The Treble With Men (Scorned Women's Society #2) - Piper Sheldon Page 0,74

started. I—I’m just not who you think I am.”

He shook his head. I could feel him grow angry and then swallow it back down. He took a deep breath to steady himself. “God, Kim. If you could only see yourself as I do.” I shook my head as he kept talking. “But you are holding a part of you back and I don’t understand why.”

“I don’t want to. Not anymore. I’m so tired.” The exhaustion of it all weighted my words.

“When your guard is down you play beautifully, full of passion. You are grace and light.”

I opened my mouth but had to swallow instead. With him standing so close and his man smell encompassing me, I couldn’t focus. Could I tell him the truth? No matter how ridiculous it seemed? I’d tried talking to Roddy about it, or with others over the years, but it made them uncomfortable.

“You’re keeping something at bay. I can’t understand why when you have so much life in you, bubbling right here.” He placed a hand on my chest above my heart. The warmth and weight of his palm radiated through me. He had to feel my heart slamming against his hand. “You’re magic when you let go and really play. That’s why I chose you. That’s what you are capable of. I know this.”

I closed my eyes and dropped my head back against the wall.

“Why did learning about the solo upset you so much?” he asked. “I thought you might be happy.”

How did I explain it to him when I hardly understood it myself?

“It’s not that I don’t feel like I have earned it. I know that when I really try, I have potential.”

He waited patiently for me to go on.

“It’s that potential that scares me,” I said.

We stayed in this safe space of the hall. It felt like if we moved, I’d lose any courage to speak.

“You don’t feel like you deserve it?”

I shook my head but met his gaze. “When I go after things, people get hurt.”

“Explain,” he said.

“It sounds ridiculous.”

“Just talk. It doesn’t have to be perfect or make sense. Just share. Is it just because of Jethro? Did he do something? Because that’s where you went on hold as far as I can tell. You were vibrant at camp. I went away on my first tour and when I came back everything had changed. You had changed. You went from this bright, ambitious cello player to this grayed-out shape of a person.”

“No.” I pressed icy fingertips to my burning cheeks. “Jethro was more of a symptom, I think.”

“People don’t just shut down. They don’t just mute their lives for almost ten years without something to cause it. Talk to me.”

He wouldn’t stop staring at me. I knew he wouldn’t relent. “That last summer at camp, before senior year. You were already gone. Something happened.”

His nostrils flared. “Roddy?”

“No, it’s not like that. Roddy and I were sort of dating by then.” My heart was pounding. I wrapped my arms tight around my middle. I didn’t want to share this. It made me feel sick. He’d know what an ugly person I was. People loved to tell me I was beautiful, but if they only knew how ugly I was on the inside …

“I’ve never told anybody this. You’re going to think the worst of me, and I deserve it. I was this poor little rich girl through and through. And I just fucked up. I just fucked up so big.” My voice cracked.

“Tell me,” his face was open and listening.

“The stuff with Jethro. All that that came after. That was me freaking out. The rehab helped bring me back to a middle place, but I was never okay again.”

He nodded like he understood.

“Remember how the camp voted for the soloists at the year-end talent show?” I asked.

“It was a pointless popularity contest.”

“Yes. But I wanted it. I wanted it so bad. I had something to prove. I wasn’t first chair—Ariana was.”

His face softened to pity. He remembered her.

I went on. “She was perfect. I was so intimidated by her. She was everything I wanted to be. I wanted that solo. I had to prove to my parents, to myself, to everyone that I was worth it and that I was going places.”

“Kim,” he said softly.

“Let me get it all out.” This was the part that changed everything. “I asked Roddy to fix the votes. To make sure that I got everything I wanted. I didn’t care who I hurt in the