I feel an immense sense of pride. It’s the kind of pride that feels bittersweet beneath it. She’s going to go home. She’ll be with her family and face her apartment. She’ll confront the fallout and the conversation with Ezra. She’ll pick up her violin and start playing properly, and the world will hear what I’ve been hearing for two weeks.
She’s going to be extraordinary. And I’m going to be across the city, in my new house, working on a bridge and waiting.
She glances at me and gives me a small, wet smile. I give her one back.
“Noah,” she says. “I’ll be home this evening.”
“I know,” he says. “We’ll be here.”
She closes her eyes. “Tell Mom I’ll see her later. Tell her I played.”
“She knows,” Noah says. “She’s seen the video, Piper. She’s been on the phone with me since six this morning.”
Piper makes a small sound.
“She said—” Noah stops to clear his throat. “She said she knew you still had it. That she’s always known.”
Piper is reaching her limit. I can see it.
She coughs to hide a sob. “Okay. I’ll—this evening. I’ll see you all later.”
She hangs up and just sits with the phone in her lap. I stay at the window and let her have it. When she looks at me again, I know it isn’t about the views or the comments anymore. It’s the fact that she almost let go of this amazing talent she has. She almost lost it.
But she didn’t. That’s what she needs to hold onto here.
“My mom saw it,” she breathes.
“I heard.”
“She knew.”
“Of course she did.”
I cross the room and sit beside her. She tips sideways and puts her head on my shoulder. We sit there while she pulls herself back together. It takes forty seconds because she’s Piper, and she doesn’t stay down for long.
“Two hundred thousand people,” she says into my shoulder.
“And counting.”
“That’s insane.” She pulls back and looks at me, but this time, her eyes are dry, and her chin is up. “We have to go home.”
“I know, baby.”
“I’m not ready,” she says. “But I think I’m ready all at once.”
There she is.
“I know you are.”
We sit with the morning and the road ahead. Outside, California doesn’t care that we’re leaving. It gave us two weeks, a road, a beach, a music shop, and a bar called The Anchor. I’m choosing to consider that more than enough.
Piper gets up to find coffee. I can’t help but watch her go.
Yeah, more than enough.
Forty-Six
Piper
