“Please, don’t cry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sorry.” His thumb brushed a tear from my cheek. “When I get … when I can’t find the words … sometimes I get so angry … the yelling.” He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
“You can be so mean,” I snapped, as the tremble of my chin belayed my ferocity.
“Please, don’t cry because of me. I’m not worth it.”
“I’m not crying because of you. I’m crying because I’m mad. I do this. I won’t be ashamed.” I took a deep breath in. “Displaying emotion is a healthy way of dealing with things.” I sniffed.
“You’re right.” He ducked down a little trying to get me to look at him. I was finding it very difficult to do that. Then he did that look-up smolder-frown thing, looking exactly like the Erik Jones of my adolescence and my heart just about threw in the towel. “I envy that about you. You’re so good at feeling things. At communicating them.”
His words softened my anger. His brow crinkled with sincerity as his gaze moved over my face.
“I really am trying, Devlin. This whole time. Since I started. I—I’m just not who you think I am.”
He shook his head. I could feel him grow angry and then swallow it back down. He took a deep breath to steady himself. “God, Kim. If you could only see yourself as I do.” I shook my head as he kept talking. “But you are holding a part of you back and I don’t understand why.”
“I don’t want to. Not anymore. I’m so tired.” The exhaustion of it all weighted my words.
“When your guard is down you play beautifully, full of passion. You are grace and light.”
I opened my mouth but had to swallow instead. With him standing so close and his man smell encompassing me, I couldn’t focus. Could I tell him the truth? No matter how ridiculous it seemed? I’d tried talking to Roddy about it, or with others over the years, but it made them uncomfortable.
“You’re keeping something at bay. I can’t understand why when you have so much life in you, bubbling right here.” He placed a hand on my chest above my heart. The warmth and weight of his palm radiated through me. He had to feel my heart slamming against his hand. “You’re magic when you let go and really play. That’s why I chose you. That’s what you are capable of. I know this.”
I closed my eyes and dropped my head back against the wall.
“Why did learning about the solo upset you so much?” he asked. “I thought you might be happy.”
How did I explain it to him when I hardly understood it myself?
“It’s not that I don’t feel like I have earned it. I know that when I really try, I have potential.”
He waited patiently for me to go on.
“It’s that potential that scares me,” I said.
We stayed in this safe space of the hall. It felt like if we moved, I’d lose any courage to speak.
“You don’t feel like you deserve it?”
I shook my head but met his gaze. “When I go after things, people get hurt.”
“Explain,” he said.
“It sounds ridiculous.”
“Just talk. It doesn’t have to be perfect or make sense. Just share. Is it just because of Jethro? Did he do something? Because that’s where you went on hold as far as I can tell. You were vibrant at camp. I went away on my first tour and when I came back everything had changed. You had changed. You went from this bright, ambitious cello player to this grayed-out shape of a person.”
“No.” I pressed icy fingertips to my burning cheeks. “Jethro was more of a symptom, I think.”
“People don’t just shut down. They don’t just mute their lives for almost ten years without something to cause it. Talk to me.”
He wouldn’t stop staring at me. I knew he wouldn’t relent. “That last summer at camp, before senior year. You were already gone. Something happened.”
His nostrils flared. “Roddy?”
“No, it’s not like that. Roddy and I were sort of dating by then.” My heart was pounding. I wrapped my arms tight around my middle. I didn’t want to share this. It made me feel sick. He’d know what an ugly person I was. People loved to tell me I was beautiful, but if they only knew how ugly I was on the inside …
“I’ve never told anybody this. You’re going to think the worst of me, and I deserve it. I was this poor little rich girl through and through. And I just fucked up. I just fucked up so big.” My voice cracked.
