Silent Song (Ghostly Rhapsody) (14 page)

His playing gave me a little bit of confidence. I’d yet to fail to be transported into
Lady Windermere’s Fan
when he worked his emotional magic.

And he delivered once more. When Professor Hedford gave us the signal and the music started in his corner, I found that I still very much hated Lena—not because she was a bitch, but because she was a bitch and had tried to steal
my
husband. In turn, she acted behind a regal façade, letting the public understand the insecurities she was experiencing at being in a home where she was so clearly uninvited.

The scene went on flawlessly, but then I noticed something that didn’t quite work. We were fast approaching the part where some sort of understanding should appear between us, and I only found anxiousness and unhappy thoughts in my head. It was as if Lord Windermere had already left me, not only in shame, but with a broken heart and no honor. Lena, on her part, seemed to grow nervous by the minute, as if she were expecting me to punch her or something.

It didn’t screw up the acting and Mr. Hedford didn’t call a halt, but it was jarring when compared with the previous smoothness.

Strange. Perhaps it’s because I dislike Lena so much?

No. It was the music. The music was weird and the realization made me stutter in the delivery of my line. 

Keith had always shown a precise understanding of emotion and moods, and he had always played as it fit the scene being rehearsed. That was the reason we got it so well, so fast—he used his guitar from his darkened corner to show us exactly how we would be feeling if we were our characters.

This time, though, he was playing a discordant melody, something fast and delirious that made us tense and didn’t allow us to shake off a foreboding feeling thick enough to cut with a knife.

I frowned, recognition slowly inching its way into my mind. It was the piece he had played for me that first time in his room, the one he had been composing on the fly. He had said that he’d gotten the idea for the melody when doing the sound checks here in the auditorium, and it sounded like he’d polished it considerably since then—it was much faster, much darker, much more desperate. But it was the same song.

But why was he playing it and not the Windermere themes he had actually prepared?

“Halt!” Mr. Hedford called, and I realized with embarrassment that I had missed my cue. “I think that’s quite okay for today,” he said, instead of reproaching me. “We’ve nailed nearly another full scene, which allows us to wrap the first two Acts. That’s enough of a milestone, so let’s celebrate it by finishing early today.” He smiled, and I imagined he had noticed the tension in the air and chosen to let it run its course outside the class.

I was grateful for his choice, and so were the rest of my classmates. They all left quickly, without lingering to joke or discuss the events of the day. I shared a look with Anna, who was sitting first row with Dave, and she nodded in understanding, picking up her things and heading out with the rest of the throng. I knew they’d wait for me in the lobby or in the parking lot, but I needed to stay behind and ask Keith what had happened.

When I approached the pit, I frowned. In spite of Professor Hedford’s comment, he was still playing the same tune, his fingers dancing over the strings like lightning. He didn’t look like the last time I had seen him in his room, though. This time, he stared ahead, away from the stage, not even paying attention to the notes he was picking, and his expression was blank.

“Keith?”

When he didn’t reply, I moved in front of him and waved a hand in front of his eyes. The situation reminded me eerily of Saturday afternoon, when I had gone to his house with the chocolate cake and he’d been absorbed in his music. This time, retreat didn’t cross my mind, even though he didn’t react to my presence, and I had a sudden urge to just turn my back and leave him to his practice.

“Keith, I’m trying to talk to you,” I said, tapping his shoulder. I gasped. Under his shirt, his shoulder muscles were so taut they trembled.

“What the hell?” I blurted.

Finally, the notes fell out of place and he gasped, jumping in surprise. Slinging off the guitar, he left it propped against the pit’s wall and took a couple of steps back, massaging his temples.

“Sorry,” he said, sounding drained. “I don’t know what happened there.”

“I don’t know either, but it was creepy.” I tried to smile. “You got really carried away, huh?”

Instead of smiling back, he frowned. “It’s that song. It’s like I’m close to getting it right, like there’s just one more try to go before perfection. I can’t give it up.” Shaking his head, he ran a hand through his hair. “And you thought your stalking was psycho? I’m feeling crazy right now.”

“It’s okay; it’s just a song. You’ll get it right and move past it,” I said, trying to encourage him. “I just wanted to talk to you because it felt like an ill fit to today’s scene. I didn’t know why you’d chosen to play it, but… I guess it’s obvious now.”

“That’s all you wanted?” he said, smirking the worry away and adopting a rather impish look instead. “You sure know how to crush a guy.”

I blushed. We hadn’t talked about what we were now, whether we were anything at all. The previous day I had been grateful—words would have been cumbersome; we were right together and that was all that mattered. But now, in the light of day and in school grounds, I realized I had no idea what to expect.

“I like the playful you almost as much as the playing you,” I said.

“I’m just cool all around, aren’t I?” He leaned in, kissing my temple very lightly.

“Are you really going to practice longer?”

“You have an alternative?”

I grinned. “Well, yeah, I do.”

I wanted my alternative to include the park and the pond again, but lugged as we were with school stuff and practice stuff, we ended up going to his place after saying good-bye to Anna and Dave.

I didn’t complain.

When we arrived, his father was off at work and he headed straight for his room, replacing the guitar in its stand, checking the rack before setting it down, and finally taking off his jacket to hang inside the closet. I watched him move around, leaving my own bag propped against his table and the jacket hanging behind his door.

“You are so organized,” I commented when he finally turned to me. “And you don’t even look like it.”

He snorted. “Because I dye my hair?”

“Nope, it’s because of the nails.”

“I don’t like to leave stuff in the way, that’s all,” he said with a smile, acknowledging my attempt at a joke. 

“Mind if I don’t play today?” he asked suddenly.

I blinked. “I thought you weren’t going to.”

He looked surprised for a split second, but his recovery time was spectacular. He had that beautiful smirk that made him look like a boy who was up to no good.

“Mmmhmm.”

The perfectly innocent issue became anything but such. Hyperaware that we were alone, at a scant three feet from his bed and that I had just made clear that today music was out of the picture, my mind started coming up with other reasons for me to be where I was.

Every single one of them made me blush.

“I mean, you’ve been playing at practice. Besides, you were getting frustrated with that one song, so I thought…” I was not only stammering, but also babbling. I needed to shut up before I made a total idiot out of myself. He looked more amused by my words, but I just couldn’t bite them off.

“Breathe,” he said. My tirade stopped because of his soft, affectionate tone and he smiled. “That’s a good girl.”

Then, he took two steps right into my personal space, slowly, as if he didn’t want to spook me. Before I realized it, his fingertips were against my lips. It was his right hand, soft and tender, and it felt like the most intimate thing I’d ever done with a guy, way beyond kissing and making out.

He slid his fingers over my lips, feather light. His eyes fell half closed and I heard him take a deep breath

“You’re precious,” he whispered, his hand dragging toward my chin to tilt my head to the side.

“But you hardly know me.”

“I know who I am when I’m with you like this.”

“You didn’t trust me much just a couple days ago.” I knew I was just being contrary. My sudden nerves were to blame.

“Kiss me.”

In spite of the simple way he’d phrased it, his tone was all but commanding. Aching, which I could relate to, and a little bit imploring, which melted me into a puddle of goo. There were other nuances I could not identify.

I leaned in the couple inches or so that kept us apart and, just like the previous night, the feeling of rightness that swept through me was overwhelming. The kiss might have been simple, even chaste by my adolescent hormones’ standard, since tongues were kept inside their respective mouths, but still, it touched me all the way to my soul.

I could spend the rest of my life like this, just kissing him. It was like a puzzle piece of who I was had just found its place, even though I had not realized that it was missing to begin with.

Intoxicating.

I wouldn’t have been able to pull back if the deep meow of the stupid cat hadn’t startled me, breaking the contact.

I stared down at the huge, black animal, who regarded me with contempt and a certain lack of interest, and Keith took a deep, shaky breath, pulling himself out of the reverie.

“Alice,” he said, his voice so husky it was almost a growl. “You really need to make friends with Sparrow.”

“I’m sorry, the other day he wasn’t around and I guess I had allowed myself to forget that he existed.”
And had a thing against me
, I thought.

Keith frowned a little.

“That’s right. He’s not around while I play, lately. But he’s still my cat.”

“Didn’t you say he liked your music?”

“He used to. But for the past couple of days, he keeps huffing and hightailing it.”

“You must be losing your touch,” I teased him.

“Am I?” His voice made my heart somersault in my chest, and then his left hand was in my waist, his right one sweeping my bangs to the side and lingering while cupping the side of my face, and Sparrow was thoroughly forgotten.

He knew which buttons to push.

“I used to think you were kind of innocent,” I found myself saying, still staring into his darkened blue eyes.

He laughed. “Because I’m a loner at school?”

“Well, yes… I mean, you tended to be alone, stay out of gossip, that sort of thing. Couples make it to the radar, even if they are unpopular, you know?”

A smirk. Silence.

“How many girlfriends have you had anyway?” I blurted out, my thoughts bypassing any kind of filter on the way to my mouth.

“Does it matter?” he asked, taking a step back that made me feel the cold from his absence.

“Yes. I mean, no. Of course not.” He raised his eyebrow, not buying my denial and enjoying my embarrassment. “Okay, so I might be a little jealous,” I admitted, biting my lip.

“No reason to be.” He pulled me to him again, holding me close and nudging my head to bend and rest against the side of his neck. “You were right; I’m a loner after all.”

“You don’t act like one,” I mumbled against his skin, too comfortable to move any time within this century. “You know just what to say and how to act. Like you’re…”

“Experienced?”

“Yeah.”

I felt his shoulder shrugging. “It’s because of you. You and I, we fit.”

His words echoed my thoughts of previous moments together, and I wondered whether we were right. I’d always written off the perfect moments and the love at first sight and the alignment of the stars when finally together, assuming it to be the product of the overactive imagination of writers, hip rock stars, and whatever else.

Right then, in Keith’s arms?

It made sense.

***

When I arrived at my place that night and closed the door, I stood for a moment in the foyer, trying to wrap my mind around it. My boyfriend. It didn’t sound quite right, because Keith was way too important to fit with such a commonly used term, but still. I couldn’t find anything better on short notice, and I needed to start acknowledging our relationship.

I also needed to start breaking it to my parents.

I walked into the living room, where Mom was reading a novel and listening to soft music on the stereo. Dad wasn’t home yet, and I relished the chance to open up little by little. Taking a deep breath, I entered the room and sat down in a cushioned armchair.

“Hey, Mom,” I greeted her.

She immediately put down her novel, sat straight up and gave me a concerned look.

“Hi, sweetie. Is everything okay?”

Her reaction took me aback and I went into defensive mode. “Yeah, why wouldn’t it be?”

“You always head on straight to your room when you arrive before dinner.”

Note to self: try to expand your family conversation time.

“No, it’s cool. Today we finished practice a little early, because the first two Acts are already good to go.”