She laughed, welling up a little. “I—I feel so stupid again. I should be able to go watch music. I love the theatre. I used to love watching the orchestra. I shouldn’t be crying over some stupid… I shouldn’t be this broken.”
“Ella, we’re all a little broken here and there. But you’re also the person strong enough to go towards the thing that scares you. That’s why you’re at Crescendo, isn’t it?”
She gave me a wide-eyed look, and time seemed to stand still there in that moment—I gave her all the time she needed, holding her gaze, before slowly, she swallowed, slipped her hand into mine, and squeezed. “I’ll… I’ll try,” she said quietly. “But if I need to slip out, I don’t want you to have to ruin your night over it. You should stay. I’m an adult.”
“Mm. No.”
She laughed, a thick, tear-streaked sound. “God, I don’t know why I ever try to convince you of anything.”
“Me neither. I’ll get changed and try to look halfway like I could possibly be seen next to all ofthis, and we can go meet the others for drinks before the show, unless you’d rather skip all that and just go straight there?”
“We can get drinks. If… if I need to back out, I’ll… I’ll say it’s… upset my stomach.”
I winked, pressing a quick kiss to the corner of her mouth. “I’ll strategically ask when you get one drinkare we not worried that’s going to give you an upset stomach like last time?”
Her eyes gleamed. “You’re a clever one.”
“I’m a genius. Now, let me go try to be an attractive genius.”
She said something quietly as I left the room, and I decided to assume it was something about how I already was an attractive genius.
Chapter 14
Ella
Every muscle in my body locked up as I sat at the piano and the instructor frowned at me again. I wasn’t used to being such a terrible student.
Three days since we’d been to the Philharmonic. People were still talking about it, of course, gushing about how great it had been, how much they wanted to see their own pieces performed like that. But I’d sat in my seat beside Lydia—the fancy, expensive ones she absolutely shouldn’t have bought—and I’d shut down. Physically, I’d been there, but every muscle had ached, the tension flooded through my body until it felt like I would snap. I’d felt sick and dizzy and like white noise was buzzing in my brain.
I knew the music had been wonderful. It was the bloody Philharmonic, of course it was. But every sound had felt like it was splitting my head open, leaving me wounded and bleeding. And all I’d really been able to think about had been Callum’s fifteenth birthday, back when he’d thought he might do classical music, before his love for dirty guitar riffs and pounding drums had taken over and shifted him in a different direction.
Because we’d been there.
We’d sat in that room and he had been in awe, filled with the hope that, one day, he might play that stage too. It didn’t feel right that I was closer to that than he’d ever had the chance to be.
My brain had screamed at me to run, to escape, to do whatever it took to get out. But I couldn’t. Even if the others had believed that lie about me being ill, Lydia wouldn’t have. She’d have needed an explanation. Once I’d made it there, leaving would have meant explaining to her why I was stealing that experience from her, and the reason wasn’t good enough to take anything from her.
So, I’d stayed. Feeling constantly on the edge of crying or throwing up, and, somehow, we’d made it through, made it home, and I’d made it to my bed. Dropped my dress on the floor and hidden under the covers, unable to sleep.
And every day since, whatever breakthrough I’d been having last week slipped further and further away, like sand through my fingers.
I was glad Lydia wasn’t in this group. I couldn't take the way she’d look at me, that concern I’d seen on her the last few days loud and clear and reflected on every other face in here.
I was going to be sick.
I leapt up from the piano, apologised to the instructor I could now barely see through tears, covered my mouth, and ran from the room.
I shouldn’t have done this. Should have known I couldn’t.
The bathrooms weren’t busy, what with everyone in class, and I sobbed into the toilet, trying to keep the noise down. I’d barely slept and barely eaten anything the last few days. I had nothing left to give.
I should have stayed in my regular life, kept going to work, engaged only with events Sian and Alisha wanted to attend.Life was manageable when those things happened, when I kept moving, kept staying the exact same way I’d been since he died.
I collapsed back against the stall door, not caring that I was sitting on the floor of a public bathroom—I’d seen worse—and pulled out my phone.
“Hey, baby girl,” my dad’s voice said when the call connected, cheerful and warm. “You all right?”
“Dad.” The word wrestled itself from my body between gasps and panic and the unshakeable sensation that I was falling, drowning, dying.