The sudden loss of Tyler's warmth leaves me more exposed than ever. Like a ship cut from its anchor, drifting into darkness with no hope of finding shore.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeWB7tCwk6S
I drift. Literally. One step after another until I reach for the old upright piano and my right hand clings to its solid security. The keys under my fingertips are cold, lifeless ivory that yields beneath the lightest pressure, but I know them by heart and, right now, they're the only things that make sense.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡtZJPgleTmj
There's no getting out of this. I've been running for too long. Dancing around the phone calls, making excuses about work and distance. Anything that could buy me another day.
Did it work? Of course not. So why should I be surprised? Why can't I stand the mere thought of being here, in the company of the people I love the most, and yet unable to face my own feelings?
"Are you okay?"
Righley's voice makes me flinch. Apparently, she hasn't left the studio yet, and I can feel her gaze piercing my back.
And no, I'm not okay.
How could I be? When a big part of my own happiness has been buried by my own hands, so deep in my soul that I don't even remember where I put it to begin with? When being honest feels like betraying everyone I love?
I push my index finger on the key in front of me, grimacing at the sound in return. Dissonant, twisted, completely off-tune. A dreadful noise, far from what it was once, when the piano was still brand new and working properly.
"A few keys are out of tune," I say, barely above a whisper. "I will have them fixed before we leave."
The heavy sigh that follows hits me like a slap, and this time, I can't help but turn to face Righley across the room. There's so much on her eyes, now, that wasn't there before. Frustration, sorrow, and then anger. It crosses her expression in waves, one after another, until it disappears and all that remains is disappointment.
She knows. No. We all know. We all see the huge elephant in the room, taking space, pushing us around, stealing our breath. And destroying with each move the delicate balance we have built around ourselves.
And yet here we are, keeping up this game of pretense, trying not to hurt each others too much in the process because, in the end, what are we supposed to say?
What are we supposed to... do!?
I sigh too and suddenly I don't know what to do with my hands. They lay at my sides, useless, unable to stay firm for even a second. Outside the studio, from the door still half-open, I can hear Tyler and Eleanor's voices from the hallway. And Tyler's laughter, when it suddenly bursts forth, completely unexpected and therefore so precious.
Who knows what Eleanor told her. What kind of joke. What memory she must have pulled out to make Tyler laugh so free. I really don't know how she's able to have this effect on Ty when just ten minutes ago we were all wandering around in the dark.
Is it what real friendship is like? Not being able to hate someone, even if that someone...
"Avery?"
Righley's voice snaps me from my reverie, and I blink. Her gaze has gone soft again. And I can perceive the worry in her tone.
Fuck.
"I am—" okay, I'd like to say. But the word dies on my lips, leaving behind a bitter taste on my tongue. Righley keeps staring at me, and I clear my throat a couple of times, before being able to speak again. "Fine, Righley. That's what I meant. I really am just—"
"Bullshit."
I raise my chin in her direction. "Excuse me?"
"That's bullshit," she repeats, but there's no malice in her voice. Only sadness. "You really think I don't know how you are, when you're fine?" She asks me, and I flinch again, because these are almost the same words I said to Tyler a couple of days ago.
"And how am I supposed to be like?"
"Not like this, for sure," Righley spits back. She takes a step forward, and another, but stops halfway across the room, hesitating.
After all, she has always been able to see through me, even in those moments I didn't know I could be seen through.
There was a time, at the beginning of our friendship, when I believed I was the one who saw her truest self. Who could help her become something better than what she believed herself to be. Someone beautiful, and free, and capable of conquering the world.
But somewhere along the way, the roles reversed. She became the one who could read the spaces between my words, the pauses in my breathing, the way my fingers would still against the piano keys when the music inside me went quiet, always a step ahead of everyone, in that infuriating, gorgeous way of hers.
"I'm sorry." The words fall out before I can stop them.
For how lame they may sound, I really am. Sorry.
For disappearing without explanation. For screening their calls because hearing Eleanor's voice, sometimes, made everything hurt more. For the distance I've kept, thinking it would be better for all of us.
For still loving Eleanor.
And even by knowing that, for being here right now, drowning in feelings I have no right to feel.
"I know you are..."
Righley's words catch me off guard and I stare back, confused, because… what the hell? She should be pissed. She should be yelling at me, throwing things, demanding answers I can't give.
But she doesn't. She tilts her head and looks at me with understanding. Pure, simple understanding that makes my chest constrict painfully and leaves me powerless, stripped of all defenses against my own emotions, adrift amidst waves of doubt and uncertainty.
"You... do?" I repeat like an idiot.
"Of course I do," she says again, and her tone is just... defeated. It makes me want to crawl out of my skin, or reach her and hug her until neither of us can breathe. But I don't move. I can't.
"Just know it's not needed, Avery. We've been friends for what? Twelve years? Thirteen? I know you by heart. How you act, what you do when you are scared, or whatever…" she trails off. "And this? I knew it from the first time I saw you and Eleanor in the same room. And it's... it's fine."
"Fine?" I can barely get the word out.
Righley shrugs, and it's like the world tilts around me. I feel like I walked into a play where everyone already knows their lines except me.
"What am I supposed to say? That it's not? Start a war with you that I can't win and, most importantly, that I don't even want to begin with?"
I shake my head. Overwhelmed in a way I didn't know was possible. And the worst part is that I know she's right. "Look, it's just a couple of days and we'll be gone anyway. Back home. Until your wedding... if you still want to..."
What? Marry Eleanor? Having me and Tyler at her side? Let us wait for the both of them at the goddamn altar, like it's no big deal that I'm in love with her future wife, who happens to be also my best friend? And Tyler's best friend? And that I love Tyler just as much, but she doesn't know anything about what I'm feeling, despite I've sworn loyalty and honesty to her?
But Righley gets it all the same. She always does.
"Do you realize it's that the problem?" Her sigh cuts through me.
"The wedding?"
"Oh God, not that! Your attitude. The way you always think that running away is the solution to all problems. You have just arrived, and yet here you are, planning your escape back to the States where you can bury yourself in your piano and pretend none of this matters!"
Righley's last accusation lands with precision - a blade that pierces the very essence of who I am, cutting through flesh and bone to leave me here, completely defenseless.
Music has always been my refuge. My shield against anything too sharp to handle. When Tyler and I fight, I compose. When crying is not an option, I play. When the world demands more honesty than I can give, I listen to someone else's truth instead of mine.
Using it against me now feels like the cruelest betrayal.
"That's not…" I begin, but the lie dies on my lips. Because oh yes, this is so very fucking true! This is exactly what I do when I feel cornered. I bury myself in music, whatever the consequences. Only, there's no way I'm going to say that out loud to Righley. Not tonight, not ever.
"Anyway, I'm not running away," I retort. "There's an ocean between us, and it's not like we can see each others as much as we would… I’m not fleeting, we are on the opposite side of a goddam pound!"
"Is that what you tell yourself?" She cuts me off with the patience of someone who's had this conversation in her head countless times. "That the distance between us is the problem?" Her tone softens. "You really don't get it, do you?"
The question sends a chill down my spine.
"Oh, Avery... You really don't get it, do you?"
Eleanor's voice from eighteen years ago mingles with Righley's and I shiver. Different situation, same devastating clarity. And I don't know how I'm supposed to survive, this time.
"Or maybe you do. Get it," Righley continues, tilting her head in that way of hers that has always driven me mad with anger and affection and pride. "The effect you have on people. On Tyler. On Eleanor." A pause. "Even on me, for God's sake!"
"Language! And please don't talk nonsense," I whisper, glancing toward the hallway where Tyler and Eleanor's voices still drift through the door.
There's no way I'm letting them overhear this conversation. They deserve better than stolen words and eavesdropped confessions. They deserve me on my knees, tears and blood and everything else that I've been too much of a coward to give them.
But I can't.
I don't want to go down that road. I don't want to face what comes after.
I want to go home. Back to Cambridge with Tyler, even if it means losing Eleanor and Righley once and for all.
"Becks?"
I raise my head to meet Righley's eyes, just to find them suddenly filled with tears. "Don't do this. Don't shut yourself away from us. I know you can't stay, I'm not asking that. But for once in your life, be brave. Don't disappear like a ghost, making excuses about oceans and mountains and whatever else you use to justify keeping us at arm's length."19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡf8HK9sYPsU
"Righley..."
"No. Please, just don't. Eleanor deserves better than this. She deserves to know how you feel, whatever happens next. Even if it means you walk away forever from our lives. It's going to hurt her either way. Either you stay or you go. So at least give Eleanor the option to tell you what she wants."
"How can you ask me that?"
"How? I can and I have. Because you, lingering at the edges of our lives like a fucking ghost... It's destroying her. And it will also destroy Tyler. And I think it's killing you, too."
The truth hits me like a truck. This careful limbo I've built, this dance of being present but not too involved... I've been telling myself it was a necessity to spare everyone the pain. But all I've done is stretch out the agony to avoid confronting my feelings.
I close my lips, swallowing hard. I don't have words, nothing good enough to say, and even if I did, they'd stick in my throat anyway.
Righley watches me for another moment, her hazel eyes shining bright behind her glasses. Then she turns and walks away, heading towards the door and leaving me alone with the piano, the silence, and all the ghosts that keep haunting me.
And for the first time in my life I feel truly lost. As if I've spent so long running from myself that I've forgotten which way leads home.19Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAI9sHduzSW
and then Add to home screen.