Page 60 of Crescendo

Ella

“So, the winner won’t be announced until Friday,” the instructor, Lorna, announced to the group, “but, as you’re all working on slightly lower-stakes pieces, and because we know you’re all curious, we thought we’d take this afternoon to listen to the pieces you’ve submitted for the competition.

Of course, these are bound to provide inspiration, but it should go without saying that if anyone submits anything this weekend that is plagiarised from something you hear this afternoon, we will be having words. ”

My heart rate spiked. I’d been trying not to think about the piece the last few days.

Trying not to think about anything, honestly.

Just going to class, writing music, going home, and sleeping in Lydia’s bed.

Where, inevitably, I stared at our text conversation—that had very little in it because we’d barely been apart when she’d been here—and begging for one of us to break the barrier and contact the other.

I didn’t know why I couldn’t bring myself to be the one to do it.

I knew you shouldn’t waste time, that life was too short, that you should say the things you needed to while you still had the chance. But that was it, I felt like I’d lost the chance. She hadn’t reached out, and I didn’t want to trample all over what she needed in favour of what I wanted.

But now, everyone was going to hear this piece that had so much of her in it and I still hadn’t found the courage to even send it to her.

“So,” Lorna said with a huge smile now that she’d done her duty and reminded us that plagiarism was forbidden—even if it hadn’t once been an issue, “have a great lunch and then we’ll reconvene back here to listen to some absolutely stunning pieces.”

My breath caught in my throat. Were they going to play Lydia’s piece too? She’d submitted it. I’d already heard it. But still.

I looked around the room, all of its occupants like a crowded blur. All of them were going to hear me play the clarinet. And she still hadn’t.

Clara, Bansi, and Dodge were getting up on one side of me, readying themselves to leave for lunch. Hannah sat on my other side, but she hadn’t moved. She was looking through her bag like she was Mary Poppins and couldn’t find the bottom of it.

“Ella?” Clara said, her voice muffled to my panicked ears. “Are you coming to lunch?”

The four of them had taken it upon themselves to surround me since Lydia’s departure, as if they could hold me together with their presence.

As if Hannah didn’t already have enough romantic trouble herself.

Maybe we were just holding each other together, making it through the days by trying to be strong.

“Uh. Go ahead, I’ll be there in a minute,” I said, staring at the front where the instructors were talking and laughing together.

It was different, certainly, but I remembered this part so well—the part where everything felt like a blur that you were just floating through.

“I’ll wait with Ella and we’ll catch you up,” Hannah said, seeming to give up on whatever she was looking for.

“You don’t need to—”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, cutting me off.

I nodded, sucking in a deep breath.

My dads, my friends, my therapist… all of them had told me that grief caught you up if you tried to hide from it.

I’d been running so long I hadn’t expected it to find me here, like this.

But it made sense. If you didn’t deal with one loss, you couldn’t deal with others, even when they were different.

Most of the other students filtered out of the room until it was just me, Hannah, and a couple of people who wouldn’t hear us talking.

It was then that she leaned back in her seat, nudged me with her arm, and kept her gaze straight ahead. “Excited for everyone to hear your piece?”

I let out a strangled breath. “Maybe not the word I’d use for it.”

She breathed a laugh. “Yeah, that tracks. Buckets o’ talent but still hiding behind medicine or learning or… a more famous girlfriend.”

My insides twisted. “Aren’t you still hoping Eliza beats me?”

She finally looked at me, a reluctant smile ghosting across her features. “If Lydia and I were in competition with each other, you’d be rooting for her, right? But I know you like me enough to care about how I do too.”

“Ha. You’re starting to sound a little like her.”

She smiled wider. “Hey, maybe she’s right that we could all use a little more confidence in ourselves. You especially.”

I shrugged, sinking down in my chair. “Maybe. But you’re the one who was helping her find that rock sound.”

“Don’t be jealous. You know she liked playing with you more.” She froze as if she realised she’d spoken in the past tense. It stabbed through me like a knife. “You’re a little too proper to help her understand really dirty rock, Doc.”

I laughed, shaking my head as we both tried to step delicately around the slip. “I like rock, thank you.”

She shot me a look. “Sure. To like, sing in the shower or the car or something, but we both know that piece they’re about to play is going to be a masterclass in classical composition.”

“ Masterclass is massively overselling it.”

“We’ll see.” She stood, pausing to look at me and I refused to meet her eye. “Has she heard it?”

“No.”

She sighed.

“Not all of it, anyway. I… changed it a bit when she…”

Hannah clapped a hand on my shoulder. “You’ll regret it if you don’t let her hear it first.”

“You’re just as blunt as she is, aren’t you?”

“No point beating ’round the bush. It’s hardly gonna make owt worse at this point, is it?”

I laughed. “You sound like my dad.”

“Your dad’s a Scouser?”

I shook my head. “Yorkshire.”

“Ah, well, at least he’s not a Manc.” She laughed and winked, and all I could think about was everyone singing Oasis together so many days ago now.

How far we’d all come. She nudged me with her knee.

“Now, stop being soft and send it to her. We’ll get the scran in and you can join us when you’re ready. ”

I watched her walk away, leaving me alone in the auditorium. It was four in the morning in LA. Lydia probably wouldn’t even be awake by the time we made it to my piece. Everyone was still going to hear it first.

But I could try. I could choose to give it to her first.

She could choose whether to listen to it. She could decide whether she wanted to reply or not.

Enough running.

I pulled up our conversation again, trying not to linger too long on the picture attached to her contact info.

I should have sent this earlier. I hope it’s good to be home and composing is going well!

There was a lot I should have done earlier, but here we were.

I pulled up the file—already waiting on my phone to send her—and set it free, and then I went to lunch with everyone else. Lydia’s presence still a noticeable, painful gap in the group.

I slipped away from them for a minute when we got back to Crescendo after lunch. I’d spent the whole time thinking about her, about the message, about all the things I should have done before, and there was one more thing I needed to do.

I headed back into the mostly empty auditorium and dropped into a seat, pulled the conversation up again, and added another message. I miss you.

I jumped, fumbling my phone and rushing to put it away, as someone dropped into one of the open seats beside me. The others had said they were grabbing coffee for the afternoon. I thought I had longer.

But it wasn’t them.

Eliza shot me a sidelong look, setting down her own drink. “Jumpy much?”

I watched her, my eyebrows raised. She looked about as good as I felt. Things with her and Hannah were still difficult and, from what I’d heard from Hannah, Eliza was avoiding her as much as possible. She’d been avoiding everyone else just as much. Coming to lessons, but isolating herself.

I was hardly in a position to judge.

I gestured between us, knowing she didn’t need a serious conversation right now. “Is this you trying to intimidate me out of winning?”

She smirked, but there was something genuinely grateful behind it. “Oh, no. I just thought you’d want a front-row seat to my victory.”

“How generous of you. Should I expect the same privilege on Friday when they actually announce the winner?”

“Absolutely.”

I laughed weakly, shaking my head as the room filled up around us, and Hannah and the others made their way back into the room.

Hannah hid her heartbreak well, but I could see the looks she shot Eliza before allowing Clara, Dodge, and Bansi to slip into the row ahead of her, putting her as far away from Eliza as she could get.

How did everything get so complicated?

The instructors arrived and stepped onto the stage—all of them present for the… listening party?

“Welcome back,” Lorna said, grinning at everyone.

“I know you’re all excited, so we’ll get straight into it.

I’ll be making a short announcement about each piece, and then we’ll listen.

Feel free to take notes and reach out to each other to discuss the pieces afterwards, but we won’t have time for a live discussion today. ”

I breathed a sigh of relief. It was short lived.

Lorna clapped her hands together with glee. “So, she’s obviously left us early to get back to her work, but it would be remiss of us not to play Lydia’s piece. It’s not every day you get to study alongside one of the best composers in the world!”

I almost laughed—and cried. That was the magic of Lydia, wasn’t it?

Even the ones here to teach us, the ones who were established musicians and composers themselves, were in awe of her.

They were the instructors, but they’d been trying to learn from her, too.

Melinda had been right that she’d have been one hell of an instructor.

One of the other lecturers tapped at his laptop and Lydia’s piece came over the speakers.

She’d claimed she was phoning it in. Only Lydia Howard Fox wrote something so beautiful while phoning it in. People would give their right arms to compose like she did.