Page 31 of Crescendo

I sank back into the seat, deflating slowly—as much as I didn’t want to acknowledge it, there was something dissolving in my chest hearing that, something that looked a lot like guilt being alleviated, as soon as I heard the slightest confirmation. “Ugh,” was what I finally said.

“Totally cool if you want to give her space, but make sure you’re not making it look like you’re abandoning her, you know?

You’ve gotta at least make it clear you’re there for her if she wants it.

Otherwise, girl’s gonna get all up in her head like oh shit I’m annoying and everyone hates me. Oh—what are you doing?”

I looked down at the plate. “Eating a lifetime’s worth of carbs—”

But it turned out she wasn’t talking to me—I heard some movement and a scuffle down the line, and then it was Natália’s voice that took over on the phone.

“Lydiaaaa,” she sang, stretching out my name and talking with her mouth full.

“Did you have a fight with your girlfriend? It sounds like Meli’s giving you relationship advice. ”

“How are you calling her Meli right in front of her and not getting punched?”

“Psh. Who would punch me? I’m so lovable. Answer the question, stupid.”

I sighed. “Not really a fight. More… I made a bad decision and now we’ve been on cooler terms.”

“You just need to heat things up then! Show up in your sexy underwear.”

“She’s dealing with the fallout of some kind of trauma. She doesn’t need me sashaying into the room to Careless Whisper. ”

“Did you traumatize her?”

“Only as much as I do everyone around me. Whatever this thing around the orchestra is that she’s dealing with, with music, the clarinet…”

She put something else in her mouth, eating sounds coming down the line. From the sounds in the background, it was Melinda’s food that she hadn’t offered to share. She spoke with her mouth full, dropping casually, “Is it about her brother?”

Something nervous fluttered in my stomach. “Her brother? She has a brother?”

“Well, not anymore. He died four years ago.”

Oh, god. That was how long Ella had said it had been since she’d done anything musical. I felt suddenly so distant, watching a recording of myself instead of living it. “Natália, I think—I think you’re telling me something Ella should be the one to tell me about—”

“It’s fine,” she said, casual as anything. “It’s all over her socials and stuff if you look back far enough. Callum Hendrickson. He was a musician. Died in a motorbike accident.”

“Natália, please stop telling me this,” I said, a tight feeling in my throat.

The whole thing all lined up too neatly, too…

right. Her fear coming back to music, how she was doing it to prove something but she kept locking up.

They must have been in the woodwinds together in school.

The way she locked up looking at the woodwinds section at the Philharmonic—

She’d been trying so hard to tell me, I could see it in her eyes, in the frustration she had all over her when she locked up trying to talk about herself.

I couldn’t picture the amount of effort she was putting into trying to open that box for my sake, unsealing all of those locked-up thoughts and feelings, and—it felt like cheating, somehow, like a terrible violation of her privacy, to learn about it from stalking her old social media profiles, even indirectly.

Natália huffed at me. “It’s not going to hurt to know what she’s dealing with! It’ll help you support her! Just go in and tell her oh, I know about your brother, it’s really sad, I’m here for you though, and—”

“I’m not doing that,” I said, my voice coming out shakily. Natália paused.

“Oh, you’re—you’re actually upset. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize it would be—”

“I’ve got to go,” I said, my throat tight, not wanting Natália to hear me get choked up thinking about Ella. Melinda could hear me cry. Hell, I think just about anyone could hear me cry. I wasn’t precious. But Natália—she looked up to me. I wasn’t going to have this moment in front of her.

“Lydia—”

“Sorry, it’s just—I’m going to miss my train if I don’t rush,” I blurted, the first lie to mind.

“Love you, you’re the best, I’m still trying to see if I can figure out anything about that piece!

Talk later, beijinhos,” I said, my words running out all into each other, and I hung up, setting the phone down hard on the table.

God, that poor woman. It didn’t take a genius to put together the way she blamed herself for it. And some asshole went and dragged her out to deal with it when she knew her limits and tried to stay clear of them.

She must have felt so alone dealing with this.

I felt disgusting having pulled this up from her past without having earned it.

She’d be pissed off when she found out, and rightfully so.

Was it better to let her know now that Natália had told me, or was it better to pretend I didn’t know and still let her tell me in her own time—or never, and I’d pretend I never knew anything about it?

Maybe the important thing wasn’t me knowing, but about whether it came up in conversation.

The least I could do was try to understand better how to support her through what must have been an overwhelming time.

Distantly, I couldn’t help but think this wasn’t the kind of thing you did with a casual relationship, but I really didn’t care.

I picked my phone back up, and I ate absently with one hand while I typed into the search bar best books to understand someone with trauma .

It was a good half a book later, between the corner at the chippy and a bench in the park, that I finally headed back to the apartment, carrying a heavy feeling in my chest and a bottle of scotch that was on a fantastic price for the quality I knew the label meant but more practically I knew might just help me make it through a conversation with Ella having to be normal and pretend I wasn’t thinking about her grief and her dead brother that she didn’t want me to know about but I did.

I trudged down the streets, my head down, moving quickly, keeping up with the flow of native Londoners walking like their lives depended on it, and as always happened when I wasn’t in the mood for bullshit, I found some: Eliza leaning against the railing at my apartment entrance, pretending to be occupied with something on her phone.

Conveniently, she was done with it the second I got close.

“Well, if it isn’t the living legend,” she said, a satisfied smile on her lips.

“Where’s your accomplice?”

“Hannah’s in the music room, working on her composition assignment. It’s going rather splendidly, as a matter of fact. I assume yours is going well, too, of course.”

I was so good at letting her comments roll off me most of the time.

I don’t know why they stuck when I was in a mood like this.

“Going great, thanks for asking,” I said, my voice tart enough it was obvious I was lying.

“I’m going inside. Tell Hannah I said hi, and that I’m looking forward to hearing her composition. ”

I pushed past her, unlocking the front door, but Eliza kept talking. “I should thank you,” she said. “It’s because of your generous introductions I’ve been talking to your friend Adam.”

I paused with the door half open, looking back at her despite myself, something prickling under my skin that I couldn’t help. “Talking to him, huh? You should probably know he’s married.”

“Not like that. I’m actually focused on music. He rather enjoys what I’ve had to show him.”

I took a long breath, turning back to the foyer.

Guess everyone was getting where they needed to.

Everyone except me and the poor girl I was dragging down to my level.

Really—as if I needed more excuses to wallow in self-pity tonight?

“Congratulations,” I said lightly. “I can’t wait to hear your music in all the big theaters.

Not least of all the Royal Albert Hall.”

“Thank you, darling,” she laughed, that darling the most patronizing word I think I’d heard in my life. “I’ll dedicate it to you, too, of course. Getting to compete with someone at such a high level brings out the best in me.”

I said what I should have kept my mouth shut about. “Didn’t like drumming in Liverpool much?”

She was quiet for a long time before she said, her voice low, “Sometimes a person needs a change.”

I shot her a pointed look, my chest tight, and I held her gaze for a long time before I said, “Too true. Have a good night, Eliza.”

I stepped inside, and I stopped before I could go to wallow in my thoughts and feelings, before I could even moodily shut the door in Eliza’s face—stopped there in the foyer hearing piano music from the music room, faint and muffled through the soundproofing, but like nothing I’d ever heard before.

I lingered with my hand on the door handle, touching lightly, staring wide-eyed at the door to the music room, and I’d forgotten Eliza was there until I heard her say behind me, her voice almost reverent, “Is that—is that Ella?”

“Have a good night,” I said, jerking back to reality, and I shut the door, throwing the lock. My pulse raced as I crept towards the door of the music room, hands quivering, as I listened to the music rolling from inside.

Rolling wasn’t the right word. Rolling was the water on a gentle beach lapping over the sands.

This was a fierce storm thrashing waves against the cliffs, crashing, raging, exploding.

Music burst forth from the room like it had nowhere else to go and couldn’t stay in that room one instant longer, and I frankly didn’t believe it was Ella Hendrickson.

This was a different woman altogether. She made pretty music before—she picked up the chords quickly, understood how to structure something beautiful on top. It was all very classic, very sweet, delicate and lovely, like a little porcelain teacup with intricate painted designs on it.

This was a sledgehammer crushing that teacup to pieces.

She played without structure, without technique, structured chords thrown to the wind, pounding on the keys and ripping out a song in E Minor that felt like having my chest torn open.

Did she even know it was E Minor? Or was it just her heart playing in the key of music?

Maybe she’d been onto something with that. Oh, Jesus. Ella wasn’t somebody learning to make music. Ella was somebody who had music coursing in her blood, primal and raw, carved into her bones, and she was in this program to let that caged animal out of her body.

I’d almost convinced myself it was somebody else until she started another song, and she started to sing.

And by god, she started to sing. It was no better than the piano—cracked and dirty and raw, no technique, no grace, and fucking beautiful.

I couldn’t make out through the door what the words were, but even without it—hearing the raw pain in her vocals—I felt like it was a language only she and I spoke, and I was suddenly glad I’d bought the scotch.

Jesus Christ. Olivia had been right that I needed to be ugly. If I could be as ugly as Ella’s playing was, I would be beautiful. How was this woman, who came from nowhere and had never had a single lesson in theory, ten times the musician I was?

When she finished her song, I couldn’t hold myself back—I pushed open the door, my throat tight, and Ella jumped up from the bench, whirling on me with her eyes wide, a guilty look, standing in front of the piano like it was a shameful thing she was hiding.

“Lydia—oh, god—I didn’t know you were—”

“Ella, what the fuck was that?”

She shrank into herself, shoulders taut. “God, I’m so sorry. I had no idea you were here. I can—”

“Sit,” I said, putting my hand up. “Sit back down.”

“What?”

“Back at the piano. Please. I’ll give you anything you want for it, but please do it again.”

She stared at me, wide-eyed, blinking slowly, before she blurted, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I was going to scream. If I didn’t get to hear Ella do that again—whatever that was—then what the hell did I come to London for?

“Can I… accompany you?” I said shakily. “On the violin. On anything. Hell, I’ll play the fucking piccolo if you want one. Please. ”

She laughed, breathlessly, once, still looking at me like I’d lost my mind. Like I was the fucking weird one here. As if she hadn’t just played that. Finally, after the longest time, she said, “How well do you even play the violin?”

“Oh, pretty all right. I studied it and performed at Berkeley, along with the piano, conducting, and composing. I know a lot of techniques. I’m about to go forget all of them, take a shot of scotch, and go absolutely feral on a small stringed instrument. I’m begging you to accompany me.”

“I’m not good enough to—”

“ Please, Ella.”

“I don’t—”

“Please.”

She wavered, hesitating, green eye glinting brighter and brown eye deep and dark.