a little, but he’s so defensive about his playing.”
“We still haven’t practiced together.”
She sighs, and chills—the bad kind—claw up my body.
She breaks eye contact first. “I was worried that was the case. He told us you’d been working together on that piece for weeks.”
“What? When? Why?”
She turns away, just slightly. I see the rise and fall of her chest. “He said it to shut us up, and make us stop asking questions. This is so typical.” She trails off. “Fuck, Marty. I need to tell you something.”
My body constricts. Anxiety’s burn spreads through my shoulders. The tone’s serious, and she’s avoiding my gaze. I feel myself zone out, starting to disassociate with the situation, but I snap back. Take a breath. I can’t disconnect. I force myself to be present, to listen to what she says and deal with it. I clench my fists, tense my core.
I’m here, and I’m ready.
“Pierce is one of my close friends, and he’s a good trumpet player, whether or not he believes it. But I think he’s only doing this”—she gestures to me—“to bring up his status at school.”
“The recital, you mean?” I ask. “That’s what Sophie thought, but I—”
“Yeah, that. But also, your relationship.”
12 MONTHS AGO
DIARY ENTRY 5
It seems like the only times I’ve been calm this trip have been when I’m writing in this diary. So thanks, Mr. Wei, for assigning this, I guess. As the world crashes down around me (it’s my diary, I can be as dramatic as I want), it’s good to know I have something to turn to.
I’m having a hard time processing everything that just happened, that’s happening, so maybe I should make a list about everything that’s causing me anxiety. I love lists.
I am late to the audition, but they were able to slot me in for another time since I’m in the waiting area, but I have no idea how much longer I’m going to be waiting.
The fight between Mom and my aunt started right after Aunt Leah got to the restaurant. Immediately, Mom started being nitpicky about her being late, but then the real issue came out. She thinks Aunt Leah chose a restaurant close to the pride parade on purpose.
Pride parades, according to my mom, are evil? Like, straight from the devil, a celebration of temptation, that sort of thing. She made it clear that she’s “okay with me” but … apparently she isn’t okay with them. That’s not a wildly shitty viewpoint at all. Cool.
Mom said she’s not letting me come live with them next year. How could she trust her sister after being tricked like this? How could she let her son live in a place like this, with so many obvious temptations? Melodrama aside (I’ll spend the rest of my life processing those two rhetorical questions, no big deal), that means I’m at this audition for no fucking reason.
It turned out Aunt Leah did do this on purpose. She wanted me and Shane to be able to see pride, and it came out that she didn’t think my parents would let me experience it any other way, so she set up a meeting spot where pride was unavoidable.
But her doing this didn’t bring out the fun, carefree side of my mom like she thought it would. It brought out the devil.
Aaaaand shit. I forgot to soak my reed, so I need to do that right now and hope I don’t get called. Fuck this trip.
THIRTY-FOUR
My neck’s tense to the point of near spasm. I almost drop my oboe. It’s the warning I’ve heard from Sophie, the fears I’ve had lately, but it’s different coming from Dani. I can’t rationalize it away when his best friend tells me I’m being used.
“I mean … does he like me at all?”
“I like you a lot,” Dani says. “And I think Pierce likes you too. But he’s not a relationship kind of guy. After Colin, he promised us he wouldn’t do that. He put everyone through a lot of pain, because we were all becoming friends with Colin too. He was in my section, and I saw him crushed on a daily basis.” She pulls the headjoint out of her flute, grabs her case off the ground. “I told Pierce I wouldn’t let him do that again.”
“I’m not like Colin,” I say. “I wouldn’t just disappear.”
But I don’t know if that’s true.
“Well, either way, when he said you wanted to do a duet with him, we were really uncomfortable with it. He’s a fine