Sound Carries

34.

Sleep was beginning to evade me with remarkable dexterity. I snatched at it in bits and pieces between classes, rehearsals, lessons.

Dr. Davis wouldn't say out loud that she was disappointed by my performance at the gala, but she was pushing harder than ever, and so my practice sessions got pushed late into the night as I struggled to keep on top of my assignments, biting down my objections against the futile study of languages I'd never learn and the piles of books I'd never get through. I was possessed by an urgency that I couldn't explain, a restless buzzing that constantly asked the question: why am I doing this?

Often, I would stumble back to the room well after one o'clock to find Cecily already asleep, and I would lie awake, marinating in my exhaustion, unable to drift off, angry, self-righteous, afraid. Why was I doing this? Why was I doing any of this? I wondered: did the others love it? Did they sleep and breathe and die for it? I thought that was the person I'd be – like Hannah had been – the sort of person who would sacrifice everything for music just for the joy of it.

I was still sacrificing, but it was to an absent god.

I couldn't stop thinking about Audra. Now that I was looking for it – really looking for it – the proof was everywhere. She was touchy, absent, twitchy, nervous, nothing like the Audra I'd known for the past two years. I wanted to tell Cecily my new theory, but since the gala she'd made herself scarce, and we were only in the same room when we were in classes or both asleep. It sort of alarmed me, actually. What did she think I was going to say to her? Did she think I was a bigot? I took no issue with the idea that she'd been romantically involved with Hannah, I was just surprised, and shocked I hadn't been able to figure it out myself.

I was watching Gabriel, too.

One night, three weeks before the final performance, the two of us were in a practice room past midnight after an especially gruelling rehearsal. He sat at the one piano, and I stood with my back against the wall as wearily we tossed lines back and forth, quizzing each other on where they were in the script.

It was unfair, really, because Gabriel had the sort of memory only Colin could compete with, and he already knew everything, so this was clearly for my benefit, but I was still forgetting things.

The single overhead light shone bright and unpleasant. My eyes burned, and I pressed my fingers against the back of my neck, trying to stifle the tension there. I stared at the script, words blurring, tired of trying to figure out where there was any point in asking him outright about Audra.

"How are you?"

I looked up.

For a second I stared at him, trying to remember where that line was in the script, trying desperately to remember what came next, but then I realized he was asking the question as Gabriel and in English, and the idea was so disconcerting I took another second to answer him.

I blinked, ran my finger down the page. "Fine."

He pressed down on a key so slowly that it made no noise at all. "You can say 'fine' all you want, but I'm really asking."

"Why?" The question came out quickly, too quickly.

He turned, swung a leg over the bench, and looked at me, but he didn't say anything. The silence could have meant a lot of things, like we're friends or I care about you or I've noticed you're falling apart.

I looked down, back at the page.

He sounded weary. "The show is in three weeks. I don't want it to be like last semester."

"You mean with Audra."

He hesitated. "Yes."

"I'm not going to hit self destruct." I said, and I tried to keep my voice light. We were having a conversation about Audra, and I hadn't even started it. I rubbed my neck again, wincing at the tight cords I found there. "One of us is enough. Seems like this semester has hit her hard."