Page 52 of A Wish for Us

“The Albert Hall.” I pointed at the picture on his wall. “He brought me to meet you. We all came. Me, Mum, and Dad. He was on leave from the army.”

Lewis gave me a tight smile. “Yeah. I invited you to the show. But I wasn’t—” He sighed. “I wasn’t in a good place then. I’d been using for years by that point.” He looked up at the picture. “I almost died that night. Took so much heroin that my agent found me on a hotel floor.” His face paled. “I was minutes from death.” He faced me again. “It was a turning point for me.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“I remembered you. I have no memory of that night at all, yet I remembered meeting you. The boy with synesthesia and the ability to play anything he picked up.” He pointed at me with his hands steepled. “The boy who, by ten years old, could compose masterpieces.”

Icy coldness ran through me.

“I failed your father, Cromwell. It was years before I was in a better place to help. I contacted him. I even came to England, but you were already falling out of love with composition.” He met my eyes. “When I heard of his death…I wanted to honor the agreement I made with him years ago. To help you. To help you with your talent.”

My chest was tight. It always was when I thought of my dad. “I kept in touch with your mother. We talked, and I told her about my teaching here in Jefferson. That’s when I offered you the place.” Lewis ran his hand through his hair again. “I knew you had synesthesia.” He raised an eyebrow. “And I knew you now fought classical music. I wondered when it would all finally get the better of you.” He gave me an accepting smile. “You can’t fight the colors you were born to see.”

I wasn’t ready to talk about all that yet. I was here for another reason. “I want to be able to explain it to someone. What I see when I hear music. I want to explain. But I have no idea how.”

Lewis’s eyes narrowed. For a second I thought he was going to ask me who. But the guy knew to keep out of my business. “It’s hard if you don’t have it. It’s hard to explain if you do. How do you know how to explain the absence of something you’ve always lived with?”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s why I’m here. Wanted to know if you had any suggestions. You’re a music teacher, after all. You’ve surely heard of it before. No doubt studied it or some shit.”

He smirked. “Or some shit.”

Lewis got up and took a leaflet out of a rack on his wall. He put it in front of me. It was for a museum just outside of town. “You’re in luck, Mr. Dean.” I scanned the leaflet. It was advertising an exhibition on synesthesia.

“You have to be kidding me. There’s an exhibition on it?”

“Not yet. But it’s almost done.” He sat back down. “It’s a complete sensory experience, created by an artist friend of mine. It’s really quite something.”

“But it’s not open.” I blew out a frustrated breath.

“I can get you an early viewing if you’d like.” Lewis said, shrugging. “He might like more feedback from another synesthete. It could benefit everyone.”

“When?” I asked, pulse starting to race.

“Next weekend should be fine. I’ll ask him.”

I took the leaflet and put it in my pocket. I got to my feet. “You sure it’s good? That it’ll explain what I see and hear?”

“It might be different. Synesthetes often see things slightly differently from each other; there are no rules, after all. The exhibition may not show the exact colors you see for certain notes.”

“Then how do you know it’s any good?”

He smiled. “Because it’s based on me.”

My feet were cemented to the ground as what he said sank into my sleep-deprived brain. My eyes widened and drifted to the picture above his desk, the one with all the colors. “You too?”

Lewis nodded. “It was why I wanted to meet you all those years ago. I’ve met other synesthetes in my life, but none that shared such a similar type to mine.”

I stared at Lewis. I didn’t know if it was because of the shared synesthesia, but I suddenly saw him differently. Not as the professor that kept poking his nose into my business, or the infamous composer who gave it all up for drugs. But as a fellow musician. Someone who followed colors like me. I stared at the composition on his desk and wondered what color story he saw.

“Er…thanks.” I turned for the door. Just before I left, I asked, “What color is D?”

Lewis smiled. “Azure.”

I huffed a laugh. “Ruby red.”

Lewis nodded. I closed the door and made my way back to the dorm. A synesthesia exhibition. Perfect. Now I only had to find a way to get Bonnie to come with me.

She wanted to know what I saw when I heard music.

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