AllFreeNovel
Share Us
prologue
I race down the Grand Couloir, Courchevel, France. The icy wind slaps my cheeks as I slalom between jagged rocks, kicking up sprays of snow, faster and faster, down and down, until I’m nearly vertical. My heart pounds, and my breath in my mask bellows like a charging boar. Adrenaline pumps in my veins instead of blood.
The slope angles up. A cliff. I don’t turn; I hunch down to go faster, and then there’s nothing beneath my skis and I’m flying…
…I’m flying, gliding, the nylon flaps above me as I hold the bar in a white-knuckle grip. The air is warm, and the sky is gold and blue—twilight has fallen over Kahului, Maui. My glider dips and soars, and I feel the wind’s changes. I move with it, flying higher and higher until the islands are puddles of sand bearded in green.
I swoop low, curve up, nearly flip. I let loose a cry of triumph and ride the edge of the current, higher still, until I can almost touch the sun. Like Icarus. Only I don’t burn. Not me. I soar.
And when I’m high enough, I drop the glider down into a nosedive, my harness straining until it breaks apart, the nylon tearing away until it’s just me playing chicken with the ocean, and I will not blink first. I streak down, hands ready to cut the water like a knife. I’m diving…
…I’m diving off La Quebrada, Acapulco, one hundred and thirty-six feet high with five seconds of safe depth before the waves recede again. My nerves are electric fear—that perfect sizzle that is nearly orgasmic, nearly unbearable. I plummet and crow my triumph, arrogantly, for I am invincible.
The water rushes to meet me and I cut it perfectly; an arrow in the cool green-blue, down, down, where gold motes dance in the viridian infusion. I don’t stop. I don’t even slow. I can’t. Down deeper, and I begin to choke on my victory. My lungs constrict, my eardrums explode, and still I go down. The water is now dark green, now just dark, now black. I can’t breathe. I can’t see. My head strikes the jagged teeth of the sea and all I know is pain…
A scream tears out of my throat, one last scream, I think, before I drown in the black abyss. But no. If I can scream, I can breathe. I’m not submerged. I’m not lost in the deep. I’m in a bed in New York City, my body covered in sweat, my hands clutching the sheets.
Relief sweeps through me like the adrenaline once did, and I open my eyes. But my eyes are already open. I’m no longer in the black deep but I’m just as blinded. Blind.
I’m blind.
chapter one, then
Spring 2014
He was as gentle as ever. I wanted to tell him to let go, that it was okay. After eight times—yes, I kept count—it had long since stopped hurting. I told myself he was being considerate. Considerate yet enthusiastic. Maybe a little too enthusiastic. Once again, it was over before I’d gotten warmed up; he collapsed on top of me after a few minutes. But Keith’s tired, satisfied smile when he raised his head from the crook of my shoulder warmed my heart, even if my body was left wanting.
I was new to the whole “having sex” thing, but I liked it. Quite a bit, if I were being honest. Granted, I hadn’t achieved the Big O yet, but I was twenty-one and still a rookie. I figured I’d get there with practice. And I was more than willing to put the time in with my handsome new boyfriend. My first boyfriend. My first love. My first everything.
I reached for Keith again, but he rolled onto his back and kissed my hand.
“I’ve got class,” he said. “And you, my darling, have an audition tonight. The most important of your life.”
“So far,” I said with a grin. “After I graduate, I’m going for the Phil. Or maybe Boston.”
And make my big brother proud.Chris’s words echoed in my thoughts:“First Juilliard and then the Phil!”His parting goodbye as I went off to college. I held on to it like a mantra, vowing to make his words come true. Winning a seat on the Spring Strings—Keith’s master project—would be a step in that direction, a notch on my resume.
A thought dimmed my smile. I turned to Keith. “If I kill it tonight, won’t they think I got in because of us?”
Keith drew on his jeans, his back to me, his blond hair glinting in the shaft of light spilling in from the tiny dorm room window. “Probably,” he said. He turned and leaned over the bed, kissing me softly before pulling away and smiling that winsome grin that still, after a month, had the ability to make my heart flutter in my chest like a caged bird. “So you’d better prove them wrong.”
At twenty minutes to six o’clock, I walked up Broadway, violin case in hand. My black A-line skirt, white blouse, and black jacket were a little heavy for the weather, but a light breeze took the edge off the day’s lingering heat. A stunning spring day if ever there was one. But New York City could have been caught in a hurricane and I would have felt invincible that night.
I was going to win the coveted violin seat on the Spring Strings Quartet. I knew this, not because I was filled with arrogance or ego. Since coming to Juilliard almost three years ago, the music that lived in my heart was thriving and blooming in a way I couldn’t have imagined. I didn’t just play the notes of the compositions before me; I created perfect harmonies out of skill and infused them with love. Love for the music. Love for life.
And now, love for Keith. Of all the women who flocked to him like doves around a bronze statue, he’d chosen me. My heart was full to bursting, but I would win my spot honestly. I would give them everything.
I would play Mozart, of course. Mozart, whom I felt was my spirit guide, who called to me from across the centuries with his music that, in my estimation, was absolute perfection. I felt Mozart’s music in my very bones, in my heart and soul. I always played with my heart in my hands, but with Mozart, I stripped myself raw.
The first three rows of the Alice Tully Hall were full of hopefuls, some muttering beneath their breath, some giving me the obvious stink-eye. They all knew I was dating Keith. But it didn’t matter. The music was alive in me, and I was about to unleash it.
I played the fiercely technical cadenza to Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 for Keith and the other two student directors—both seniors like him, both women, both eyeing me dubiously. I was too lost in the music to watch their scrunched-up faces loosen, morphing from surly doubt, to shock, to stunned joy. I was too immersed to see the other hopefuls’ faces lose their scorn as they listened. Until the end. Then the applause, small for the nearly empty Hall but thunderous to me, came and I awoke as if from a warm sleep.
They surrounded me on all sides, congratulating me even though half of them had yet to play. Some wiped tears from their eyes. Some just shook their heads as they showered me with compliments.
“Amazing. I felt that in mygut.”
“I’m crazy-jealous but in the good way, I swear.”
