The silence stretched.
Orion took his hands off the keys and rested them in his lap. The audience members around me began to exchange glances.
My heart began to pound.
Then Orion lifted his head. “This is for Dean.”
He put his hands back on the keys. There was another moment of silence, and then he began to play.
Not the Rachmaninoff. Not anything I’ve ever heard from the classic oeuvre. Not anything I’ve ever heard before. Not anythinganyonehad ever heard before.
And it was only moments into his performance when I understood what he was doing.
He’s playing the year.
The music started out light, almost jaunty, but was a complicated weave of overlapping harmonies that danced and sang together like laughter. It then mellowed into something romantic, bringing to mind a moonlit night and a crackling fire. A bonfire.
My hands were clasped tightly over my heart, and I was half inthat auditorium, half back on the beach, with his jacket around me under all that moonlight…
The melody deepened and so did the night, becoming velvet and dark and rich before the thunderous lower notes of a storm began to build. It stole my breath that Orion was creating this as he went. Improvising. Weaving a tapestry out of notes from moment to moment, on the spot.
The storm built and built into a raging tempest, and I was back in my house, listening as the rain came down. Orion’s left hand thundered along the piano’s lower octaves, while his right hand trilled the upper notes like raindropsplinkinginto pans…and then sunlight.
Both hands moved into the upper octaves as the melodies began to sing and tell a story. A love story.
Our story.
Then they grew dark again, descending into the pounding, modern beats of a house party. The house-party beat became a heartbeat, Orion’s left hand alone forming a chord and hitting it over and over. A pulse. A heartbeat that beat faster and faster, and then stopped.
A split second of silence where the entire auditorium held its breath…and then melancholy swept in with gentle but relentless refrains. I wiped tears away as fast as they came, as if they were impeding my ability to listen, because the sorrow…the beautiful sorrow of Orion’s music was breaking my heart until the sun came out. Softly. A few higher notes amid the melancholic lower phrases, and I was back at Dean’s funeral where the sun shone, beautiful and gold and full of hope.
But Orion didn’t leave us there. He finished his piece with the last notes hovering, not quite cheerful, not despairing, but something in the middle. Something that was like a question being asked and waiting for an answer. A future unseen, but with the hopeful harmonies echoing faintly behind, until the last note faded to silence.
Orion took his hands off the keys. There was another quiet in the auditorium. No one moved or even breathed before the firstsmattering of applause. That applause became its own storm—an ovation unlike any I’d ever heard before. The crowd got to its feet in an uproar. I looked around me, people wiping their eyes, shaking their heads at each other as they slammed their hands together.
Orion stood, gave a short bow, and exited the stage. It didn’t matter. The audience applauded the empty circle of light until Ezra brought him back. He gently nudged Orion into the spotlight and stepped aside. Orion shook his head, humbled, took another bow, and then searched the audience. There was no possible way for him to see me amid the hundreds of faces in the dark and with the spotlight in his eyes, but I thought maybe he found me anyway.
And hope burned in my heart. We could find each other in the darkest storm or in the bleakest night. We could find each other anywhere.
Chapter 39Orion
After the concert, I was surrounded. The other performers, parents,students, all shaking my hand, patting me on the back and telling me how amazing my performance was.
Ezra stood beside me like a proud parent. Bittersweet, until I saw my own parents, Octavian, and Odin, making their way toward us.
“What are you guys doing here?”
“Are you kidding?” Odin said. “We flew in yesterday.” He engulfed me in a hug. “Bloody hell, little brother. I knew you were good, butthat? That was—”
“That was a miracle.” Octavian threw his arms around me. “I have no words.”
“Thanks, Tav.” I turned to my parents. “Mum, Father. This is Ezra Wolfe, professor and world-famous pianist. He’s been my mentor this year.”
They looked him up and down: tattoos, eyeliner, bracelets, nail polish.
“Very pleased to meet you,” my mother said, shaking his hand.My father did the same.
“Impressive,” my father said. “Getting that performance out of my son.”
