I’d promised myself I’d never let go again. Not like that. Not in a way that could endanger my career, my life.
As I played, my arms and body unconsciously moved through the measures, and my mind continued down this course to the only clear conclusion. I’d been wrong about Savannah’s grade, and I would correct that. But I’d been right about something else. Savannah wasn’t just a gifted musician. She wasn’t just a beautiful girl. She wasn’t just a brilliant mind. For me, she represented much more than those things. She represented a distraction. If I forced myself to be honest, I was … fascinated with her. Attracted beyond measure.
I wanted her.
Savannah Marshall was dangerous.
Savannah
I was intentionally almost late to Music Theory on Wednesday, waiting until the last second, in hopes of avoiding an awkward discussion with either Nathan or Gregory. Mr. Fitzgerald. I couldn’t look at Nathan right now—the silence between us was cumbersome and I couldn’t stare it down just yet. And Gregory just …
I was tired from tossing and turning two nights in a row. I was cranky. And the last thing I wanted was a run-in with either one of them. I needed time to think. I needed time to process. I needed to be left alone.
Unfortunately, Tuesday I’d been full up. My academic classes are Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Tuesday and Thursday are reserved for one-on-one flute lessons, followed by hours of practice and rehearsals. On top of that, several of my professors, including Mr. Gregory Fitzgerald, had assigned a metric ton of crap on our first day back from Spring Break.
I checked my watch. One minute for class to start. Then I looked both ways up and down the hall to make sure Nathan wasn’t lurking anywhere in order to avoid an awkward confrontation in front of our class. With any luck he was already in the classroom. I darted across the hall, through the door, and slammed right into Gregory, who was reaching for the door.
He grunted, and I gasped, nearly dropping my bag. I backed away a foot, then said, “Sorry,” and darted around him, my eyes going to the floor.
Not-Gay Nathan was in the usual spot where we normally sat. I made my way to the opposite side of the room and slid into an unused seat.
Gregory slammed the door shut unnecessarily hard, then marched to the front of the room, immediately launching into the depths of a lecture on the mathematical relationship between different keys. Which was interesting if you were building a bridge, I guess, but only served to irritate me now. It’s not that I didn’t care about or love the fundamentals of music. It’s that I was tired of his implication that this was all there was to it.
Usually I was fully engaged in this class. Combative even. But today my attention drifted. My eyes on Gregory Fitzgerald. My professor. I didn’t like his attitude. I didn’t like his haughty superiority, his snobbishness, or his insistence that music was nothing more than an engineering construct. I mean, sure, he was incredible with his cello. I could still close my eyes and hear him playing. I’d been to the symphony twice this semester. I’d told myself I was just soaking in more music. But I was disturbed, then and now, by just how much attention I’d paid during Gregory’s impassioned, tension-filled solos.
What kind of man produced such incredibly emotional music, then denied that emotion had anything to do with it?
It didn’t hurt that he was incredibly attractive.
When he walked in front of the classroom, his motions were economical, but filled with an inner tension that arrested the eyes of everyone in the room. Watching him, I thought that whatever his protestations, inside there was tremendous passion and emotion. Locked away, hidden, only released through the contact of bow and string.
I blinked when I realized, first, that I’d been staring at him, and second, that the entire class had gone silent.
“Miss Marshall?”
“Gregory?”
I said the word. Then I froze. Oh, crap. He’d called on me. For something. And I had no idea what. And then I’d called him by his first name. What the hell was wrong with me? Casting a glance to the side, I noticed the wide-eyes of my classmates judging my error.
“I’m sorry. Mr. Fitzgerald. I got lost in pondering all the wonders of mathematical relationships.” I was trying for sarcastic, but my words came out in a rush, one word stumbling over the next.
His eyebrows moved close together, his face forming into a frown. But his gaze lingered over me for just a second, and for that second I felt like I was under a microscope.
“Something on your mind, Miss Marshall? Is your personal life distracting you, perhaps?” Meaningfully, he looked between me in my new seat, and Nathan, across the room from me.
In a tight voice, I said, “My personal life doesn’t really belong in this room.”
He raised a finger. “Exactly my point. To all of you.” He turned his back to us, walking to the front of the room. Every eye in the room swiveled between Nathan, Mr. Fitzgerald, and me. Wondering. Questioning.
Fitzgerald spun around, then pronounced, “If you wish to succeed as a musician. If you wish to be among the best. If you wish to count yourself as one of the greats, then there are sacrifices you must make. All of you. You’ve selected one of the most difficult, demanding career choices anyone can make. And if you want to find yourself seated amidst the Boston Symphony, or the New York, or London, or the other greats, then you’ll make great sacrifices. You’ll practice until your fingers are numb. You’ll turn down your dates and give up a private life. And even then, only a few of you have the capacity to succeed.”