by Daisy Allen
I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
Literally.
I don’t know if I can trust this woman standing in front of me who I’ve seen as my enemy for so long. Can I trust her with these revelations she’s just dropped on me? I don’t know what to say.
Sarah doesn’t have the same restraint.
“I don’t believe you.” She says, narrowing her eyes.
Hailey turns to her, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what else to tell you, but it’s all true.”
“I heard you that night, Hailey, in the bathroom, you were bragging about having slept with half the band and that you were going to try to score with Sebastian that night.” Sarah accuses her.
The sound of his name makes me flinch and my breath catch. Images of him and her intertwined flash in my mind. I turn to Hailey and she looks at me, her jaw locked, speechless.
Then she takes a breath and closes her eyes.
“I lied. About all of it. None of that was true.”
I stand up, facing her, the frustration taking a hold of me.
“So Gemma lied about being an undercover pap. Now you tell us you lied about fucking half the band. Maybe you’re lying now, Hailey! What’s the truth? What am I supposed to believe?”
“I’m not. I promise you, I’m not. I...”
“You’re what, Hailey? You’re going to have to give me something, or else you need to leave. Were you trying to score with Sebastian or not? Or is everything you’ve just told us to cover your own ass?”
“I’m GAY!” Hailey shouts and stands up, her eyes glistening, “I am gay,” she repeats, her voice softer.
“What?” I stare at her.
“I have absolute no interest in Seb or the band or any man for that matter. I am gay and I always have been.”
And the revelations just keep coming. I sit back and watch her for a second. She’s trembling and I wonder how many times she’s had to tell someone what she’s just told us.
“Do the guys know?” I ask.
“Yes. And they were sworn to secrecy. I’ve known them half my life...they know everything about me, and yes, they know I’m gay. And they know that it’s up to me if I want someone to know or not.”
And then it dawns on me.
“So Sebastian...”
“Was just keeping his word to me.”
“Even if...”
“Even if it meant losing you, yes.”
The news doesn’t make it any easier.
“But it was never about choosing between you and me. It was about keeping his word. He doesn’t have anything if not his integrity. You should know that. But I can’t do that to him. Keeping my secret can’t be the reason that he loses you.”
“But...why did you say all that stuff to Gemma?” Sarah comes up behind me, trying to find her own answers.
“I don’t know. I guess I just felt like she was starting to get an inkling, and in some twisted way I wanted her to think I was cool. I haven’t had a lot of female friends and I guess I just wanted her to like me. I had no idea that she was really just using me the whole time.”
“Oh, Hailey.” I can’t help but feel for her. Living the life she does, mixing with famous people, never really knowing who to trust.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m sorry about the pictures, I’m sorry about you and Sebastian, but I’ll do anything I can to fix it.”
“You’re...not in love with Sebastian?” I have to ask, one last time.
“No. I love him like a brother, like I do all of them, but nothing else.”
“And you didn’t have anything to do with the pictures?”
“Other than bringing that lowlife into our circle? No, I promise.”
And I believe her.
“ OK.”
“I’m sorry, Cadence.”
“I believe you, Hailey. I accept your apology. I’m sorry it came to this.”
“What’s going to happen between you and Sebastian?” She asks after a few minutes of silence, as we all are lost in our thoughts.
“What do you mean? Nothing.”
“This doesn’t change anything?” Her question mirrors the one I’ve been asking myself.
“I don’t know.”
“He wasn’t choosing between us, Cadence. He was choosing between keeping his word to me or not, and if you know anything about Seb, it’s that he’ll never break a promise to you.”
“I think I know that much.”
“And one more thing. It’s that if you don’t come back, he’s never, ever going to be the same.”
“Does he know you’re here?”
“No. I’ve only just come from telling the guys what happened. They’re not that happy with me either right now, for introducing Gemma to them. But well... Jez asked me to give you this.” She holds out a small CD envelope to me.
I reach for it slowly, “What is it?”
“It’s a recording of something he found on the computer. He thinks it’s probably important you hear it.”
SEBASTIAN
“So, what do you think?” Jez asks me once it’s just to two of us left in the room. It’s been a long day, and I just want some quiet time to myself.
“About what?”
“What Hailey told us.”
“What is there to think? It happened, and now we know why. Dennis will do what he does.” Though whatever that is, it’ll only fix part of the problem. The rest is beyond fixing at this point.
“I mean about Cadence, what is this going to mean about you two?”
“Nothing. She already decided she wants nothing to do with me, what more can I do?” I try to answer him flippantly. I’m afraid of another shower intervention, if the boys catch me moping over my broken heart again.
“You could not be more of a chickenshit.” Jez says to me, shaking his head.
“Hey.”
“Seriously, man, where are your balls?”
“She doesn’t want to see me. She hates me! She thinks it’s me that did this to her and she blames Hailey, and in a way she isn’t wrong, even if it’s not exactly how she thinks. What more can I do?”
“You make her realize that you’re worth it, dude.”
“I don’t know if I can do that. Because I don’t know that I DO deserve her.”
“Well, duh! We all know you don’t! But for some reason she’s cockmad for you! Don’t take that for granted.”
I get up and wander over to the piano. Running my fingers over the keys, remembering the way she sat here, lost in the music, me watching her, mesmerized by her.
“What if I told you Hailey was over there explaining everything right now?” Jez breaks my daydream. “What if right now, Hailey was getting you off the hook?”
“I- I don’t know! Does that change anything?”
“Goddammit, do I have to do EVERYTHING for you? DO you LOVE her, man?!”
“You know I do!”
“Then for fucking sakes, use those balls for something other than a toy to fiddle with when you’re bored and go get your woman back!!”
CADENCE
I’ve waited as long as I can.
Waited until Hailey left and convinced Sarah to go home.
Waited until I took a shower and stood in the kitchen making tea and waiting for it to cool.
Waited until the sun had set and the stars had come out to play.
Waited until I could barely breathe from the weight of the suspense.
And now I’m ready.
I slide the CD into my laptop and click on the one file.
There’s a soft buzz and then the sound of soft breathing in the microphone.
And then he speaks. “This is... this is “Cadence’s Song”. A song for my muse. My everything, my here, there, everywhere and in between. I miss you so much. This is for you. ”
My heart feels like it skips one, two, three beats and I thump myself on the chest to start it. The tears have already started to fill my eyes and I feel my fingers grip into fists, almost like I’m
trying to capture the air particles that carry the timbres of his voice. How I’ve missed his voice. His words, his whispers into my shoulder as he cradles me from behind.
And then he starts to play.
It’s a sweet, beautiful melody. Gentle and lilting, the sound of moonlight on water, of raindrops on skin. Parts of it sound so familiar, and I remember I’ve heard some of it before, heard it that night after the club incident.
It’s him. It’s all him. It’s as though he’s speaking to me, clearer than if he’d used words.
The song is heartbreaking, his notes long and sad, dark and yearning. It’s like he’s been watching me these last few days and turned my tears into music.
I feel so alone and yet so understood all at once.
I can’t help but ponder what I’ve lost and what I may never find again. I’m not the same person I was when I was seventeen and shut my heart off to the world. Maybe this time, my response to the brutal invasion of my privacy should have been different. I tried exclusion, maybe this time I should’ve tried inclusion. Instead of hiding, I should’ve sought justice and strength in facing it together and publicly declaring, ‘this is not acceptable’.
But it’s too late. I cast the die in pain and fear.
The music ends on a tender, minor chord, the mournful sound of endings, and it fills my heart with an ache in the shape of him.
Chapter Twenty-Six
SEBASTIAN
“Will you fucking hurry up! You’re going to make us late!” Jez yells from the hotel room door.
I pick up the last items left on the nightstand, tucking them into my pocket and look around the emptied hotel room.
I don’t want to leave. I’m scared to. I’m afraid that the memories won’t follow me, and when I close my eyes, I won’t remember the first time she stood there, wringing her fingers trying to lay down conditions of our arrangement.
Or the night she’d laid like a broken doll in my bed and I’d realized I’d loved her and would protect her for the rest of her life if she’d let me.
Or the few happy days we had, after coming back from Uluru, making love over and over again on every surface of the suite, every look, every word of hers spiking the desire in me,
“SEBASTIAN! We’re leaving RIGHT NOW!” Brad booms from the door and I know it’s time to go. I close the bedroom door behind me and make my way to them.
“You ready?” Jez asks, and I know that I’m not.
But time doesn’t stop for everyone and sometimes it’s just time to take a leap.
CADENCE
The school decided to let me come back after three weeks when it seems the scandal has died down.
Working herself to the bone, Sarah did everything she could to take over my classes, knowing I’d feel more at ease with her in charge of my kids, feeling safe leaving them with her.
She called me every day to tell me that the kids were so angry at the school for making me take time off and could not wait for me to come back. That some of the parents had even come to speak on my behalf.
I admit that those calls and words gave me purpose. I spend the time off making revised lesson plans, trying to find more ways to inject fun and different learning techniques into the lessons. I had a renewed need to impart the love of music in my students, to teach them that we are so lucky to be gifted with music in our lives and to not take it for granted but to keep exploring more and more ways to bring it into your world. Music of all kinds and genres.
Now, at the end my first day back, I can’t help but sink into my desk chair, exhausted. I’d forgotten when a full day of teaching could take out of you. I’m almost glad that we had to cancel orchestra rehearsal due to a clash in the schedule for most of the students.
“Miss Bray?”
A small voice calls my name and I turn to see Jenny, the orchestra’s first violinist, standing in the doorway.
“Jenny! How are you?” I wave her in and she pauses, biting her lip.
I haven’t had a chance to speak to her since she told me she had to quit orchestra and I had planned to arrange a meeting with her and her parents sometime next week. Seeing her makes me feel like I’ve been the most selfish teacher in the world, worrying about myself when I should’ve been caring for my students.
“Is everything OK, Jenny?”
“Yes, Miss Bray, I was just wondering, would you take a walk with me? I’m supposed to be at work, so I don’t have a lot of time, but I wanted to talk to you about my music.”
“Of course!” I slide my feet back into my shoes and get up, following her down the hallway.
“How are your parents doing, Jenny?”
“Actually, much better, Miss Bray. Things are still a little bit difficult at home, but we’ve had some help lately, that I think might help with me coming back to orchestra.”
“That is wonderful!” I turn to her and smile and she returns it with a smile that warms my heart.
“Yes, it is. I just want to thank you, from the bottom of my heart. For everything you’ve done for me.”
“I haven’t done anything special, Jenny...just believed in you.”
“No, you’ve done so much more than that...we are ALL so thankful to you. You are, I don’t know what we would do without you.”
And with those words, she pushes open school’s front entrance doors, and there, in the front courtyard of the school is a huge crowd. Almost the size of the entire school! There are students and teachers, parents and admin staff. And everyone is facing me, and smiling and waving.
And I think my heart almost explodes with love in that moment.
Behind the crowd I can see a makeshift stage, and on it, my kids, my school orchestra, jumping up and down and screaming my name.
I turn to Jenny, speechless. Jenny just grins and runs up onto the stage and takes her place in the orchestra.
Sarah breaks from the group and comes up to hug me.
“Oh my god. What is this?”
She just smiles and points towards the stage. Everyone follows her lead and turns to see the principal standing there in front of the microphone.
“Miss Cadence Bray, the school orchestra, and I and everyone at the school want you to know how much we value and appreciate all that you have done to bring music into our school and hearts.”
He waves to me and then turns toward the orchestra.
“I’ve waited so long to tell you this, it didn’t feel right until your teacher was here, but Miss Bray singlehandedly raised over $50,000 for the school music program, which means that you will all be going to the Nationals this year in Canberra!”
I watch as the entire orchestra jumps up and starts screaming and hugging each other. I think my face almost splits from grinning with pride, I just want to run up there and join them.
Sarah, as always, can read my mind, and gives me a nudge. “Go! Go to them! You belong up there, this is your moment.”
I run up through the crowd of people and up onto the stage, the kids running over and we all embrace in a great big group hug. I barely even notice the tears streaming down my face. I’d missed them so much the weeks I’d been away, worried about how they would feel about me when it was time to come back. Seeing them now, so happy, the worry and insecurity gone from their faces, it made it all worth it. I glance up at the sky for a moment and mouth a silent “Thank you, Sebastian.” He and he only made this possible.
“And one more thing...” I hear Greg start to say and the kids suddenly all sit back down in their places, picking up their instruments. “The school orchestra now would like to thank Miss Bray and their parents with a special performance. Miss Bray, will you join me in your VIP seat?” He grins at me and points to a chair by the front of the stage.
I saunter over and give Greg a little pat on the arm, I can’t help but feel more lighthearted than I have in weeks. The joy of my kids is contagious, and I just let myself become drunk in it.
I sit down and I watch as Timothy, one of the band leaders, comes to the fro
nt of the stage and takes up the conducting spot. He mimics me calling for silence and attention by doing a special wave of the conductor’s baton and putting his index finger to his lips, and everyone who’s seen me do it at the school performances laughs. He turns and winks at me and I poke me tongue out at him, secretly proud.
He lifts his arms and everyone is silent in anticipation.
And then they start to play.
From the first note, it’s beautiful. This orchestra I’ve created from students who are here by the power of nothing but their own passion for music. It’s so beautiful I just lose myself in it for a moment.
And then I realize, what they’re playing it’s a piece we’ve never practiced before.
But it’s a piece I know like the beat of my own heart.
No. How can they....no.
I shake my head, but the notes keep coming, sweet, simple, pure notes, like...I’ve said it before, like moonlight over water.
They’re playing “Cadence’s Song”.
And just as my eyes draw tears from my aching heart, a giant cheer erupts from the crowd. I’ve heard that cheer before. I look up, my breath catching in my throat.
It’s them. Jez, Marius, Brad.
But no Sebastian.
And my heart sinks.
I watch as the three members of the Rock Chamber Boys stop centre stage, position their instruments and join in with the orchestra. Their parts ring out clear above the band, and even in my disappointment, I can’t help but fall in love with their performance.