*
I WALK INTO the drama room on the afternoon of closing night and the whole cast is here because we’re all a little sad that it’s almost over and we want to be together as much as possible before the show spell is broken. Gideon is at the piano, playing a velvety jazz tune I don’t recognize. He’s intent on a handwritten sheet of music in front of him, oblivious to the whole world, squinting a little—he must have forgotten his glasses at home again. His long, thin fingers fly over the keys, and every now and then he stops and makes a note on the music sheet, then starts back up again. I lean against the piano and he looks up at me and smiles, like he’s now utterly content, and without missing a beat he scoots over on the bench and I sit next to him. You know I’m a sucker for musicians. The music flows into me and it’s like skipping down a sunny city street, but I catch the melancholy flowing under the bright notes, an enigmatic underneath. Oh, I think, I have to write that in a letter to him. He’d love that phrase—we trade words like kisses: enigmatic underneath.
He finishes with a flourish and glances at me. “What do you think?”
“I love it. You know I love it. I charge you with fishing for compliments.”
He laughs, and am I imagining it or is he scooting a little closer to me? His arm rests against mine.
“What’s it called?” I ask.
Gideon plays the refrain: I hear raindrops and the sound of clinking glasses. Laughter and sighs.
“Still thinking of a title,” he says.
“Wait, you wrote that?”
I just assumed he’d copied it from somewhere onto a sheet of music paper. I often see Gideon noodling around on the piano and he’s good—really good—but I had no idea he could do something like this.
He shrugs. “Not that hard—notes on a page, you know.”
“No, I definitely do not know. Gideon—that’s … I mean, that’s amazing you can do that.”
He looks down at the keys, runs his fingers through a scale.
“Give me your hand,” he says softly.
I place mine in his, and there’s a jolt, soft and sudden, and we both look up, right into each other’s eyes. I hear warning bells in the back of my head, but they’re muffled by the blood rushing through me, the beating of my heart.
He clears his throat, his lips turning up a little. “Here,” he says, placing my fingers on the keys. He shows me a few notes and I try to mimic him.
“I sound like a stampede of elephants,” I say.
“Um…” He laughs and I bump my shoulder against his.
“You weren’t supposed to agree with me! That is so not, I don’t know, chivalrous.”
He covers my hand with his own and presses my fingers down slowly. It’s better together.
I slip my hand out from under his, confused and guilty.
“I’m ruining your song,” I say.
“Well, technically you’re ruining your song.”
“What—” Oh. Oh.
“Gideon!”
We turn around, both jumping a little. Peter and Kyle are staring at us. Oh god. Your best friends just saw … whatever this was.
“We gotta run through the sword fight,” Kyle says. He won’t look me in the eye.
Before I can say anything, Gideon scoots off the bench and grabs the sheet music. “It’s not ready yet.”
His rests his hand on my shoulder for just a minute before he goes to join the others. I stay on the piano bench, staring at the keys. Black and white. No gray.
Natalie sits on the bench almost as soon as Gideon gets up, straddling it.
“Yes,” she says.
“What?”
She nods to where Gideon is. “Yes to him. Si, oui, ja, darling.”
I shake my head, face burning. “Stop it,” I growl. “I love Gavin.” She gives me the stink eye. “I do.”
“No, you’re brainwashed by him.”
“Dude—”
“Everyone can see it—you and Gideon. You don’t just like each other. This is something … big. He gets you, Grace,” she says. “You’re not fooling any of us.”
My heart snags on her words. “Please tell me that’s not true.”
Because if that’s the case, it’s only a matter of time before you find out. Oh god. What have I done?
“It’s true,” Natalie says, soft. “And it’s okay. You’re only eighteen; you can’t stay with Gavin the rest of your life just because he says he’ll kill—”
I shake my head. “I have to go.”
“Grace—”
I give her a backward wave. “See you tonight!”
I don’t look back to say good-bye to Gideon because I don’t trust myself around him anymore.
I rush to the library and it’s only there that I see the tiny square of paper tucked into the pocket of my jacket.
THIRTY-FIVE
Grace—
Okay, it’s like this: the universe is huge, right? And we’re just the tiniest speck on a tiny planet and we’ll live for not even a second of a star’s life. And yet. We’re stardust. I read it in a science magazine, I’m not being poetic here: you, me—we’re the stuff of stars. So keep that in mind when shit’s getting you down.
Meet me by the gym after school, okay? Promise? Double pinkie swear?
G.
The bell rings and I find myself rushing to the gym, books clasped in my arms, stomach hurting in a good way because I’m going to see Gideon and then everything will be all right. But that’s wrong, wrong, I should go home. Wait by the phone for you to call. You’re coming to the show tonight and I’m here doing—what, exactly? It’s not technically wrong to talk to my friend, it’s not. Your rule is unrealistic and childish. It’s a rule that’s meant to be broken.
Gideon’s already there, leaning against the gate that surrounds the pool across from the gym. He’s reading one of his thousand manga books, engrossed. Nerdy and cute, and I love how he purses his lips when he’s concentrating. Gideon drops into other worlds the way other people walk into rooms.
“Hey,” I half whisper.
He looks up and smiles. “Hey, you.” He throws the book onto his backpack, which is leaning against the gate. “Tell me your day.”
It’s this phrase he only uses with me. We tell each other our days like it’s a story, embellishing, as though we were sitting around a campfire.
“Well, a gentleman wrote me a song,” I begin. God, here I am flirting with him. Again.
He raises his eyebrows. “Do tell.”
And off we go. We laugh, sometimes so hard my stomach hurts. We speak in whispers about things that are easier to say backstage, where the darkness surrounds us like a cloak. In these moments, our heads are close together, conspiratorial.
“I have a proposition for you,” Gideon says.
“Okay…”
“Thespians are usually hungry before an evening performance—this is common knowledge, you understand.”
I fight back a smile. “Of course. Everyone knows thespians get hungry from time to time.”
“So, I’m just curious—taking a survey, actually: do you like food? A yes or no answer will suffice.”
“You take beating around the bush to a whole new level.”