In Harmony(114)

“What if I….” Connor adjusted the distortion on his pedal and played a couple of chords, adding another layer to my driving backbeat. “And then….” He continued and I joined him. Within seconds, anyone watching would have been unable to follow our conversation. It was all nods and signals and half-finished sentences that made perfect sense to us. We hadn’t just connected—we’d blended, the best parts of both of us fusing together and becoming something more. It was the exact opposite of what I’d used to feel each morning, trudging through the snow to Fenbrook. I wasn’t alone anymore.

We lost ourselves to it, playing and stopping and scratching down hurried notes and then playing again. There was a knock on the door and I let out a huge sigh of exasperation at being interrupted after just a few minutes.

“It’s time,” said the sophomore, putting his head round the door.

I looked at the clock. Our thirty minutes were up. What?!

“It’s good,” said Connor. “We’re ready.”

“Ready? We’re not ready!” I could feel the panic surging up in me again. “We’ve barely begun, we’ve just—”

He kissed me. Deep and hard, sweeping me up in his arms and devouring me, my body crushed to his. The panic stalled, right in my chest. Then Connor’s hand was on my breast, stroking the nipple through my dress, and the panic was pushed back down by something much stronger.

“Er—” said the sophomore, who was still standing in the doorway.

Connor released me. “Better?”

I panted and nodded. When I looked at the sophomore, for once I didn’t blush. I was proud.

“Um…this way,” the sophomore told us, rapidly turning red.

I took Connor’s hand and we walked down the stairs together.



***



Sitting there on the stage, I felt like we were gazing at two possible futures. In one of them, Connor graduated and found work, stayed in New York and by my side. In the other….

My fingers tightened on the bow. In the other, if I graduated and he didn’t, I’d damn well go to Ireland with him, or help him find some way to stay in America. I’d fought for him. I wasn’t going to lose him now.

“You may begin,” Harman told us, leaning forward.

We hadn’t rehearsed—most of what we’d worked out, we’d only played once, while the other one listened. There was only a single sketchy lead sheet to jog our memories. The whole point of the exercise was for us to improvise, piecing together the ideas we’d come up with, combining our sounds. My cello began the piece with a dry, jerky riff, like a machine warming up, gradually building in intensity until it became a driving beat rebounding back to us from the walls and filling the space. Then the guitar, harsh and powerful as a jackhammer, carving up the cello’s melody and shaping it into something new.

With no conductor to meld us together, we had to rely on signals from each other to keep time, to know when to shift to the next section. Our eyes were locked on each other’s, quick little nods as we shifted the pace, the bow rising and plunging on the strings, Connor’s hands quick and savage as he made the guitar howl. Adrenaline coursed through my veins, the whole world narrowing down to just Connor’s face as I focused like I’d never focused before.

Two bars of the driving mechanical riff, like a question. A flurry of chromatic scales from Connor—his response. Back in with the riff, this time extended and truly improvised. I kept holding my breath and had to force myself to breathe, my bow just a blur as we went into the final section.

Connor broke off with a flourish and slapped the guitar’s wood, and I filled with a flurry of notes. Seconds later, he did it again, faster and more violent than before, and I filled again, the bow an extension of me. He did it one final time, a hard slap that reverberated around the hall, and I gave it everything I had, coaxing notes from the cello faster than I could think about them, operating on instinct alone. Connor came back in for the final bar, cello and guitar winding around each other like lovers, hard and soft embracing, and we were done.

We sat there in complete silence and stared at each other. He was giving me one of those grins, and panting as hard as I was, and I knew that whatever happened I was going to be with this man for the rest of my life.

The room erupted into applause. I grudgingly wrenched my eyes away from Connor to see the first few people stand up, and the rest of the room follow their lead.

Connor twisted around to look at Harman and the other judges. Just months ago, graduation hadn’t been part of his plan—he’d done the bare minimum necessary to stay at Fenbrook and keep partying. But now I could see the concern on his face, the breathlessness as he dared to hope….