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Filling the rest of the screen is Mason, his face bigger than it was moments ago, like he’s trying to get as close as he can get, from thousands of miles away.
A small, bittersweet smile creeps up my face as I watch his throat bob. He mouths something—his lips hardly moving. Too subtle for me to decipher. Probably I love you, or some variation of that.
But that’s all quickly forgotten, as in the next breath, she begins to play.
It’s a piece you’d think even I would be able to knock out at this point, with how often I’ve seen and heard her play it these last few months. Especially in the last week, whether it be her playing on her keyboard in our room, or practicing on the piano in the lobby, or just humming it without seemingly even being aware at every moment between…
It’s a song I fear will follow me to the grave.
And yet, right now, flitting my gaze between her grandiose, rippling movements on stage as she owns this piece, and the face filling my phone screen, expression slackened with awe…
I realize, I’ve never heard the song quite like this.
Mason rolls his lips together, eyes gleaming with unshed tears. He’s nodding, and nodding, and fighting a smile, and he’s?—
He’s beautiful.
Try as I might to tear myself away, I can’t…
Not when it hits me—really hits me—that this is all I’ll ever have of him. That this is the only way I can watch him, with my heart cracked open, and him no more the wiser to it. Because his heart’s too busy beating for someone else, so loud it drowns out anyone else’s.
Drowns out mine. In a rhythm that was never meant for me.
It was never just my sister I had to compete with…
I see that now more than ever.
It’s his love for music.
And both are so intrinsically tied, there’s no one without the other.
I think of their matching tattoos, and as much as it kills me…
I get it now.
A Mason without Izzy is unfathomable…
Because a Mason without music is unfathomable.
And with that realization, as I watch the guy I’m pretty sure might be the love of my life…watch the love of his playing her actual heart out up there on stage…
It’s all too easy to make my decision.
Whether or not I get into CalArts next year makes no difference, or any other school. Come a year from now, if not sooner, should I graduate high school early—something I can definitely make happen if I need to…
I’m leaving Shiloh in the dust, and I’m starting over.
Starting fresh.
Alone.
CHAPTER THIRTY
After the showcase, we gather in the hotel’s ballroom for hors d'oeuvres and cocktails.
Well, water for me. Though I’d kill for some champagne right now.
Probably not as much as Izzy though, who’s currently trying to schmooze the pants off the donors.
