Page 37 of Nobody in Particular

Rose shoots me an indignant look and swats at my left hand with hers. Her skin brushes against mine as she does. “Hey, one finger, please,” she says. “You’re showing me up.”

There’s something about the sheer ridiculousness of playing witha single finger on this particular piano that becomes too much for me before long, and I can’t stop myself from breaking out into giggles.

“I can’t see what’s so funny,” Rose says. “We’re making something beautiful together.”

“I’m sorry, did I ruin the moment?”

“Less apologizing, more majesty.”

“It’s hard to be majestic with one finger, Rose.”

“I’m managing it just fine.”

Suddenly, Rose stops playing. I trail off and give her a questioning look.

“I can’t remember the rest,” she says ruefully. “It’s been about five years.”

“Eh,” I say, waving a hand. “Quick refresher course and you’ll be playing concertos in no time.”

Rose lifts her knee and shifts so she’s angled toward me on the seat. “Could you teach me?”

“To play concertos?” I ask. “Oh, sure. Give me an hour.”

She holds out a hand for me to shake it. “And in return, I’ll teach you a triple axel.”

I stare at her hand for way too long before I take it. “Deal. Is that hard?”

“I believe so, yes.”

“Was it hard for you?”

She barks a laugh, still holding me. Her thumb moves against my palm, and my eyes flicker down to look at our hands before I can stop them. “I can’t even do a single axel. God didn’t want to make me overpowered. I thought we were slightly exaggerating our promises.”

“We were, but I can play concertos.”

“Well, now I’m even more impressed. And I’m much more difficult to impress than you.”

I raise our joined hands up and down, finishing the handshake. Rose is slow to let go, and there’s no way I’m imagining how long we’ve been looking at each other. The same way I definitely wasn’t imagining it when she kept looking at me in Eleanor’s room a few weeks back.

The silence has been going on for too long, and I feel like I needto fill it, but I can’t think of a single thing to say. Rose’s self-assured grin has dropped off a little, and she’s scanning my face like she’s looking for something. She bites her lip, and I must lose all grip on reality, because for one delusional moment I actually think it feels like the energy before a first kiss. Where your fingertips tingle, and your heart starts to trip over itself as it races downhill, and you can’t tear your eyes away from one another until suddenly the space between you isn’t there at all anymore, and you don’t even know who closed it.

Like I said, delusional. Because we don’t kiss. Of course we don’t kiss. In what universe would that happen? Instead, Rose hops up and holds a hand out to help me to my feet. “Anyway, in all seriousness, please feel free to visit during the school holidays to play her. It’ll give her something to live for.”

I close the piano lid and hurry to keep up with her. “Thanks.”

God, I really am totally delusional. What kind of ego do I have?I’m definitely not imagining this,says the girl projecting her bonkers fantasy onto a normal, innocent situation. Thank god thoughts are private, because I think I would straight-up die on the spot if Rose ever found out what was going through my head in there. She’d skip right past “light mocking” and howl with laughter.

As long as I make sure I keep both feet firmly planted in reality, I’ll be fine. The last thing I need is to make one of my brand-new friendships weird before I’ve even made it through a whole term.

Especially not a friendship I’m starting to really, really care about.

SIXTEENROSE

When I was younger, my aunt Belinda, the wife of my father’s brother, Albert, told me a fairy tale. It was the story of a handsome prince who met a beautiful maiden. She was everything he wanted in a wife; kind, and smart, and with the same sarcastic sense of humor he valued so much. Only, the maiden came covered in scars. They weren’t visible, but they were there all the same, betraying a history unbefitting a future queen. Aunt Belinda never told me the maiden’s exact crimes, but, she assured me, it was enough to make the king and queen despise her.

At first, the prince ignored his parents’ wishes, and courted the maiden, regardless. But every day, the king and queen grew angrier and angrier. Finally, the prince told his parents that love conquered everything, and he planned to make the maiden his wife. He was certain that once they got to know her, they would love her as he did.

The king and queen knew there was nothing they could say to change his mind. And so, they sent the maiden away on a ship to the land of her birth. She would never be allowed to return to the country. The handsome prince would have to find somebody else to marry.

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