped herself, face crumpling. Wordlessly, she sank back onto the piano bench, turning back to the music she had there, and I climbed up onto the stage, footsteps echoing on the hollow wood as I walked over to her. Finally, quietly, she said, “It’s calledI Only Meant Well.”

I looked over the sheets of paper she had there—once again, just chords and lyrics, everything else seeming to exist in her head for the time being. She hadn’t sung it, but I could hear the lyrics to the song as I read them off the page, coming to me in Ella’s voice, lyrics that bled, starting withcradling the bodies of promises I made, doves with broken wings as their heartbeats start to fade, blood and memories dripping through my fingers.I didn’t say anything, just turned to pick up the violin case, and Hannah didn’t protest, waiting until I was standing ready next to her before she started off with slow, trickling piano notes building up into dramatic, heavy chords. I fell into the song with her, and even though it was me and Hannah, I played the song for Ella, casting the voice of the violin out as if she could hear it if I poured enough of myself into it.

I had a feeling Hannah was doing the same.

“It’s my own fault,” she said quietly once we ended the song, a hauntingly slow finish that left goosebumps on my arms. “She… she said she wanted to be with me too. But it had been… she was fresh out of a breakup. Not just any breakup, butthatbreakup. It destroyed the band. Everyone took his side, all her friends leaving her to defend him, everyone… everyone except me. I just… didn’t want to… risk that,” she breathed, lookingdown at her fingers on the keys. “She’s my best friend. I thought maybe… that needs to come first.”

“Everything falling through enough that she needed to change herself, change everything, and you were willing to throw everything away to make sure she didn’t go alone.”

“I just want her to be happy, is all. She’s so… damn… brilliant when she is. Absolutely luminous. Just… exquisite. But she isn’t. And I don’t fucking know why, and I can’t very well justaskher, because she’s further and further away from me every day, and I don’t know how to fix it. I just wanted to help her focus on her performance, on her music. I didn’t think she’d pull away from me altogether when she did, like I’m… like I’m not even there.”

“You know, she’s…” I shrugged. “She’s not that far away. She clearly wants something she’s not getting. It can’t hurt to… to hope… maybe… that that could be you. And that you could fix it.”

“Fix it?” She wrinkled her nose at me. “What’s there to fix? If she doesn’t want to talk to me—wants to go try to compete with you and Ella instead—then that’s… that’s her decision to make.”

“Maybe you both only meant well.”

She sighed, turning back to the piano. I looked down at the floor, letting the violin bow hang by my side.

“Ella told me we can never be more than this… that what we’re doing has to end, because neither of us are willing to bend. And I know she’s not wrong. But then right after that, she takes me to meet her parents, steps in to hold my hand when the music isn’t coming to me, plays songs with me like we’re the only two people in the world…”

She sighed, harder this time. “Never thought I’d have much in common with you, Lydia Howard Fox.”

“Ah, well, better get used to it. Maybe all of us only meant well.”

“Maybe so.” She raised her hands to the keys again. “Let’s… play it… again. One more time. I didn’t get it quite right.”

I lifted my bow again, straightening my back. “Neither did I.”

∞∞∞

It was a little later than I’d anticipated when I got back to the apartment, and the music had stopped by the time I’d gotten back, enough that I would have suspected Ella wasn’t here if it weren’t for the lights on in the music room. Quietly, I held the takeout bags close to my chest, cracking the door quietly, and I found Ella as I first did—she sat on the floor, legs folded, and in front of her, the clarinet case, lying open. My heart jumped at the sight of it, Ella’s back to me and just the edges of the clarinet case visible, but I could see she’d… she’d put it together this time.

That still seemed to be the extent of it, though. Still trying to telekinetically play the thing.

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