Page 5 of Crescendo

“Yeah. I was… stubborn.”

“When are you not?”

“I know what I need.”

Alisha shot her a look like neither of them believed that. “Are you sure you don’t need to go literally anywhere else tonight?”

I nodded, resolute. “I’m sure. I know you’re both worried and, believe me, I know it’s not all going to be sunshine and roses, but, for tonight, this is what I want to do.” I looked up at the Barbican. “I have three months to process and grieve and remember who I am. Tonight, I want to see this show. Callum loved music.”

“Youlove music,” Sian pointed out.

I shrugged. “I do, but you know, it’s been difficult.”

They both nodded as Alisha said, “If you need to do this for him, we’re here with you. And, of course we’re here for whateveryour sabbatical entails, too—however much stuff you need to do for Callum—but make sure you do something for you.”

“I know.” I sniffled slightly. “Forboth of us, I need to start living again. I know that. I finally got the message.”

I could feel both of their gazes on me as I looked up at the concrete monstrosity before us. It was beautiful on the inside, but, outside, it… divided opinion. Callum would have loved it, but he’d have loved it for the music inside more than anything. It was a shame he’d never visited.

In many ways, it felt right that music was what had finally done it, finally broken me and put me back on my path.

For years, I hadn’t picked up my clarinet, too heartbroken by the memories of Callum that seemed to fill every sound it made. The couple of times I’d even tried, overwhelming nausea had flooded through me the second I’d tried to pick it up and had me shutting it away again.

Then, I’d fallen down a YouTube rabbit hole of audio production and DAWs and orchestration, and music had brought part of me home again. It had woken up something that had been in hiding for too long. It was a connection to Callum that felt safe and warm and real. And then, I’d been requesting a sabbatical and knowing that it was time to be more than my job and moving soullessly through my life.

Sian hooked an arm through one of mine and started us towards the doors. “You can change your mind at any time and we’ll both leave with you.”

“I’m not going to change my mind,” I said confidently.

“Well, just in case, the offer is there.”

I smiled at her. “Thank you.”

“So,” Alisha said, unable to hide the curiosity in her voice, “do you know what you’re doing with your three months of freedom?”

I laughed. “Nope. Not a clue. Well, notno clue. I’m going to spend the first week alone, unboxing, processing, and feeling. You know, all the things all those therapists have been trying to get me to do.”

“Yeah, yeah, them and the rest of us,” Sian said, exasperated in a loving way.

“Sorry about that. I haven’t made it easy.”

She shrugged nonchalantly. “You did what you needed to do. Nobody else can tell you how to process stuff like that. We’re all just doing the best we can with the tools we have. It is what it is.”

There were few people in the world as lucky as I was. Alisha and Sian had stuck with me through the days I wouldn’t leave the house, the ones where I was essentially a robot, and through the deadened version of me they’d been working with since the accident. It was a lot to stick with someone through, and I didn’t think I’d ever make it up to them, but I was at least going to try. God knows I wouldn’t have blamed them for walking away. Plenty of others did, and, honestly, I was glad some of them had—they couldn’t help me and I couldn’t be what they wanted, couldn’t grieve and return to normal immediately. We couldn’t be there for each other and that was okay. But, these two, they were with me until the end, and I was never letting that go.

“So, after the first week?” Alisha prompted.

“Go see my dads for a whole week.”

Sian whistled again. “They’re going to be over the moon.”

“I know.” I was oddly aware of the air in my chest. I hadn’t spent more than two days back home since it had happened. My dads had asked, had left the option open, but I couldn’t. I was too busy running. So they’d spent four years coming to me. Now, it was time to go home.

“And, after that?” she asked, continuing the conversation rather than the three of us lingering on what going home meant to me, my dads, all of it.

I sucked in a breath. “I don’t know. But I’m excited to find out. Something… I like, I guess. Something I’ve been putting off or ignoring or missing out on.”

Alisha watched me from the corner of her eye. “You’re really doing it?”

---