Page 36 of Nobody in Particular

And of course, I touch it anyway. Just one key. Just to see.

It’s beautiful.

I stare at it for a while, wrestling with myself. Then I run to the hall to check. It’s deserted. Everyone here is in the ballroom, which is about a mile away. I can barely hear them, so there’s no way anyone could hear me over the orchestra. So, no one would ever know, right?

I head back to the piano, splay my fingers over the white keys, and start playing from memory.

The melody begins slowly, delicately. The music resonates rich and deep, and the room’s acoustics give it an echo like I’ve never exactly heard before. I couldn’t ask for a better sound. Gradually, my heartbeat slows along with the tempo, and I fade out. I don’t exist outside of the music anymore. Maybe I never did. The point of my being lies in my fingertips and what they can translate on these keys. They know what they’re doing without me having to think. I watch my hands skirt across the keys, gaining momentum. On and on.

The special thing about music, I think, is how it connects people. Even if we don’t speak the same language, or like the same things.Even if we don’t like each other. I can sit at a piano and feel my feelings and play a song, and transplant those feelings into someone else without saying a word. And even when those feelings are sadness or grief, there’s a melancholy sort of beauty to them that makes the shared emotion welcomed.

I hate that I know all of this about music, and I still can’t use it for the purpose it’s meant for because I’m so terrified of that connection. Because opening myself up to strangers is putting myself on a platter for them to pick apart and criticize, and I justcan’t. But I wish, right down to my soul, that I could. A part of me knows that if I could just learn to trust the world, I might be able to use music to do so much good in it. I was given a gift, and I work my butt off to cultivate that gift, and here I am at the final hurdle, wasting all of it because I can’t believe that if I let the world see me, it’ll like what it sees. Not when so many people in my past felt otherwise. And honestly, it’s felt like every time I’ve tried to explain this to someone—my piano teachers, my mom, Rachel—they haven’t gotten it. Why would I putthismuch time and effort into piano if I don’t want to perform?

God, the thing is, I do want to. I just don’t know how to become the sort of person whocan.

I used to be. I’ve been taking lessons since I was five, and Mom had me playing songs for family and friends even earlier than that. But that was until last year. I played a piece for the school talent show, and Maddison and her crew—the girls who gave me hell back then—giggled loudly the entire time. Then, after the show, Maddison came up and said, “Good job” with a shit-eating grin. The kind that lets you know she actually meansThat was embarrassing to watch.

The same happened when I played as part of the orchestra in the local theater production. Maddison hunted me down at school and, laughing again, she told me she saw me play at the musical. Again, there was a joke there only she and her friends got. Then the last straw happened when Maddison found an old video I’d posted of myself playing, and she tagged a bunch of her friends in the comments, who then went on to tag other people. Obviously, there was some sort of group chat happening in the background. I never foundout what they said, but my imagination could fill in the blanks just fine.

I’ve never been able to even think about playing for people without getting nauseous since. All those years of practice, right down the drain.

But when Rose and I spoke at the rugby game, she told me some things about her life that made me feel weirdly seen. She knows—even more than I do—what it feels like to be hated by people you’ve never personally hurt. But it’s more than that. She feels like she was given this incredible opportunity by life, and that she’s screwed it up beyond repair, and she doesn’t know how to become the person she wants to be. If anyone can relate to the frustration of feeling like you’ve fallen short of all this potential you had, it’s me.

Suddenly, something’s wrong. I snap out of my thoughts, wrench my hands away from the piano, and whip around.

I knew someone was behind me. It’s Rose, leaning against the doorframe on her left side, a weird look on her face.

I want to die on the spot as I try to figure out a way to explain myself. Nothing instantly comes to mind.

“Well, don’t stop on my account,” Rose says in a cheerful voice. “I was enjoying that.”

Her voice bounces off the high ceiling with the same vibrating richness of the piano. And there’s something about her posture right now, how she’s resting her weight on the door all casual and careless, that makes my mind foggy again. She’s teasing me in that way she always does, her voice warm and her eyes laughing, with a tiny edge of legitimate mocking that stops it from tipping into cheese.

Right now, I realize we’re totally alone. We’ve been totally alone a few times before—ducking into my bedroom so I can dump my books before dinner, or watching a movie, or just hanging out and talking—but it’s never felt weird like this.

“Sorry,” I say, like an idiot.

“What for? It sits in here like an ornament. It’s a waste, don’t you think?” She kicks off the wall and crosses the room as carelessly as she stood. “Snapping up something that was made to producemusic, just to own it. So that you can lock it up in a silent room no one ever enters, where it won’t do anyone any good.” She reaches my side and, towering over me, she presses middle C. She’s really, really close to me.

“Well,” I say, swallowing. “I don’t think even the top players in the world earn the kind of money to buy something like this.”

“Isn’t that exactly the problem?” Rose murmurs, almost to herself. “Anyway. You’re probably the best thing to happen to it in years. Don’t stop.”

I don’t think even the king himself could pay me enough to go back to playing alone with just Rose in the room. Not like this. So, I pretend I didn’t hear her. “Did you ever learn?” I ask.

“Oh yes. I got quite proficient.”

“Really?”

She nods, and gestures to the seat. “May I?”

I should get up, right now. There’s only just enough room for two on the bench. But I apparently lose my grip on reality, because instead of doing that, I shuffle over. And instead of asking me to move, she squeezes in beside me so she’s pressed firmly against me, shoulder to hip. And instead of leaning away, I take a deep breath and hold steady. So does she, but when she breathes out through her nose, there’s a shakiness to it that makes me wonder if this is too close for her. Maybe I made her uncomfortable when I didn’t stand up? But then I realize she’s probably just nervous to perform. If anyone can relate to that feeling, it’s me.

Clearing her throat, she takes her pointer finger and starts stabbing at the piano. A few notes in, I realize where I recognize the tune from. It’s “Heart and Soul.” And a simplified version of it at that. Of course she isn’t taking this seriously. She never is.

I fight to keep a straight face as she glances at me. “Don’t you know it?” she asks. Oh, right. It’s a duet.

“I’m familiar,” I say wryly, and I jump in with the bass line.

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