Should I Stay?

Chapter 19

Honestly, I'd never expected to fall in love. I was never the kind of girl who had crushes on rock stars or boybands or fantasies about marrying Zac Efron.

I kindt of knew that one day I'd probably have boyfriends and get married. I wasn't totally immune to the charms of the opposite sex, but I wasn't one of those romantic, swoony girls who had pink fluffy daydreams about falling in love.

Even as I was falling in love -full, intense, can't-erase-that-goofy-smile love- I didn't really register what was happening.

When I was with Harry, at least after those first few awkward weeks, I felt so good that I didn't bother thinking about what was going on with me, with us. It just felt normal and right, like slipping into a hot bubble bath. Which isn't to say we didn't fight. We argued over lots of stuff: him not being nice enough to Liam, Zayn or Niall, me being antisocial at shows, how fast he drove, how I stole the covers. I got upset because he never wrote any songs about me. He claimed he wasn't good with sappy love songs.

''If you want a song, you'll have to cheat on me or something,'' he said, knowing full well that wasn't going to happen.

This past fall, though, Harry and I started to have a different kind of fight. It wasn't even a fight, really. We didn't shout. We barely even argued, but a snake of tension quietly slithered into our lives. And it seemed like it all started with my Juilliard audition.

''So did you knock them dead?'' Harry asked me when I got back. ''They gonna let you in with a full scholarship?''

I had a feeling that they were going to let me in, at least -even before I told Professor McClain about the one judge's ''long time since we've had an classical Londen girl'' comment, even before she hyperventilated because she was so convinced this was so promising.

Something had happened to my playing in that audition; I had broken through some invisible barrier and could finally play the pieces like I heard them being played in my head, and the result had been something transcendent; the mental and physical, the technical and emotional sides of my abilities all finally blending.

Then, on the drive home, as Gramps and I were approaching the London border, I just had this sudden flash -a vision of me lugging a piano through New York City- and it was like I knew, and that certainty planted itself in my belly like a warm secret. I'm not the kind of person who's prone to premonitions or overconfidence, so I suspected that there was more to my flash than magical thinking.

''I did.. okay I guess,'' I told Harry, and as I said it, I realized that I'd just straight-out lied to him for the first time, and that this was different from all the lying I'd been doing before.

I had to tell Harry that I was applying to Juilliard in the first place, which was actually harder than it sounded. Before I sent in my application, I had to practice every spare moment with Professor McClain to fine-tune the Shostakovich concerto and the two Bach suites. When Harry asked me why I was so busy, I gave this excuses about learning tough new pieces. I justified this to myself because it was technically true.

And then Professor McClain arranged for me to have a recording session at the university so I could submit a high-quality CD to Juilliard.

I had to be at the studio at seven in the morning on a Sunday and the night before I'd pretended to be feeling out of sorts and told Harry he probably shouldn't stay over. I was feeling out of sorts because I was so nervous. So, it wasn't a real lie. And besides, I thought, there was no point in making a big fuss about it. I hadn't told Niall, Zayn and Liam, either, so it wasn't like Harry was getting a special treatment.

But after I told him I'd only done okay at the audition, I had the feeling that I was wading into quicksand, and that if I took one more step, there'd be no extricating myself and I'd sink. So I took a deep breath and heaved myself back onto solid ground.