Let It Snow

by Paul Hina

was hurting her every bit as much as it was confusing him. She still hadn't told him about Berklee. There was no guarantee that she would get in, and why put him through the anxiety of something that wasn't yet a certainty? But he couldn't understand why she was so busy all of a sudden, and her excuses for avoiding him were thin and shifty with contrivances. Her new distance was clearly hurting him, and she felt trapped between the dishonesty of hiding her audition and the deeper hurt the truth could cause him.

  But she swears that the heartbreak of being away from him built up a deeper desire in her work, and her passion poured from her fingers into the music. Her performance grew more dramatic and expansive over those weeks of practice, and her confidence grew into the pleasure of her playing. She'd never really reached that level of transcendence while playing in the past, and now it was common for her to play, suddenly look up from the keys feeling a buzz, and realize she had finished a piece hardly cognizant of the work it took to play it. Though she was trying hard to ignore what might happen if she were accepted to Berklee, she began to feel more confident about her prospects.

  But she didn't know if she'd have the strength to say goodbye to Max. The mere idea of it was unthinkable. Really.

  So, she just didn't think about it.

  The day of the audition she knew she could play like she had nothing to lose. If she were accepted to Berklee, then Max would have to go to Stanford on his own. If she were denied admission, then she'd move to Stanford with Max and things would be exactly the way she thought they'd be only a few months earlier.

  But, as she played, her thoughts, and her fingers, were completely free of anxiety, lightly tripping over the keys with a fragile certainty. Max was in her mind, as he always was in those days, and it gave her playing that same passion she had tapped into during her weeks of practice. She still believes that any lack of ability she may have exhibited that day was compensated by this impassioned performance. After she finished, and stood up beside the piano, her body was buzzing with the elation of nearing perfection, and when she looked at the representatives from Berklee, she could see that they felt it too. She knew then that she would be accepted. At that moment the acceptance letter was simply a formality.

  Still, she had decided not to tell Max, or, rather, her fear, her utter denial of the reality of the situation, had decided for her. And, anyway, she knew Max well enough to know that it would destroy him, and that he would react to the news with fury.

  There was rarely an ounce of rationality in Max when he was confronted with unpleasant news, particularly when the news fell outside his control. Usually, it was Annie who would talk him down from these outbursts, but this time she would be the cause of the bad news. Of course, his outbursts were never manifest in a physical way. Max was too civilized to react with violence, or even threats of violence. But he wouldn't hesitate to destroy someone with his words, or, worse, with his eyes. No one Annie had ever known, then, or to this day, could do more to communicate with their eyes than Max. No one could say more about their hurt, their anger, or their passionate love than Max could with a simple look. His eyes often spoke more clearly than he did.

  Weeks went by, and since her practice time had calmed after the audition, Annie and Max fell easily into their old habits. They were inseparable again. She listened with polite attention as he talked about all the things they would do once they were in California. And she did her best to listen to him talk about these things, and to never lie about her intentions, usually by changing the subject, or dancing around specifics altogether.

  But, eventually, she knew she was going to have to tell him the truth.

  Max and Annie—mostly Max—had been planning a cross-country drive to California after graduation. He was hoping to spend some time in Stanford, get a feel for the campus, and learn the community where they would be spending the next four years of their lives. At first, she thought she would go along with him on the trip, tell him at a point when things were quiet, reflective, and the time seemed right. But she understood that she was just putting off the inevitable, and that it was only right for her to tell him before the trip.

  So, on the eve of their trip, she sat in her childhood bedroom and told the man she hoped she'd spend her life with, the man that she loved so much that it was unbearable to think of spending any real time away from him, that she was going to school in Boston, and that he would be going to school in California without her.

  She had planned everything she would say beforehand, but, as she spoke, all those neatly organized thoughts fell apart like sand, and she clumsily explained herself through tears. He listened to everything she said, but the look in his eyes told her all she needed to know. There was a hurt that stirred in him so large, a pain that flashed with bursts of visible anger. And she knew that things between them would never be the same.

  But he heard her out. He didn't speak a word as she told him about Berklee, about how she never thought she'd be accepted, and how she knew she'd never forgive herself if she didn't take the opportunity. She told him how sorry she was for deceiving him, and that she would still like to go on their cross country trip, that this didn't mean that their relationship would end, and that she believed that their love was strong enough to endure the distance. And, when she was done, he silently got up from her bed, and without a word or another look in her direction, he left her room and her house.

  She tried to call him that night, but he never went back home. He must have already had his bags packed and loaded in his car because, after he left her, he started driving cross-country to California alone.

  And once he got to Stanford, he didn't come back.

  It was nearly six months before she heard from him again.

  By the time Max did finally get in touch with Annie, they were both busy with their new lives at school, and there was a long period of adjusting their behavior to the new distance between them. It wasn't just the obvious physical distance they were adjusting to, but an emotional distance that had been built over the past six months. Max still felt that Annie had betrayed him, their future, their love. She'd lied to him, and showed him that her ambition was stronger than her love.

  And Annie was still shocked by his sudden disappearance, how he so quickly abandoned her at a point when she was so clearly vulnerable. And, even if they were to be separated in the fall, they could've still had that summer together. Instead, she was stuck facing that cruelest of summers, heartbreakingly alone.

  If not for her music, she doesn't know what she would've done with herself over those six months. She tried to put a positive spin on her situation. After all, his absence did give her a ton more time to become a better pianist. But, still, those summer months were excruciating. Every day she waited for some word from him—a call, a letter, anything. He gave her nothing. If it hadn't been for his parents, she wouldn't have even known he was alive.

  And when he finally did call, it took time to get past the awkwardness of all the hurt feelings. They had done a lot of soul searching in six months, and it was difficult to come to terms with how much they had both been changed by their pain. And, so, the calls were disparate at first—mostly brief, guarded conversations about generic topics. They were both learning to come to terms with the new reality of their relationship.

  He'd call about once a week, and, though she hoped for his calls, her conversation remained cautious for months. She wanted so badly to let him know how angry she was at him, ask him what he had done with himself over those six months, why he'd waited so long to get in touch with her. But she couldn't. Things were still too raw, too delicate between them.

  And they were both fully aware of the questions that hung between them, and there was no denying the tension these unanswered questions caused.

  But they were also aware of the love that was still hanging on, a love that never let go.

  As the months went by, and their first year apart turned into their second year apart, his calls became more frequent, and they began t
o open up to one another again. By that second year, instead of waiting for him to call her, she was comfortably calling him, and the distance between them was closing more and more by the day. Yet, there was not going to be any summer rendezvous. He was going to school non-stop, even through the summer, and Annie was busy working to keep herself financially afloat in a very expensive Boston.

  They weren't deluded though. They were fully aware that they had grown attached to each other again. They were not technically together, and there was never any suggestion of a romantic relationship between them. There was certainly mutual awareness of the emotions they felt, and they would never deny that they were still in love. But, on a practical level, they knew that a relationship wasn't plausible under their current circumstances. So, they were always available to date other people.

  But they didn't.

  For the first two years there was nobody else for either of them.

  But, as they became more comfortable with their new dynamic, they talked openly about not wanting to hold each other back socially. They knew that, even if they wanted to be together, they weren't going to be together for quite awhile. There was no point continuing down their current, celibate