Page 123 of Crescendo

It was the happy ending to Hannah’s song, and the room swooned accordingly. A completely different tune, genre, and tonal quality, but two halves of a story everyone wanted to have a happy ending. I’d told Eliza to pour her feelings into the piece and she’d gone with hope. It wasn’t what I’d expected, but it was beautiful and, of course, technically perfect.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Hannah swipe at her eyes.

Music had torn Lydia away from this place—away from me—but maybe it could bring these two back together.

We sat through a couple more songs and, finally, it was my turn. My limbs felt like they were filled with lead, my head dizzy, my stomach sick. All of my feelings laid bare for the entire group.My clarinet playing about to be heard by an audience for the first time in so long.

Lorna moved aside again and the music started up.

It was so familiar and so alien at the same time.

And then the clarinets kicked in.

Clara gasped beside me, eyeing me like she instantly knew it was me and that meant something massive. Maybe she did. She had enough discretion to know everything and have never said a word.

My body shook, the music reaching down inside of me, tangling my insides and ripping them apart all over again. I’d never written a piece like this before—one where my heart was strewn across the floor, broken and beaten, yet somehow still pounding in my chest.

The clarinet cracked the piece open, poured out pain and loss and love, and more people than just me sniffled and swiped at their faces. Eliza squeezed one of my hands as Clara clutched the other, wiping quickly at her own tears.

The applause that followed every piece broke out as it ended—haunting, longing, devastatingly hopeless, and foolishly hoping. And none of it felt real. I’d done it, played the clarinet, written the piece, submitted it, survived it, and survived people listening to it, but it didn’t feel real.

It didn’t feel complete. Not without Lydia. Maybe if she listened, it would finally feel like a piece I’d written, rather than something someone else had done that just happened to connect with something deep inside me.

Lorna stood up again to announce the next piece and Dodge snorted quietly. “I wouldn’t want to be the one going after Ella.”

“What?” I frowned, looking his way.

He rolled his eyes. “Nobody wants to be the guy going after a piece like that. Your girlfriend’s probably the only one who can even remotely compete.”

“That’s not true,” I insisted quickly and quietly, turning to listen to the next piece.

“Yes, it is,” he laughed, and laughed harder when Lorna announced it was Florian’s piece. He really hadn’t warmed to that guy.

It wasn’t terrible. It was good, but even I could admit it felt like it was missing something important in comparison to the pieces that came before it—not just mine.

The rest were good too, but, when they were all done and we were being dismissed for the night, Eliza shot me a look.

“Well,” she said, something resigned about her tone. “Looks like you did it.”

“Did what?” I frowned, tilting my head to look at her.

She rolled her eyes. “Such a sore winner you’re going to make me point it out?”

“What?”

She laughed. “Jesus, Ella. Don’t make me tell you you deserve it.”

I blinked, staring at her. “I don’t… understand.”

She sighed, her expression transforming. “Your piece is stunning, perfect. It’s going to win.”

“We don’t know that. Your piece was amazing—so were all of the others.”

“You and Lydia are such a weird pair. You can’t shake her confidence no matter what you say, and you can’t get you to own yours no matter what happens. Is that why you work? Two sides of the same coin?”

“Uh…”

The others filed out of our row, giving me and Eliza a minute alone, and she shook her head, looking at me withan oddly fond expression for someone she was accusing of defeating her. “You told me to put my feelings into the piece—”

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