Page 3 of Crescendo

“All right. Let’s hear it.”

She pulled up her phone while I sipped my drink, and she slid it across to me. An advertisement for a music program, from the looks of things, called Crescendo.

“You loved mentoring,” she said. “Why not step it up a little bit? This kind of… symphonic boot camp has been running the past couple of years, and it’s absolutely exploded. They have their regular cast of teachers for each two-month session, but they make a big deal of the special guests they bring in to supplement the core staff each time. If you were on the roster? People would lose their minds.”

I frowned. “People would lose their minds from me trying to teach them and breaking down crying on a violin partway through… where is it?”

“You and I both know you’re too professional for that. You’d pull yourself together for it and feel better after. Like you always do. Where it is, that’s the best part,” she said, taking a shot of her cocktail. “It’s a whole new scenery to help you clear your head. South Kensington, London, not far from the Royal Albert Hall.”

My heart ached, a sudden tight sensation in my chest, looking at the advertisement. Melinda was a good one… the suggestion was clever, and she knew how to hook me in. I’d only been to London once before, a quick trip to see a major performance at the Royal Albert Hall from legendary conductor Cynthia Altman herself, and it had been early enough in the rise of my career that it felt like a nostalgic piece at the base of my heart, a treasured feeling I didn’t dare go near for fear of soiling it. London at night together with the group, all laughing and talking together, a bunch of us all sharing dreams that one day we’d end up like the way I’d apparently turned out now—and the sense of magic in the air seeing the show. The way we were all left speechless heading out.

I don’t know how long we were like that before I noticed I was tearing up, just a little. Melinda, ever the good friend, pretended she didn’t notice, but I could tell from the slight sympathetic smile and the more controlled way she picked up her drink that she’d seen it. Still, she left the air open for me to be the one to speak, and eventually, speak I did.

“That sounds nice,” I said.

“I think it’d be good for you. And everyone would love to take your courses.”

I shook my head. “I won’t do it.”

“Huh—” She turned to me with a frown. “Dude, you were tearing up reminiscing about London and everything—”

I scowled. “Oh, now we are acknowledging it, hm?”

“—and now suddenly you’re not interested?”

I pushed her phone back to her. “I’m not going to teach,” I said. “How much does it cost to attend?”

She shot me a wild-eyed look. “Lydia Howard Fox.Youdo not need to go to music school. Youarethe music school.”

“Maybe I need to go back to the basics,” I said lightly, which was nicer than sayingI just realized I can’t continue to make music with my dreams dead and I just want to walk the same ground where those dreams had blossomed in hopes the seeds will sprout again.I didn’t feel like saying that out loud.

“You’d get bored. And everyone would just spend the whole time being likeoh my god, you’re Lydia Howard Fox.You’d give the poor teachers impostor syndrome!”

I laughed. “Fair’s fair. I have it too.”

“People are going to think you’re insufferable,” she said. “TheLydia Howard Fox herself, showing up to listen to lectures about things she knows?”

“That’s fine. Don’t really mind what they think of me.”

She raked her fingers back through her hair. “I can’t believe you’re doing this to me. I made a perfect suggestion and you’re doing this!”

“It is a perfect suggestion. I’ll… think about it,” I laughed, but—as wild as it sounded—I didn’t think I had to think about it that much. Judging by the way my chest was already feeling so much lighter, like I could breathe again, and for the first time in some time, I found myself looking forward to something. I raised my glass to hers. “Here’s to your perfect suggestion.”

“Fuck you, dude,” she laughed, but she clinked her glass to mine, and we drank to that.

Chapter 2

Ella

I walked down the steps of University College Hospital feeling lighter than I had in months—well, years, really, if truth be told. Suddenly, the rush hour crowds racing around me felt like something I was actually a part of. It was like I’d been watching it all from above for years, participating only as an automation. But now, as I dashed towards Euston Square station, I could actually breathe it in, experience it again.

Of course, it wasn’t as simple as having a sabbatical approved solving all of my problems, but it was an important step. And, now, I was looking at three months to myself. To really… heal.

It was terrifying, and part of me felt guilty, like I was giving up something I’d hung onto for the last four years and I was ruining everything. But, deep down, I knew it wasn’t that. This was… living, and that was important.

I joined the throngs passing through the barriers, keeping right as we headed underground, and standing shoulder to shoulder as we waited for our trains. It wasn’t difficult to see how I’d been walking through life without really releasing it lately, but I was ready to come back. For me. For Callum.

And everything suddenly felt so very, very real.

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