Page 111 of Over the Edge

“You know, cannibalism is a common metaphor for love,” I say.

Oliver throws out a flailing gesture that I assume is supposed to mean something along the lines ofSee!

“Damn. I wish I had someone eating me,” Quinn deadpans as she presses the play button to start the movie, setting the meet-cute back in motion.

“Is this the one where she sleeps with her boss’ twin brother?” Oliver asks, leaning forward so his elbows rest on his knees.

“No this is the one where she’s the twin of his ex-fiancée,” Quinn says, eyes locked on a scene I know she’s watched a dozen times.

“My bad, wrong twin plot contrivance.”

“Honest mistake,” I say. “Happens to the best of us.”

It’s a simple thing, a TV show we’ve watched before. Commentary we’re repeating for the hundredth time. Moments that shouldn’t mean anything. But to me, I know we’re one step closer to who we were.

But there’s one thing getting in the way of crossing the remaining distance. Me.

No matter how much I want to stay after the movie is done, I leave. I need to find a solution. I can’t lose them again.

40

Garrett

I’m glued to my seat with my cello resting between my thighs until Alina and I run through the entire festival setlist. It used to be an hour, but gradually we’ve shaved off a few songs, now it’s just over thirty minutes.

“Follow me on the last notes. If the crowd wants more, I’ll hold it. I’ll show them exactly what this old lady can do,” she corrects.

“Of course,” I readily agree.

Alina has mellowed through the years. Journalists still list her in articles about classic divas through the generations. If she wants to opt up in a song or hold a note just because she can, she will.

“I have a few meetings this week to finish helping my clients transition, but otherwise I should be free to rehearse.”

“Unless you’re with your girl.”

“We’re probably going to go to the city. I’ll make sure to stop by that bakery and grab you those macarons and croissants you like.” It’s her one request. She says they remind her of the onesshe had in Paris, a taste of a different time. A time when she had the world in the palm of her hand.

“I say good riddance to that part of your life,” she scoffs. “The sooner you’re done, the better.”

“You don’t have to say that just to make me feel better. I know how much you invested to help me through St. George’s.”

“You think I care about that?” she scoffs.

“It’s what you helped set me up to do” I say, mostly to myself.

It was the plan. Get out of Hartsfall, be the best, find something that shows I was worthy of all the opportunities that I’d been given.

“You act like music was a pit stop, not a destination. I taught you how to carry a tune. It was my whole career. You think I cared if that’s all you did? You were chasing a dream. Dreams like that are rare and you treated it like it was anything else,” she says, running her hand lovingly across the surface of the piano.

“This is the first time you’ve said that.”

“And if I said it before? Hmm?” she presses and starts toward the couch. “You had those ideas drilled into you.You have to be something. You have to give back to us.Foolish boy. Love isn’t a debt you have to repay. You give it and maybe some finds you. Maybe Lana coming back has messed with your head.” Scorn blankets her words as she sits. “I was more than happy to tell her to never knock on my door again.”

I jerk back at this, I’d assumed she knew the same way everyone already knows, but I should have guessed she looked for me here first. “You didn’t say she stopped by here.”

“Where do you think she came first? I only talked to tell her to go away. But she seemed to slither right to you,” she says in a huff.

“Well, she’s gone for good now.” I search for a tinge of regret and fail to find it. I doubt I’ll ever be truly free of Lana, that would be erasing a part of myself that would undermine so muchgood. Despite her faults, even if unintentionally, she gave me Hartsfall.

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