Oh God, of course he isn’t gay. It was glaringly clear to me as I tossed and turned that night. Marcia was out late practicing again. Maybe I should do the same. I was awful to him, I thought as I sat up, running a hand through my hair. Honestly, though, who is in love with someone for ten years and says nothing? Resigned to a sleepless night, I threw on sweats and my coat before grabbing my flute and heading to the twenty-four hour practice rooms. I needed to think. To process. I called Nathan two or three times, but he didn’t answer
Trying to sort out the largest can of worms anyone had ever dumped on me, I began to tear up again. I’d trusted Nathan with every secret, every insecurity, every emotion. Okay, fine, it wasn’t his fault that I thought he was gay. But … ugh. On top of not being gay, he was in love with me?
Sighing as I clumsily put my flute together and ran through a few scales, I tried to think about the situation rationally. Fact: Nathan and I had been friends for more than ten years. Fact: I never actually got the feeling from him that he was coming onto me, or the feeling that he was trying to get me to tell him things for his benefit. Fact: Nathan Connors was my friend and I’d hurt him yesterday in more ways than one.
As the threatening tears escaped, and rolled lazily down my cheeks, I had to look at some other facts, too. Nathan, who possessed more graceful confidence than most people I’d met, never bothered to mention in ten years that he had feelings for me, let alone that he loved me. Further, we had severely lax boundaries with each other. He always had his arm around me, sometimes we held hands, and for the love of God, his lips have been on my forehead and cheek more times than I could count. He wasn’t gay this whole time, knew damn well I wasn’t gay, and was pushing those boundaries with me. Where the hell did he think it would all lead? We would need to have a discussion about that … but not now.
Then, there were the accusations Nathan made about Gregory Fitzgerald and me. I stopped playing, incensed at the idea, and sat down, setting my flute on its stand.
I know you’re in love with Fitzgerald.
I don’t know what was more infuriating—that Nathan thought that, or that I found myself wondering what it was he saw. Nathan knew me well. He’d known about nearly every boyfriend I’d ever had, and spent summer upon summer watching me flirt and be flirted with. He wiped my tears when a boy broke my heart, or, worse, never liked me in the first place.
I huffed, placing my forehead in my hands. It was completely absurd that I was considering the possibility that I was in love with someone and I didn’t know it. Of course I wasn’t in love with Gregory. Mr. Fitzgerald. Not only was I not in love with him, I couldn’t stand him. If emotional ideology around music could be placed in a straight line—which I’m sure would please Fitzgerald to no end—we would be at opposite ends of that line. I saw music as sights, sounds, colors, scents, lives, births, deaths, all rolled into a breathing, living thing that could be passed down through generations. Music gave life beauty. Music spoke the language of the human spirit for all to hear and understand.
Gregory, on the other hand? Not only did he appear to view music as a thing, he seemed to have little regard for the effect his own music had on people. The first day of class when he’d played that simple Bach suite, I was swallowed by goosebumps. Tears stung my eyes as I’d watched his forehead scrunch at certain parts and relax at others. His body swayed and his tight shoulders moved against his breathing.
He was living music and didn’t even know it. Tragic.
Lifting my head, I sat back with my arms crossed over my chest. I had no intentions of practicing at all. I just needed a change of scenery. What the hell was I supposed to do? About … everything? Nathan hadn’t answered my calls, and it was just as well. The kind of conversation I needed to have with him would indeed be a lengthy one, and it would need to be done in person. It would surely chase the sunrise and be filled with yelling and crying. I didn’t even know what I was going to say to him, or what I wanted to ask him. Certainly there would be things I didn’t want to know, but I needed a few days—or more—to figure that out. I knew I didn’t want to hurt him any further, no matter what it was I decided to say. He was my friend … right? Suddenly, I wasn’t sure. I could almost feel him slipping away.
He feels something for you, too, Savannah. I can see it.
What the hell was that supposed to mean? I knew for a fact that Nathan had precisely zero interaction with Gregory outside of the classroom. Nathan had put off his last theory class so he could take it with me, and I knew he needed the grade to be decent. He wasn’t in any ensembles that Gregory was involved with, so … what? What was it that he saw? Because, honestly, all I saw when I looked at Gregory Fitzgerald was a lonely, sad, angry man who lived alone with his cello. That was it.
No. That wasn’t all.
When he sat behind his cello it was like he transformed into a different person altogether. A human, even. Not the monotone robot that directed us in the ways of music theory. About five minutes after my first class with him ended, I found myself searching through the music library to find a flute transcription for that Bach cello suite. I had to learn it. Immediately. Because when he put his bow in hand and brought it to the strings, he transformed into something transcendent.
I can’t explain what was going through my head as I’d thumbed through the files and files of transcriptions, not stopping until I found exactly what I was looking for. I guess … if that song, those notes, could pull emotion out of a man like Gregory and transfer it directly to the center of my gut … I wanted to feel it, too. The way he did. I wanted to get in his head, even if for only a minute, to feel what he felt from that side of the stand.
But … why?
“Ugh,” I groaned, deciding to just pack up my flute and head back to the dorm to try to sleep.
“Savannah?” a voice from the other side of the door startled me. It was my roommate.
“You scared the shit out of me, Marcia!”
“Sorry. Girl, how many times do I have to tell you to shut these freaking doors? Lock them, too, when you’re here by yourself this late at night.” She shook a finger disapprovingly as I put my coat back on.