Page 34 of Things I Read About

Instead, I think of something to say. “Maybe you’ll find out.”

He laughs, again. He looks up to the sky, shaking his head. He does that a lot.

“What?”

“You keep surprising me.”

I break off more chocolate. “Is that good?”

He looks down. “It’s unusual.” He licks his lips, and I track every single millisecond of the action as his tongue moves. His voice is a whisper. “Hazardous.”

I lean in.

He leans too.

This is it. He’s going to kiss me.

He leans back and clears his throat.

No. What the heck?

“This escape,” he starts. “What’s waiting for you back in your real life?”

I look out over the sparkling blue vista. Everything looks so serene. I think about home, the move, finals, the MCAT, and all the expectations tied up with it.

“Pressure.”

“I just won a hundred bucks that say you do pretty well under pressure.”

I almost giggle. That’s true. “I do, actually. I just need a break, I guess.”

He reaches over and breaks off a piece of chocolate for himself. “You have a big concert coming up? An audition or something?”

I bite my lip. This feels like lying. Which is not something I do. “Kind of like an audition.”

He leans closer to me. “And you’re nervous?”

“Yeah.”

“Bull.”

“What?”

He looks out, eyebrows raised. “I mean, I don’t know crap about music, but that was fucking phenomenal back there.”

My breath catches when my brain connects that the awed look on his face is associated with me.

“You being nervous about that is bullshit. I can’t imagine it. I mean, you love it, right? Playing?”

I nod. I do. I really, really do.

“Then just go play, don’t let yourself… spiral.”

Just go play.

That doesn’t apply to my real life. One doesn’tjust go take the MCAT.

I enjoy my studies. And I’m excited about the future, once I get to actually focus on neurology, the operating room, years from now. But I don’t know if anything could possibly feel like home to me the way those eighty-eight keys do. But music is not a career path for me. Maybe one day in the past it could’ve been, but not now. I shudder, working through these thoughts that I usually shove out of my mind.