Page 49 of Crescendo

“We know,” Sian said gently. And I knew they did. They understood better than anyone else in the world because they’d seen it all. They’d even known him.

I nodded, swallowing hard against the tears and the burning pain and rage.

This wasn’t what tonight was supposed to be about.

I shook my head and sucked in a deep breath. “It’s fine. I’m fine. Lydia doesn’t know and she… doesn’t need to. We’re friends for two months who just needed to get something out of their systems. It’s just casual—”

“Is that something you can do?”

I laughed, the sound a little wet. “Yes. We’re just friends.”

They swapped another look that felt like my exchange with Lydia this morning—the one where we’d both owned that we weren’t good at casual. That was the problem with people knowing you.

“I’m figuring it out,” I insisted. “She’s helping me with music and I’m not… failing like I was, disappointing everyone. It’s fine.”

“You weren’t disappointing anyone before, either,” Alisha insisted.

“You didn’t see the looks my instructors were giving me.”

“Well, fuck them,” Sian said. “You’re not doing this for them. You’re doing it for you.”

“And Lydia’s helping you find music again.” Alisha smiled softly. “That’s huge, important.”

“I know.” I did. I knew it deep in my core, in my soul. I knew that whatever Lydia was giving me, whatever she was doing that was rewriting my brain chemistry and letting mefeel the music again wasn’t something that came with casual. It wasn’t the kind of thing you got over and threw away in a couple of months.

But a couple of months was what we had. And I would rather have a little bit of her than nothing at all.

Sian hesitated—unusual for her—and I knew she wanted to say something I didn’t really want to hear. I could have stopped her, but I didn’t.

It took a minute but, eventually, she murmured, “Lydia would probably be okay with it, you know?”

Part of me wanted to laugh at the idea that my friends who had met Lydia twice might know how she’d feel about someone dropping something as heavy as a dead sibling on them, but the other part of me suspected she might be right.

“It’s also okay not to tell her, of course,” Alisha said quickly.

Maybe she’d be okay with it, maybe she wouldn’t. But, what did it matter? In two months, we’d be strangers again, and I didn’t want to break down on her now, or burden her with my grief when what she was already doing was helping so much. What we had was good. It was right for a casual relationship. Grief was not casual. Family history was not casual. It was big and serious and something the two of us couldn’t have together. The second I told her, her whole view of me would change. Everything that existed between us would change. I couldn’t ruin her time at Crescendo with my damage.

I pulled my hand out from under both of theirs, gulped my drink, and shuttered up my feelings, blinking away the tears. I could see them watching me do it, just as they had a million times before.

“She’s more of a romantic than you’d think,” I said, changing the subject, though I wasn’t helping my cause. Tellingthem she was romantic didn’t quite work with the whole casual thing, did it? It was the only thing I could think of to say.

They knew the drill. They sat up and—because they really were amazing friends—they slipped back into the earlier, teasing tone. It took a minute for the concern to leach out of their faces, but I could pretend to ignore that.

“She’s a composer,” Sian pointed out. “Sounds pretty romantic to me just as a baseline.”

I paused. “Okay. Fair point.”

We laughed again and I was grateful for it. “You know what I mean, though.”

Sian shot me a look. “You mean that shemakes loverather than just fucking?”

“Oh, my god. That’snotwhat I mean.”

“So, she does fuck?”

“How many details are you going to try to get from me before you’re satisfied? This isn’t supposed to be a big thing.”

“Interesting choice of word.”

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