Fucking. I remembered the days when I would have thought of it as him taking me. A lot of things about me had changed.
***
Midway through the week, Clarissa and Neil stopped by. I didn’t even have to ask how it was going—I could see by the way Neil stood next to her in the corridor. There was a new ease about them, a new level of intimacy beyond the sexual.
“We figured you could use these,” said Clarissa, handing me a stack of Tupperware containers. “Home cooked food. No doubt you’ve been living on pizza while you’ve been hunkered down in there.”
“Of course not,” I told her, pushing the stack of pizza boxes behind the door with my foot. I opened the top box and the lemon chicken inside didn’t just look edible—it looked amazing. “I didn’t know you cooked.”
Clarissa glanced over her shoulder at Neil. “I don’t,” she said. She leaned in and hugged me. “I don’t know what you did,” she whispered, “But thank you.”
“Are you two…okay?” I asked.
She smiled. “Early days. But I think we’re going to be.”
***
Lying in bed one night, we got to talking about our dreams. A million miles from the money of Boston and the lofty academia of Fenbrook, I finally had room to ask myself what I wanted.
The answer, when I figured it out, surprised me. What I wanted was to join the New York Phil. Not for my father. Not because it was what was expected of me. Because they were the best, and I wanted to be the best, too. That chubby-fingered six year-old who’d first fallen in love with the cello was still inside me, and it had taken losing my dream to remember what had started it. I’d come full circle, wanting the same thing I’d wanted that day I’d nearly fallen down the steps of Fenbrook, but for completely different reasons. I wasn’t driven by fear any more—fear that if I failed to get into the orchestra, I’d be nothing. I knew now what it was like to lose the dream, and it didn’t scare me anymore because I’d discovered something better. I’d found that as long as you have someone who loves you, who’d do anything in the world to save you…well, the rest of the world can go hang.
I called my father the next morning and told him when the recital was, that I’d be performing with Connor and that he could come if he wanted to. But that, no matter what, I was living my own life from now on.
Connor listened in. When I hung up, he hugged me. “I’m proud of you,” he told me. “That took guts.”
I looked at the floor. “That was his voicemail,” I said. “That’s still sort of brave, right?”
He hugged me again.
***
Between rehearsals and practicing improv, the days passed in a blur. If we weren’t showering or grabbing a bite to eat, we were working…and when we couldn’t work any more, we slept. We didn’t leave the apartment, except to go up onto the roof, the entire week, sending out for groceries when Clarissa’s food ran out. We were holed up in a room not much bigger than a prison cell, and yet the proximity didn’t grate…it made us closer.
And hornier.
After months of lusting after each other and not being able to do anything about it, having the freedom to just lunge for each other was intoxicating. The apartment was tiny, but we got creative. On the roof, under the stars, an old blanket thrown down on the concrete. In what we laughably called the kitchen, the hard back of a wooden kitchen chair pressed against my thighs as he bent me over it. And in his bed, my arms stretched out over my head and clutching at the pillows as I moaned and kicked and gasped, his head between my thighs.
***
The night before the recital, the nerves started to hit me. We were as ready as we could be—the recital was slick and polished and when we improvised we were doing the musical equivalent of finishing each other’s sentences. But I was still scared as hell. When Connor was asleep, I slid out of bed and stood by the window with a sheet wrapped around me, gazing out at the city.
A few months before, my biggest worry had been whether I’d make it into the New York Phil. Now, even after all our efforts, my entire college career hung on one ten minute performance and one half hour test. If we messed up tomorrow—or if the panel decided our crazy mash-up between classical and rock was garbage—
Just as I felt my shoulders start to tense up, large warm hands stroked down them. His body pressed up against me from behind, the heat of him soaking through the thin sheet to soothe me.
“You’re scared.” Not a question.
“How can it be fair that everything comes down to one morning. Less than a morning. Less than an hour! Four years at Fenbrook and if we’re ill tomorrow or we have an off day or we just mess up or—”