Chapter 102
Summer's POV
The week leading up to the audition passed in a blur of practice sessions and sleepless nights. I threw myself into preparation with an intensity that worried even Victoria, who found me at the piano at two in the morning more than once.
"You're going to hurt yourself," she said one night, standing in the doorway of the music room in her silk robe. "Your fingers are bleeding, Summer."
I looked down at my hands. She was right—the blisters had burst and reformed so many times that my fingertips were raw and angry-looking. But I welcomed the pain. It was easier to focus on physical hurt than the other kind—the kind that came from replaying that moment in the rain over and over, the way his mouth had moved against mine, desperate and hungry, before I'd panicked and run like a coward.
"I need to be perfect," I said, and what I meant was: I need to be strong enough that he doesn't have to be afraid of breaking me. Strong enough that when he looks at me, he doesn't see someone fragile who needs protecting from his own darkness.
"You need to be healthy." She came over and gently closed the piano lid. "Talent doesn't mean anything if you're too exhausted to show it. Go to bed."
I wanted to argue, but I was so tired the words wouldn't come. I let her lead me upstairs, tuck me in like I was still a little girl, press a kiss to my forehead.
"Whatever you're running from," she said softly, "it will still be there in the morning. Rest now."
But she was wrong. I wasn't running from anything anymore—I'd already done that, literally fled from him in the rain after he'd finally let himself touch me the way I'd been wanting him to for months. What I was doing now was running toward something: toward proving I wasn't the delicate princess he seemed to think would shatter if he let himself need me. I'd seen the self-loathing in his eyes when he pulled away, heard it in his voice when he'd said he'd ruin me. He was so convinced he was poison, so certain that wanting me made him selfish and destructive. And I needed him to understand that I was tougher than that, that I could handle whatever he was afraid of becoming.
I checked my phone obsessively, hoping for a message that never came. The silence from Kieran was deafening, and it told me everything I was afraid to know—that he regretted it, that the kiss had been a mistake he was now desperately trying to take back by pretending it never happened. I saw him exactly once that week, a glimpse of his back as he disappeared into the Administration Building, moving with that particular hunched-shoulder tension that meant he was deliberately avoiding someone. He didn't look my way, and I wondered if he'd felt me watching, if he was as hyperaware of my presence as I was of his.
Did he think I ran because I didn't want him? God, the irony would be funny if it didn't hurt so much. I'd run because I wanted him too much, because the intensity of it had terrified me, because for one horrible moment I'd felt like I was drowning and the only way to breathe was to put distance between us. But how could I explain that when he wouldn't even meet my eyes in the hallway?
Mia tried to cheer me up with coffee runs and stupid memes, but even her relentless optimism couldn't quite reach me. "He'll come around," she said. "He'd be an idiot not to."
But I wasn't so sure anymore. Maybe I'd finally succeeded in pushing him away for good. Maybe this was what I deserved for being too scared to stay in that moment, for choosing flight over fight.
Sunday morning arrived gray and drizzly, the kind of weather that matched my mood perfectly. I stood in front of my closet for twenty minutes trying to decide what to wear, finally settling on a misty blue silk dress with an off-shoulder design. It was beautiful and impractical and absolutely freezing, but it made me feel like the kind of person who belonged on a stage at Symphony Hall—confident, untouchable, the opposite of the girl who'd fallen apart in someone's arms and then run away.
Victoria had left for New York the night before, pressing an envelope of cash into my hands "just in case" and making me promise to text her after the audition. I'd hugged her tight, breathing in her familiar perfume, and tried not to think about how alone I'd feel sitting backstage without her. Tried not to think about the empty seat where someone else wouldn't be sitting either, someone I'd desperately hoped would be there, despite his refusal.
Mia met me at the front entrance, looking adorably out of place in her mother's oversized black pantsuit. "I look like I'm selling insurance," she complained, tugging at the collar.
"You look great," I lied. "Very professional."
"You look like you're going to freeze to death." She eyed my bare shoulders critically. "Did you bring a coat?"
"I have a coat." I gestured to my Burberry draped over my arm. "I just can't wear it while I'm playing."
"Right. Because hypothermia really enhances musical performance."
Despite everything, I laughed. It felt good to laugh, even if it was hollow, even if part of me wondered whether Kieran would have made the same joke if he were here, that dry sarcasm he used like armor against the world.
We made our way inside, joining the stream of nervous students and proud parents flooding through the ornate lobby. Symphony Hall was even more intimidating than I remembered—all soaring ceilings and gold leaf and the weight of a hundred years of musical history pressing down on us.
I signed in at the registration table, my hands shaking so badly I could barely hold the pen. The woman behind the desk smiled sympathetically and handed me my number: 47.
"You're in the second group," she said. "Probably around eleven o'clock. There's a waiting area backstage."
I nodded, unable to speak past the lump in my throat.
Mia linked her arm through mine as we navigated the maze of hallways backstage. "Breathe," she reminded me. "In through your nose, out through your mouth. You've got this."
But I wasn't thinking about the audition anymore. I was thinking about rainy pavement and the taste of desperation, about the way his fingers had tangled in my wet hair like he was drowning and I was air, about how I'd felt his heart hammering against mine before I'd wrenched myself away and run. I was thinking about whether that moment had meant anything to him at all, or if it had just been another mistake he needed to erase, another piece of evidence that he was as broken as he believed himself to be.
"Hey." Mia squeezed my arm. "Where'd you go just now?"
"Nowhere." I tried to smile. "Just nervous."
"You're going to kill it," she said firmly. "Those judges won't know what hit them."