Page 125 of These Secret Years

“I won’t if you won’t.”

“I won’t,” I say. Not ever.

I’ll love him forever.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

SULLIVAN

Iwrote the piece, but more importantly, I did my research. I know who the kid from the video Adrian showed me is, and I know what school he goes to. It’s enough in a way, but in so many other ways, it’s not even close. I don’t know the depth of either Adrian or Quinn’s depravity, but I think, if I’m strong enough, if I’m smart enough, if I have help, I can slow them down or make them think twice before bringing someone else into their home under false pretenses and promises with barbed conditions attached.

That, and I did look at myself in the mirror. I weighed myself, too. I looked at the before and after photos Deandre took of me—the ones I had to turn in to the Health and Fitness professor when the semester was over for extra credit. That I did not like doing because I don’t like the idea of some other strange older man having photos of me, but D insisted I get the credit he said I deserved for remaking my body in a few months.

Prior to any of my trips to Adrian’s, I usually get a request from him to send a list of anything I might want from the store. I usually don’t respond to it, but this time, I did. And it was a long, detailed list of everything I needed for my morning smoothie, the meals I planned to cook for myself like I’ve been doing all semester, and my favorite brand of coconut water.

When I arrive, he looks me over with surprise, which quickly morphs into suspicion. His gaze lingers on my shorter hair, my broader chest. “Taking better care of yourself, I see.”

“Were you able to get the protein mix?”

He nods slightly. “I had to order it, but it arrived yesterday.”

“Do I get to come in?”

He checks to see that I’ve brought my violin before stepping aside to let me into his house. The smell of Pine Sol and citrus tells me the cleaning lady has come and gone. Otherwise, Adrian prefers the seasonal scents. This time of year, it’s usually a Christmas tree smell or something like mulled cider.

There’s piano music coming from the formal living room, and I turn toward the entrance, making sure it’s recorded and not Quinn or some other young prodigy at the keys of the baby grand. My courage threatens to flake away, but when I find the room empty, I let out a breath.

“I have the piece ready for you,” I tell him while we’re still in the foyer.

He gestures to the stairs. “Would you like to clean up and settle in first? We can go over that in a while.”

I shake my head. “I’m really anxious for you to hear it.”

He grimaces, and a nervous hand flutters up to his throat.

“I’m proud of it,” I add. “You’ll have to let me know what you think. Would you rather listen to it on your own?”

He hesitates, but then, “It’s fine.” His fluttering hand waves toward the living room. I put down my violin and suitcase and walk ahead of him. With my phone, I connect to the bluetooth, and before he gives me the go ahead, I press play on the piece I finished mastering just before I got in the car. I haven’t slept much since the night of the football game, but this is likely the best thing I’ve ever composed, and after this, I never want to hear it again, but I’ll suffer through it this one last time.

Harsh, bitter violin chords replace the soft piano of a moment before, and Adrian visibly startles at the sixteen discordant strikes of the strings. Chills erupt on my skin, and I sit on the couch calmly, waiting for the eerie oboe to join the melody that begins after the first four measures. Adrian paces, his head down, from one side of the enormous rug to the other in slow, even steps, his chin held between his thumb and forefinger.

When the cello comes in, and the melody shifts into something melancholy shaped like glittering shards of glass, his right hand flutters to life, as if he’s conducting the piece without knowing where it’s going to go from here but wanting a certain direction regardless.

It goes another way, and his fist tightens with displeasure, but also, it’s my violin, fast-paced and intricate, likely impossible for his own first chair to play without some severe suffering and sleepless nights. The overriding melody is heavy on piercing harmonics and occasional jarring chords, but the rest of it is just me, fingers flying over the fingerboard, hitting every note based on the intimate, bone deep knowledge I have of that and any instrument I’ve ever touched. After five minutes, he groans horribly. “Is it all like this?” It’s like he’s begging me to say no.

“Like what?” I ask, feigning ignorance.

“Difficult? Intense.”

“Well, I mean, you have to keep listening.”

The cello gets played so hard, I broke a string when I was recording, but the oboe mellows it out. What I was going for there was two pieces that go together without going together. Like it’s undeniable it’s the same song, but you kind of don’t want it to be. The conflicting melodies make sense together because of the simple truth that they don’t. I find the sound of it satisfying, but it’s modern, and this, I know, he hates but is capable of appreciating.

“Unbelievable,” Adrian says with some wonder, and I hear him even though the music is loud enough to drown him out.

The violin comes back for what I think of as the bridge. It’s the most depressing part, the darkest part. The part that I want to eat this man alive when he tries to sleep at night. He shivers, and the pleasure that brings me is as hollow as the sound coming through the speakers. As empty. A few sections repeat with some variations, and then the violin chords strike again as an introduction to the coda, which is meant to snap something delicate inside the listener and never, ever put it back together.

The song ends on a plaintive A of the oboe and a B harmonic on the violin. The low C on the bass clef pulses on the cello, and Adrian won’t look at me.