Silent Song (Ghostly Rhapsody) (17 page)

“He hasn’t come to lunch,” offered Dave. “Since you weren’t around either, we thought you two had gone off to catch up on yesterday or whatever.”

“No, we came together to school, but I was busy,” I said, pushing myself out of the chair in spite of my weariness. So much for lunch. “I have an idea of where he might be, though. See you two later?”

“Sure.” Anna waved at me. I left my two bewildered friends and rushed off in search of Keith.

Life was easier when I didn’t care for the weirdest guy in school.

The corridors were deserted. I pushed open the door to the auditorium and closed it again behind my back before hitting up the lights. I preferred to keep this visit under the radar, because I had an idea of what I’d find.

I looked around. No sign of Keith.

I peeked into the pit, half-holding my breath at what I’d find, and there he was. He’d not brought his guitar today, so he wasn’t playing, but his fingers drummed a disturbingly familiar pattern on his thigh while he stared out at the stage.

I feared another episode, but he looked up and smiled at me.

“Hey. How did you know where to find me?”

“I had this feeling you’d be here. How are you?”

He shrugged, awkwardly. “Fine, I guess.”

I went to sit by his side and we just contemplated the stage, with the antique furniture and decorations. In my mind’s eye, it was all too easy to see the graceful figures swirling around in huge dresses, moving to the complicated steps of the country dance.

“Do you think I should call a doctor?” Keith said at length.

“No. You’re not… you’re fine. There must be a reason for this, and we’ll find it.” I reached over and squeezed his hand. “Besides, what do you expect them to say? Probably it’s just stress or something. The opening date is crawling closer, you know.”

“Maybe.” He didn’t sound very convinced. “Did you find anything at all about the song?”

“Not really. The first part is similar to a minuet, or at least, a lot of minuets popped up when I put it in. But then it goes in a completely different direction, so that’s the end of our hopes.”

“It doesn’t sound like a minuet,” he said, frowning a little. “The pattern of the movements is not there.”

“I said the first part. Then your playing goes wonky and it stops sounding like anything recognizable at all.”

“Wonky?” He chuckled and I offered my best pout. “What kind of description is that?”

“A suitable one. Come on—admit it.”

“I have a few adjectives in mind, but ‘wonky’ isn’t one of them.”

“You can’t even remember the notes. Your vote doesn’t count.”

We laughed, even though the conversation wasn’t particularly witty, because it was normal and we felt safe together.

“Thank you,” he said, out of the blue.

I blinked and tried to smile it off, but Keith’s determined eyes belied the softness of his tone. He meant it, and he wasn’t willing to let me ignore his feelings.

“I did nothing special,” I tried.

He reached out his free hand, curling his fingers around the side of my neck and pulling me to him. Surprisingly, instead of engaging in a passionate kiss, as I half-expected and half-hoped, he just guided my cheek to rest against his shoulder, my face turned into the curve of his neck, and then let go of our intertwined fingers so that he could hug me to him, gentle but firm.

“You’re still here,” he whispered, his warm breath tickling the shell of my ear. “That’s special enough.”

My arms wrapped around his waist like he’d disappear if I didn’t hold onto him. Again, while we were doing absolutely nothing but hugging, the moment turned strangely intimate. Like we were meant to be, however corny the concept might sound. His hands didn’t roam; I didn’t climb into his lap. The only concession we made was the gentle caress of his thumb rubbing shooting circles behind my ear.

“Look what we found here!”

The shrill voice shattered the moment and I jumped away from Keith, embarrassed, as if we’d been doing something wrong. I felt his sharp intake of breath, but otherwise, he did a remarkable job of being relaxed while staring up into… Lena’s face, of course.

I didn’t know why she’d come to the theater on one of the few days when we didn’t have to be there. For a moment, I entertained the silly notion that she’d been following us, but quickly dismissed it as being stupid. However, her sneer didn’t allow me to forget that she was there and that we were alone.

Bitch Queen? She looks like a vicious Rottweiler about to pounce!

“What do you want, Lena?” I asked, keeping my tone as blank as I could.

“What do you want, Alice?” She mimicked my voice and tone.

I didn’t reply, and out of the corner of my eye I noticed Keith shifting. The mood had gone from warm and comfortable and even romantic to freezing and tense and ugly in record time, and neither of us liked it one bit. Still, reacting would only give an opening to Lena, and I wasn’t willing to let that happen.

So, in spite of my instincts, I pulled on my Bitch Princess mask, lay back in the chair, and waited obnoxiously for her to answer my question.

She held the staring contest for a few long heartbeats and then scoffed.

“Aren’t you pathetic?”

I smiled. No teeth showing, just the curve of my lips. As if I had a secret, an amusing secret, and I couldn’t be bothered to enlighten her.

And I kept silent.

She turned her gaze on Keith, eyes narrowed, and her pinched lips twisted in a vicious smirk.

“And you’re even sadder. So desperate for attention that you’re even willing to be her plaything? I hope she’s making it worth your time.”

“Not your business,” he replied in cool tones. Too cool. I knew that the barbs had stung him, and Lena latched onto his reaction like a leech to an open wound.

“Oh, it’ll be my business when she comes back to center table, as she always does. If we’re going to laugh at you, you could at least make an effort to give us some good material.”

As she spat her words, a bull’s eye for Keith’s fears and insecurities, realization hit me like a freight train. My stomach sunk and my heart skipped a beat as it contemplated the truth.

Lena had never targeted Keith. She had targeted
me
, through
him
. He was just a casual bystander falling to her crossed fire, a convenient mark. Currently, a wounded mark.

“Lena,” I cut in, a bit more harshly than I intended. “You’re getting the facts wrong. The one who collects football players is you, not me.”

“Yes, of course. I always had more class. That’s why you had to resort to weirdoes like him, right?”

Her flippant acceptance of my accusation and the way she turned it into an insult both for me and for Keith left me gaping. I took precious seconds to form a response, and I knew from her triumphant smile that she was sure she had won.

I was furious for all the wrong reasons.

Or perhaps they were the right reasons; I wasn’t so sure anymore. Before, I’d have been livid at her ease, at the way she’d ridiculed me, at how she was trying to bring me down in Keith’s eyes—or in anyone’s eyes, for that matter. Now, though, my anger was focused on her words toward him. She could try to beat my ego, but Keith was the most wonderful person I’d ever known, and she had no right to make him think that he wasn’t worthy.

“Perhaps she’s choosing and not resorting, Lena,” Keith said when my silence stretched a fraction too long.

She snorted. “Choosing you? Like, what for? To experience what it’s like to be with the school’s laughingstock? Please! Do you really think you have any other value?”

I pondered detention in my mind. I’d get expelled for three days at the very least for pounding Lena senseless, but the idea became more and more appealing with every cutting, derisive word she said.

I think I’d have done it. Except, Keith smirked, leaning back in his chair languidly, and he stared at her with a confidence I didn’t know he had.

This new Keith stopped my murderous impulse. It gave birth to some other impulses, but I shoved them to the back of my head. Not good timing for that.

“Well,” he drawled. “You do know what they say about guitarists. I think nimbleness beats ball grabbing and body tackling any day of the week.” And then he flexed his long, slender fingers, and the implications sent my brain into overdrive.

Lena’s eyes bulged. She had not expected this turn of events. I hadn’t expected it, for that matter, and I prided myself in knowing Keith better than she did. But she had heard and seen him playing, she had seen the skill and sheer speed of those fingers, and I saw a curious pink tone rising over her neck.

“Keep telling yourself that,” she said, after opening and closing her mouth once. “You’ll just fall harder when you realize the truth, and I’ll find it funnier.”

“Let a guy enjoy while he can, then,” he replied, unfazed.

Keith had just dismissed her, in no uncertain terms. It must have fallen outside of any possible scenario she’d pictured for this encounter. She looked like she wanted to send a parting shot our way, but she just turned on her heel and stalked out of the auditorium, not looking back once.

When the door clicked behind her, I grinned and turned to Keith.

“That was amazing! You shut her up!”

He groaned and buried his head in his hands. “I can’t believe I said that,” he said, his voice muffled.

“I couldn’t believe it either.” I scooted over to his side and tried to pry his hands away from his face.

“Sorry,” he mumbled. All the coolness had disappeared and in its place, a relatively shy and insecure guy blushed furiously. “I shouldn’t have implied…”

“Did you see her face? Priceless, Keith. You were great.”

“Yeah. But now, the rumors will start full tilt.”

They probably would. Our situation still hadn’t blown up in our face, at least not completely, because people were too busy with Anna and Ray. After today? It’d get distorted by the mill to the point where we’d been caught having kinky sex in public, in a threesome involving his guitar, and I’d probably gotten pregnant in Mr. Hedford’s director chair.

Still.

“They’d have started anyway.” I shrugged. “She’s that kind of person.”

“It doesn’t sit right with me to give her extra firepower anyway.”

I took a deep breath. “Look, it’s not really extra firepower. You didn’t even lie, and you didn’t give her anything she couldn’t have figured out—or come up with—on her own.”

He turned to look at me sharply, his eyes wide open. “Not… a lie? You really wanted to…?”

His face had gone all the way to mortified and I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks as I realized the meaning of what I’d just said.

“Not that! I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to, because I do, I mean, not now, at some point, but I wasn’t thinking about…” I was only digging my own grave deeper, so I stopped myself and tried to rephrase. “I did choose you over everyone else. You are special and better than the jocks she plays around with. And that’s what you said, isn’t it? If she wants to take it some other way, that’s her problem.”

He let out a throaty laugh that did very little to take my mind off the current topic and rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay.”

I nodded. “I was worried, you know?”

“It’s not like she could have done anything dangerous to us.”

“I know she’d not have tried to kill us or anything!”

“It’s not her style. Too direct.” Keith smirked.

“Ditto.”

“So? What were you worried about?”

“You.” I took a deep breath. “What she said, it was so similar to what you told me that day at the park. It scared me.”

“That I might believe her.”

I nodded. Keith left his chair and knelt in front of me, his hands framing my face and making me look him in the eye.

“I don’t. I know what kind of person she is. And while I still don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve you, I also know you. It might sound groundless, but I know you’re not like her. I know you’re not faking it when you’re with me. And that’s enough for me, for as long as it lasts.”

I let him tilt my head down and kiss me softly as if I could break at any moment and he had to show me how precious I was before it was too late. He was so tender that it hurt. A deep pang ran inside me, and I felt overwhelmed by his presence, his caring, his acceptance.

“Always,” I whispered against his lips when he broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against mine.

He didn’t know how long we’d last, but I knew I could not go back to a life without him, ever.

The next time Keith had to come to theater practice, I sneaked a surreptitious glance over at the pit as soon as we entered. He gave me a small smile before heading over there to set up his stuff, as if he could read my thoughts and see my permanent worry. 

He looked better since the incident I privately referred to as
The Scare
. Still a bit too pale, and I thought he might be slightly thinner, but no more freak-outs had occurred.