All these years I’ve been learning
To save fingers from burning…”
The heartrending melody, Nina’s hypnotic voice, and the gorgeous string and horn arrangements all leave me transfixed. But most of all, it’s the lyrics that cut through to my soul. As the song fades out, I find I can’t speak.
“The chorus just seemed written for you,” Chace says, gently removing the earbuds from my ears. “?‘Make life worth living, now it’s my life I’m living.’ I don’t know—it just made me think of you, stepping into the spotlight with the Philharmonic after all these years of working so hard behind the scenes.”
I shake my head in wonder.
“How is it possible that you know me so well?”
He pauses.
“I guess I just…see you,” he says in a low voice. “I see you even when you’re not there.”
He didn’t really just say that. Did he? I stare into his beautiful blue-gray eyes. What is happening?
“You do know I liked you first. Don’t you?”
My heart jumps.
“What?”
“After we met that day in the theater, I kept trying to talk to you,” he confesses. “But then you pushed me toward Lana, and I knew.”
“Knew what?” I ask, my palms growing sweaty.
“That you weren’t into me.” He smiles sadly.
“I…” I swallow hard. “I didn’t believe it. That someone like you would…”
The train comes to a grinding halt, cutting off my words. We’re at the Atlantic Terminal station in Brooklyn. I exhale.
Chace rises to his feet. He brushes his hand against my shoulder for a brief moment before stepping off the train.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
“You didn’t,” I whisper. But it’s a lie. My mind is swimming with images of an alternate reality, where I’m in the arms of the boy who seems to know my soul better than anyone else. And it all would have happened, if I’d only had the confidence to recognize his attention for what it was.
“Chace,” I call out, just as he reaches the train door. “You’re not in Brooklyn to plan a surprise for Lana, are you?”
He shakes his head, opening his mouth to say more. But the train doors close and leave us staring at each other through the window.
My mind is somewhere else entirely during rehearsal, but for some reason my playing only improves. Every time my bow descends on the strings, I see his face and the notes seem to cry out, punctuated by an emotion I’ve never felt before. Especially when it’s time to rehearse “Summertime,” the piece that got me into the showcase. I flash back to the New Year’s Eve party as I play, remembering the look on his face and our hushed conversation after. I think of Lana and my playing only grows more urgent, the strings wailing my guilt.
But there’s nothing to feel guilty about, I remind myself. I’m not going to do anything about this…connection with Chace. I would never hurt Lana.
As rehearsal wraps, our conductor and teacher, Franz Lindgren, calls me downstage.
“You played with great passion today,” he tells me in his thick Scandinavian accent. “Please recapture that emotion in every rehearsal.”
“Thank you so much, Maestro,” I say, my face flushing from his praise. Although the idea of reliving today’s emotions in every rehearsal fills me with a bit of dread.
“Impressive,” Damien calls out from upstage, after the conductor steps out of the theater. “Two showcases under my belt, and I still haven’t gotten a shout-out from Franz Lindgren himself.”
“Really?” I glance at Damien, who shoots me a grin as he packs up his cello. “Thanks. Though I definitely think you deserve some praise, too.”
“You’re not going to hear an argument from me there,” Damien says with a chuckle, slinging his cello case over his shoulder. “See you next weekend, Nicole. Keep doing what you’re doing.”
There’s a different energy in the air as I step onto the eastbound train, making my way to Chace’s row. I hesitate before taking a seat, wondering if this is wrong, if I’m playing with fire. Is it a betrayal to Lana to keep up a friendship with Chace, now that I know how he once felt about me? But as I look in his eyes, I know I can’t run away. I’m not sure I’d want to, even if I could. Still, I keep a wide berth between us.
“How was rehearsal?” he greets me, though I can tell his mind is elsewhere—just like mine.
“It was good, thanks.” I look closer at him. “Are you going to tell me what you’re really doing in Brooklyn?”
He pauses.
“I want to. Sometimes I think I’ll go insane if I have to keep it hidden any longer.”
I sit up straighter. This sounds serious.
“What is it, Chace?”
He glances out the window, avoiding my eyes.
“Do you think—would you still consider someone a good person, even if they once did something bad, something they regret every day?”
My pulse begins to race.
“It depends on what it is. But if we’re talking about you here, I can’t imagine anything changing my mind about you being good.”