Page 32 of Crescendo

“Oh, I think it’s safe to say we’re friends,” Lydia countered, something bubbling just under the surface in her voice. “I make friends easily.”

“I’m sure you do.”

“Did you have a good date while you were listening to my music? Did he, she, they enjoy it?”

Sian laughed. “Yeah, not bad.Sheenjoyed it too. And, yeah, we went out again, if that’s what you’re asking?”

“You’re welcome,” Lydia said lightly.

“Sorry?”

Alisha laughed and cut in. “She created the soundtrack to your date, so she’s taking credit for its success.”

“Music does have a lot of power,” Bansi said, too in awe of Lydia and music to quite catch the edge of the conversation, but he wasn’t wrong.

Sian shrugged. “True, but I still don’t think a movie soundtrack can change the entire course of a date. If it had beengoing badly, I don’t think Lydia’s music—no matter how skilled she might be—would have changed things.”

“I don’t know,” Bansi said, his eyes wide. “It would change alotfor me.”

Sian turned to me suddenly. “What about you, Ella? Think music can change your whole day around?”

I hummed. It certainly seemed to have done so today. Lydia’s music in particular, like a secret language just the two of us had been speaking, and, so long as she was speaking that to me, I could find myself through the haze and the hate I’d been experiencing as I sat down at the piano. “Yeah, I think it can.”

∞∞∞

Alisha stopped me a house down from mine and Lydia’s flat as they walked back with the rest of the group from the pub. It was kind of on their way to the Tube after all.

“Everything okay?” I asked her, frowning.

She paused for a moment before smiling slightly. “You seem better tonight than you were this morning.”

“Oh. Yeah. Erm.” My muscles felt like they weren’t arranged correctly in my body. “Lydia helped me work through some of the music stuff. It… helped.”

“You played for her?” Her eyes went wide.

“Sort of? She played chords and just had me… playing with the melody.”

“You played for her,” she said again, a little more in awe this time.

“I guess. I don’t think that counts as playing, though. More like… what a child does.”

“It counts.” She smiled, glancing over my shoulder. “She’s good for you.”

I turned, following her gaze, and my stomach dropped when I noticed Sian had cornered Lydia at our door. I hoped she wasn’t interrogating her. Or saying anything embarrassing. “Well. I don’t know about that. She’s helping, but, you know, she’s here for her own things and…”

Alisha laughed. “It’s okay to just have good things and enjoy them. God knows you’ve waited long enough.”

I refused to get dragged back down into my earlier emotional pit. I knew it would come again but, for now, I needed to just be a normal woman who had been on a nice night out with her friends. I didn’t have the emotional space for anything else.

I smiled at Alisha. “I’m grateful to you both for coming tonight. Sorry for not answering your messages.”

She waved my apology off. “Now, we don’t have to worry too much. We’re still here for you, but you’ve got Lydia too.”

“I don’t—”

“She’s hot,” Sian said, appearing from behind me and keeping her momentum going to drag Alisha with her towards the Tube. “Have fun. Text you tomorrow.”

“Sian,” I spluttered, but it was no use, the two of them yelled their goodbyes as they hurried off into the night, leaving me to turn back to my own flat alone.

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