Sound Carries

35.

I woke the night before juries to a loud thump and Cecily swearing.

When I opened my eyes blearily and switched on the lamp, I saw her hopping around the room holding her foot.

"Stubbed my toe. Shit." She let out a low breath. "I thought you'd be asleep by now."

"I was."

There was the sort of silence often found between two people with something immense to talk about.

"Sorry."

This was the first moment since the gala that we'd been alone in a room and both awake.

I sighed, sat up. "Cecily."

She shook her head. "I don't want to."

"I haven't even said anything yet!"

"You were going to ask me if I wanted to talk about it."

"I want to know." I said. "What happened with you two?"

"I said I don't want to talk about it." She said, but then she sat down on the edge of the bed, still holding onto her foot, and I knew she was going to tell me anyway.

"What happened?" I asked. "How did I miss it?"

She paused, considering.

"I always liked her." Cecily's misery was evident in the sharp hunch of her shoulders. "Right from when she first got here. She was just so – assured. She'd sing, and it was like... my heart would just stop."

"I know."

"But then it was more than that. I always thought I was a little different, but it – she just confirmed that. I liked her so much. It was so bad I felt like I couldn't even be in the same room with her."

"I thought it was because you hated her."

"I know. And I did, sometimes, a little. But then – reading week. She'd been noticing me the way I noticed her." Her voice broke. "I thought maybe it could be something, and it was something, but just that week. After that... she wasn't ready."

"That's what you guys were fighting about the night of the dress rehearsal."

She looked up at me sharply, eyes red rimmed. "You heard that?"

"Only some of it."

"Yeah, that's what we were arguing about. I just – it felt so real, what we had. I was so afraid, when I found out about Oliver. I thought – I thought she'd been lying to me the whole time. I've just been clinging to this hope that she wasn't."

"He told me there was nothing there. That it was just once."

She nodded. "I know. He told me too."

I was fiercely glad at that, like that proved something about him, and about me too, by extension.

She spoke quietly. "I have to ask you something, too."

I felt shot through by sudden nerves. "Okay."

"Is there anything going on with you and Gabriel?"

There was a beat of silence.

"What, you mean like..." I raised my eyebrows.

She leaned back on the window seat, appraising me. "Is there?"

"No!" I shook my head. "No. Not... this time."

Cecily pressed her mouth in a thin line. "Are you ever going to tell Oliver about what happened last year?"