Page 14 of One Breath After Another

“Get the fuck out of my house.”

Penny heard the front door slam shut minutes later, but she was already at the back of the house, sitting in front of the piano that taunted her on a daily basis. For whatever reason, she hadn’t been able to play it since she arrived in New York. It followed them from the penthouse to the large, three-level home in the suburbs.

Roz played.

Naz did, occasionally, even if it wasn’t perfect.

Penny, though?

Never.

Until right now. The urge thrummed deep, the notes taking shape in her mind the longer she stared at the glossy black smoothness of the piano legs.

Why now?

Why when she shouldn’t care?

Why did it matter now?

Good girls play for Daddy, she heard him say in her head. Oh, you missed a key, what does that mean? And then, Smile at the camera when you do that, Penny, they like it.

“Fuck you, fuck you ... fuck you,” Penny mumbled, rocking forward on the bench. “Just ... fuck you.”

She pressed the heels of her palms to her burning eyes as she squeezed them shut, willing his voice out of her head, and for those memories to burn. Maybe that’s what she had been looking for here, to take away all of that, but it was never going to go away.

Those memories would never leave.

It would never not be.

Her fingers trembled as she placed them to the ivory, the tune that came out of the instrument echoing and haunting through the halls of the quiet house as it matched the sounds she made when she cried.

And God.

She cried so hard.

The melody was so unlike what she had been known to play before—much darker, and deafening. A tune that had goosebumps racing over her skin and had her heart thumping hard against her ribcage.

It was pain.

Not pain she caused.

Not pain he made.

It didn’t come from a razor against her skin, and it didn’t hurt. It wasn’t brought on by wrongs done to her, even if memories helped to create the music. It didn’t leave scars behind, and it didn’t linger long enough to make her wish she wasn’t here at all.

It was pain put into music.

And it felt different like that.

Better like that.

For a long time, Penny had pushed music aside because it felt like a punishment. She had been put in front of a piano for her father’s desire, not because anyone thought she would be any good at it. Her talents had then been used to please others, before they turned it around on her so that when she misbehaved, they punished her with it, too.

By sending her away with the music.

And she hated them.

Hated it.