But it felt like more than that.
But it couldn’t feel like more than that.
The meditation closed with a soft ding and a salutation from Deepak, and as soon as the closing words left his lips, I closed the app and let my legs flop out in front of me with a sigh.
Mom chuckled from her mat in Atlanta, opening one eye and then the other. “I take it you had a hard time clearing your mind today, mwen chouchou?”
“Can you ever be unhappy about being happy?”
Mom frowned a bit at that, stretching her arms over head before exhaling them back down to her sides. “That’s a very interesting question,” she assessed, and I watched her therapist brain kick into gear as she chewed the inside of her cheek. “It’s possible that, in an effort to be happy, you’re making yourself even more unhappy. As in, you could be focusing so much on trying to be what everyone else is, what everyone else wants you to be, that you just do more damage than good.”
I shook my head. “It’s not like that. I just…” I sighed, eyes floating up to the ceiling as I tried to explain it. “I feel good here, Manman. All I’m doing is working, practicing with Reese, and playing on my own. But, it’s like in the past couple of months, everything has changed. My attitude. My skill level. My outlook on the future.”
My inability to be turned on… until recently.
I left that one out, mostly because the surprise of it had shocked me into a daze when it’d hit me. I could still close my eyes and see it — that long, suspended moment where I sat on Reese’s piano bench, staring at his lips.
Wishing I could taste them with my own.
It was the first time I’d felt anything even remotely close to desire since the night I’d had my innocence ripped from me like it was nothing. And of course, I’d felt it for the absolute last person in the world I was supposed to.
The left corner of Mom’s mouth inched up, a light sparking in her eyes — eyes so much like my own. “It’s a rebirth,” she said.
I frowned, digesting the word.
“Sarah, when you came home from school in December, you were not the young lady who had left for school in the fall,” Mom explained, rolling her shoulders back and down as she considered her words. “And I don’t know what happened. I don’t know why you came home with the decision that you were never going back, or why you threw out every bright color you’d ever owned in exchange for darkness, or why you wanted to shed weight — so much so that you even shaved your head.” She swallowed at that, but her face wasn’t one of disappointment — only one of understanding. “What I do know is that just as the trees shed their leaves and went dormant for the winter, so did my daughter.”
My heart ached at that, at the suffering I knew I’d put my mother through when I’d quit school. I couldn’t tell her why, not without upsetting her over something neither one of us could change. That was just the way the world was set up.
Justice didn’t favor rape victims. And there was no changing that narrative.
Still, I hadn’t given her any kind of explanation for why I’d dropped out, shaved my head and donated nearly all of my clothes before shopping for an entirely new wardrobe. I didn’t know how to explain to her that I didn’t want to be seen, that I only wanted to exist at my piano, that I only needed to be alone with what music I could still wrangle out of my bruised and bloody heart.
In the process, I’d broken hers, too.
“When you told me you wanted to stay with your uncle and study with this Reese Walker, part of me was worried. Part of me wondered if you’d lose yourself further, if you’d slip away from me even more than you already had.” Though her words were sad, she smiled, her hands floating to heart center as she pressed her palms together. “But, you have soared, my love. Your smile, it’s brighter than I’ve seen it in months. Your eyes, they are wide again with possibilities.” She tilted her fingertips toward me. “You have been reborn, mwen chouchou. And like a baby fawn, you’re trying to learn to walk on very unstable legs. Take your time. Be patient. And know that it’s okay to smile, to be happy.” She chuckled. “Even when you’re falling down.”
Something stirred low in my belly when I thought about it, when I realized all Reese had done for me without even knowing. He didn’t know how broken I was the first day I stepped into his house, or how much I doubted my own self before he even heard me play, before he told me how hard the road ahead would be.
But just like he promised that first day, he was in my corner.
And in my corner he had stayed.
Every day, I strived to see that little spark of pride in his eyes, that quirk at the corner of his mouth when I did something impressive, something he’d taught me. Earning a good job, Sarah from him was my new favorite pastime, and it’d fueled me with purpose.
Purpose.
That was what I’d been missing before.
“Now,” Mom said after a moment. “Tell me who the boy is.”
My eyes shot open, heart picking up speed under my ribcage like a locomotive. “What?”
Mom smirked. “It’s not just music making you feel uncomfortably happy,” she mused. “Who’s the guy?”
I tried shaking my head, but my cheeks warmed, betraying my verbal insistence that there was no guy.
Mom just quirked one brow.
I sighed. “I mean… I guess, there kind of is a guy, but… we can’t… he’s kind of unavailable.”
“Does he have a girlfriend?”
“No,” I answered, picking my nails. “But, he’s just…”
My voice faded, because I had no idea how to even allude to the fact that the one and only male who could possibly be having an effect on my happiness was my piano teacher.
Mom smiled knowingly, rolling off her mat before carefully folding it up. “There are some situations when mothers aren’t the best source of advice,” she said. “Maybe you should call your roommate from Bramlock. I know she’d love to hear from you.”
My stomach twisted, months of unanswered texts throbbing at me like they were alive in my phone. When I’d left Bramlock, I’d left everything and everyone behind — including my roommate and closest friend, Reneé. I’d stopped posting on social, deleted my accounts altogether after a month, and I knew my mom’s heart wasn’t the only one I broke over the winter.
Reneé was my friend, and I’d blown her off. I’d blown everyone off. But, at the time, it felt like the only thing I could do. It felt like survival.
Fight or flight. And I flew.
“I don’t know if I’m ready for that…” I whispered.
Mom’s brows furrowed, but she offered a knowing smile. “Okay. Well, I’m here if and when you do decide you want to talk about it. Until then, try to meditate on it.” She gave me a pointed look. “Actually meditate, not overthink.”
I laughed.
“I think it will help.”
“I think you’re right,” I agreed, hand floating up to my crystal. I rubbed the smooth sides of it, thoughts still whirling. “I had a dream about Dad the other night.”
A familiar shade of sadness passed over my mom’s face, one that mine favored more and more the older I got. “Oh?”
I nodded. “I wish he could see what I’ve been working on, that he could hear how I play now.” I paused. “I wonder if he’d be proud of me.”
“He is proud of you,” Mom assured me, a soft smile touching her lips. “And he does hear you. He’s with us, even when we feel alone.”
I nodded, but my heart ached with the yearning to have him actually here with us instead of metaphorically. I didn’t have the heart to tell my mother it wasn’t the same, but then again, I believed she already knew.
“I miss him,” I whispered, still rubbing the crystal.
“I miss him, too.”
A heaviness settled over us, but it was interrupted as Uncle Randall swung through my bedroom door with barely a knock to announce he was coming in. He smiled at me, and that smile doubled when he saw Mom’s face on my
computer screen.
“Farah! What a lovely surprise. How are you, my dear?”
Mom smiled, but the edges of it were tight after what we’d been discussing. I wondered if seeing Uncle Randall was as hard for her as it was for me sometimes. He had the same eyes my father had, and the same too-wide smile.
“I’m very well, Randall. How are you?”
“Ah, can’t complain,” he said, rubbing his belly. “Especially after eating three of your sister-in-law’s lemon poppyseed cupcakes.” He turned to me then. “Don’t worry, I left the vegan ones for you.”
“I’m sure that was so hard for you.”
He chuckled. “Very tempting, I assure you.”
Uncle Randall chatted with my mom for a bit as I thought over all she’d said, wondering if her assessment of me having some sort of rebirth could be true. I did feel different, and I did feel more alive than I had since December. Still, it felt like there was this part of me that would always lay dormant, like there was a section of my heart and soul that I would never be able to bring back to life, no matter how I tried.
When Mom ended the call, Uncle Randall hung his hands on his hips, watching me fold up my yoga mat. “So, how have your lessons been going?”
“They’ve been going really well, actually,” I said as I stood, tucking my mat away behind the post of my bed. “I think we’ve really hit a stride.”
“It seems that way. You know, you’re smiling a lot more than you were when you first got here.”
His words manifested a smile in real time. “I’ve noticed that, too.”
“Have you noticed that Reese has also been smiling more?” my uncle asked. “I know you didn’t know much about him when you came here, but, he’s been through a lot. It’s nice to see him not as… moody.” He shook his head. “I swear, that man has a knack for bringing down everyone’s cheer when he walks into the teachers’ lounge. It’s like his gray cloud rains on anyone he gets around.”
I laughed, but couldn’t ignore the sting in my chest as I imagined a literal cloud pouring down constant icy rain on Reese. It might as well have been the truth, for what he’d been through. I didn’t know the details about his family, but I knew they were gone. Add in the fact that he still had to see the woman he loved, the woman who didn’t love him in return, on a daily basis?
I didn’t know how he was still standing.
Realization trickled down my spine like water from a leaky faucet.
Maybe part of my discomfort with my newfound happiness came from it feeling so one-sided.
Reese had helped bring me to life, had given me a new purpose, new goals to chase and new recognition when I achieved them. He’d transformed the piano for me, helping me tap into feelings I’d been trying to subdue, to run away from. And in the process, I’d found joy again in the one thing that had always mattered most to me.
My relationship with the piano was on the mend. And it was all thanks to him.
I wanted to do something for him, too.
A flash of us sitting together at his piano sparked in my mind again, and heat rose on my cheeks as I remembered the way the air had grown thicker, the way I’d felt when I realized how close his lips were, how easy it would have been to touch them with my own.
I almost rolled my eyes, knowing it was a childish thing to desire. It was all too cliché that the first male I fantasized about in months and months of my libido being deceased was my ridiculously attractive and irreversibly broken piano teacher. We were spending all our time together, putting ourselves in vulnerable situations, opening up to each other so we could take that vulnerability and transfer it to our music.
I didn’t actually want to kiss him, I convinced myself. But, maybe I did want to repay him somehow, to help him find a new happiness the same way he’d helped me.
And as my uncle dragged me to the kitchen to indulge in my aunt’s famous baking, I realized I knew just the way to do it.
***
“You need a dog.”
Reese paused where he’d been pouring me a glass of water, the Brita pitcher still suspended mid-air and glass half full as he glanced at me from across his kitchen island. “What?”
“A dog. You know, the furry, four-legged things that wag their tails and lick your face? You need one.”
He blinked, watching me a moment more before he turned his gaze back to the task at hand, filling my glass to the top. He filled his own next, stashing the pitcher back in the fridge before he acknowledged what I’d said.
“I don’t need a dog.”
“I firmly disagree.”
He chuckled at that. “I haven’t had a pet my entire life, Sarah.”
“What?” I blanched, not bothering to hide the dramatic drop of my jaw. “You never had a pet? Ever?”
Reese shook his head.
“A dog? Cat? Rabbit? Hamster? Fish?”
He just kept shaking his head as I listed off all the possible pets he could have had in his lifetime.
“That’s absurd,” I finally said, still shocked. Then, I held my head higher, straightening my spine where I sat. “And all the more reason for you to get a dog.”
Reese slid my glass of water toward me with an amused smile. “Dogs are a lot of work. I can barely keep myself alive, let alone another living, breathing thing.”
“Right, because you’re just so busy that you don’t have time to pour dry food into a bowl or open that door to let a dog outside while you smoke your cigarette.” I pointed at the sliding glass door between us and his backyard in example, but Reese just watched me, taking a sip of water.
I huffed, verbally confirming the frustration I felt inside. I had thought all night about the proposition, about what I could do to bring a little joy into his life. A dog was a great stepping stone. It was a step forward, a new relationship, a new beginning.
I had to make him see that, too.
“Look, it’s been two years since everything went down between you and Charlie. You go to work every day with her, see her happiness, and sometimes even spend time with her family. Her entire family,” I pointed out, and Reese’s face sobered at that. “And then, you come home to this big, empty house that’s entirely too large for a bachelor. It’s sad, and as much as the broody, broken sad boy image might be great at getting you laid, it’s time to make some moves forward. And a dog is step number one.”
Reese’s brows had slowly climbed the more I talked, and they shot all the way up into his hairline when I mentioned him getting laid — which, admittedly, had also made me blush fiercely once I’d realized what I said.
“Does broody, broken and sad really come off as appealing to the opposite sex?”
I rolled my eyes. “Like you don’t know that that… that… thing,” I finally said, hand flying up toward his face. “That you do with your eyebrows is ridiculously enchanting.”
He smirked. “I do a thing with my eyebrows?”
“We’re getting off topic.”
“I think I like this topic better.”
I shook my head, biting my lip against the smile that threatened to break. “I think we should go to the shelter and adopt a dog,” I said firmly. I pulled my shoulders back, eyes meeting Reese’s with confidence. “Today.”
Reese’s amused smile warped, concern etched in his features as one hand reached back for his neck. “Honestly, Sarah — I really don’t know the first thing about taking care of a dog.”
My heart picked up a notch when he said my name like that, like I was his closest friend in the world. It wasn’t Miss Henderson, but Sarah — like we were friends.
Were we friends?
“I’ll help you,” I assured him. “And, it’s not as hard as everyone makes it seem. I promise. You don’t travel a lot, you have a great house and a big backyard. You’re home plenty, especially in the summer, and you can hire a dog walker during the school year.”
Reese’s face screwed up like he still wasn’t convinced.
“Come on,” I begged, sliding
off the barstool and rounding the counter until I stood in front of him. “Imagine having a fluffy, adorable, overeager dog greeting you at the front door every time you walked through it. And someone to cuddle with at night.”
My neck warmed when that last sentence slipped out, but I didn’t apologize, though it was the second slightly inappropriate comment I’d made that afternoon. Instead, I waited with my hands clasped together under my chin, hoping he’d say yes.
For a long moment, he just stared at me, eyes bouncing between mine as he tapped one finger on the counter like a drum. The longer he looked at me like that, the more I felt like a silly little girl. He didn’t want a dog. He’d said as much, and his face was echoing the sentiment now. It occurred to me that my idea was kind of stupid, childish, and he was probably just trying to figure out how to say no without crushing me.
Like I was his child instead of his student.
My hope dwindled when his brows tugged inward, and my shoulders sagged, head following suit as I prepared to accept defeat. I was just about ready to climb into my shell of embarrassment and hide away for the rest of our lesson when he spoke.
“Okay.”
My head popped up again at his response, eyes wide and hopeful. “Really?”
“Let’s go get a dog.”
I squealed, jumping up and down before I threw myself at him in a hug of joy. I didn’t even think twice about it, about touching him, about being touched. All I could think in that moment was that I had won. He was going to get a dog, and it was going to make him happy whether he realized it yet or not.
I’d help him find joy, just the way he had for me.
He laughed when I launched at him, catching me with an oomph that faded into a heavy silence once we both realized I was in his arms, his hands at my waist, mine around his neck.
My traitorous eyes fell to his lips again, and my already hot neck nearly caught fire before I managed to slip out of his arms and put a few feet between us. I toyed with the crystal around my neck, heart beating in such an unfamiliar rhythm that I wondered if it was still my own.
Best Kept Secrets: The Complete Series Page 62