Page 7 of Counterpoint and Harmony

Chapter Six

Contrary motion:motion in opposite directions; when one voice moves up, the other moves down

Damian

She’s still haunting me. Everywhere I turn, Charlie’s name pops up. At school. At home. In the news. On Facebook.

I can’t escape.

Last night she walked the red carpet at the Grammy’s, escorted by some rockstar or something. I ended up watching the whole thing, torturing myself with glimpses of her smiling face, the way she laughed and chatted with the red carpet interviewers during the preshow as though everything was happy and right in her world, leaning in close to whisper to her date.

Rage zipped through me every time they were shown on screen together. And when pictures of them surfaced on every social media outlet today. Him tall and model-perfect in his tailored tux and groomed scruff, next to her flawless perfection in a designer gown. My scruff is from not bothering to shave, and Carla says it makes me look like a hobo. The contrast couldn’t be any more striking.

I’m avoiding my phone for the rest of the day.

Once again, Lauren seeks me out, this time as I’m getting my cello out of my instrument locker and heading for the practice rooms. She appears in the doorway of the instrument storage room and looks me over. “There you are,” she says, and I know she’s been looking for me.

“Here I am.”

She crosses the room to her own instrument locker, one of the long rectangles in the bank next to mine, turning the dial on the combination lock, not looking at me. “You seemed … distracted today in class.”

God, was I that obvious? I don’t answer though, except to give a noncommittal grunt.

She looks up from the lock as she pulls down, the metal shackle popping free. “She’s not with that guy, you know. It’s just for show.”

I grunt again, swallowing hard, looking down at my cello case as I slide my arm through the backpack strap.

“I talked to her the other night,” she reveals softly. And that simple statement has me glancing up again.

How is she?I want to ask. I want to pelt Lauren with questions, demand information. But I have no right to do that. I pushed Charlie away. Ignored her attempts to contact me. Let her leave without reaching out, the very thing Lauren warned me against.

“Good for you,” I say instead.

Lauren’s face morphs to frustrated anger. “Fine. If that’s the way you want to play it. Silly me. I thought you might like to hear how she’s doing. But never mind. I’ll leave you to wallow in your misery. Enjoy your practice session.”

With that she yanks her violin out of her locker, punctuating her anger with the scrape of the metal feet against the locker. She slams the metal cage door closed, hooking the lock through the hasp, and shooting a glare at me as she storms out.

I slowly heft my cello onto my back and close my own locker, heading upstairs to claim a practice room.

I do want to know how Charlie’s really doing. Not whatever sanitized version ends up in the media.

The confirmation that her date was only for show is more soothing than it ought to be. Especially since I’m more aware of the fact that Charlie “dated” a lot of guys over the years just for career reasons than Lauren probably is.

Because Charlie told me herself.

But I can’t read more into that. No matter what details she let slip, she kept the most important detail from me. And I can’t let that go.

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