Page 59 of Entwined Hearts

I can see the wheels of his curious brain spinning like mad, but he reaches out to stroke my arm as if to reassure me. “I read somewhere that you were some kind of prodigy musician. Is it true?”

Here we go. “That’s overblown. I wasn’t anything special.”

His eyes scrunch together. He doesn’t believe me.

“My dad tried to get me into acting. The baby food commercials were the start. But as I got older, I hated it. He thought music was a good alternative.”

“What happened?” he asks, and I realize my face must be leaking my feelings. So I shrug, trying to let it all fall away.

“I loved playing. But the performances…” I sigh. “I used to get so nervous.” I skip over the part about the panic attacks I used to get and how my dad would punish me. “If I didn’t play well, I hid under my bed afterward.”

“That’s rough,” Colby says.

I see my twelve-year-old self sitting at the piano with my hands poised over the keys. In the background, my dad jumps down my instructor’s throat for not being hard enough on me.

“I’m glad you got out of that life.”

“Me too,” I say. If only it didn’t hurt so much.

“How did you get into climbing?”

“My school had a climbing wall, and one of my teachers ran a club. He recommended I try it.” I was such a scrawny thing back then. Not good at sports. But climbing was different.

“Did your parents approve?”

I’m starting to heat up from all of this. “I think they believed it was harmless.”

“Harmless? What’s that mean?”

The heat moves into my cheeks. “That it wouldn’t captivate me the way it did.”

“But that’s good, right? You found your passion.”

“They didn’t see it that way.”

An anguished look takes over his face. “Wow.”

“Climbing as a career was not on their radar.”It still isn’t, I don’t say.

“When did you quit music?”

“Oh, I wasn’t allowed to quit,” I say. “Climbing was my reward for playing well.”

His eyes wince.

“I better call my mom to confirm,” I say to change the subject. “She’s not always great with follow-through.”

But my mom doesn’t answer. I leave her a message. “We said noon,” I tell Colby, checking my phone for the time—just after eight o’clock. I think of all the work I need to get done today, and I lean back against the wall.

“So…moving.” Colby gives me a careful look. “Let me help.”

I chew my lip, thinking. I could use his help, but what does it mean? “You’d do that for me?”

“Heck yeah,” he says. “That’s what friends do, Anya. They help each other.”

Friends, I think, trying to connect all the fragments that have come together in the last twelve hours.

“Well then, sure,” I say, though my voice sounds strange. “But what will you do when I go to lunch?” I ask. “If I ever do, that is.”

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