Chapter 106
Kieran's POV
I made it three blocks before I had to stop walking. My hands were shaking so badly I couldn't get them to stay in my pockets, and my chest felt tight like someone had wrapped chains around my ribs and was pulling them tighter with every breath.
She'd been right there. Twenty feet away, standing on those marble steps in that blue dress that probably cost more than my family paid in rent for two months, and I'd run like a coward.
Again.
I leaned against a brick wall in some alley off Mass Ave and pressed the heels of my palms against my eyes. The drizzle had been steady when I left Symphony Hall, cold droplets soaking through my shirt, but I barely felt it. All I could feel was the ghost of her mouth on mine from a week ago, the memory of her hands fisting in my shirt, the sound she'd made when I'd finally stopped being careful.
I'd spent seven days trying to forget that sound. Trying to convince myself that kissing her had been the worst mistake I could have made, that I'd scared her, that she'd run from me because she'd finally seen what I really was underneath all the careful control.
But then I'd stood outside Symphony Hall and watched her play through the glass doors, and nothing about her had looked scared. She'd looked furious and heartbroken and so goddamn beautiful it had physically hurt to see her. Like she was angry at the piano, at the music, at me for not being there the way she'd asked.
The way I'd promised and then failed to deliver on because I was exactly the coward she'd called me.
My phone buzzed. Logan, asking where I was. I'd told him I had to tutor Coach's nephew this afternoon, another lie to add to the growing pile. The tutoring gig was real—fifty dollars an hour to teach physics to an eighth-grader who'd rather be playing video games—but the session wasn't until tomorrow.
I'd spent the afternoon at Symphony Hall instead. Arrived early enough to see her walk in with Mia, both of them laughing about something. Watched her sign in at the front desk, saw her hands shaking as she wrote her name. Stood in the hallway outside the performance space and listened to her play Rachmaninoff like she was trying to break something open inside herself.
She'd been extraordinary. Not just technically perfect, though she was that too. But the way she'd poured everything into the music—all that anger and wanting and pain I'd caused—it had been like watching someone bleed onto the keys and somehow make it beautiful.
I'd wanted to go to her afterward. Wanted to walk through those doors and tell her she'd been incredible, that I was sorry, that I'd been an idiot for avoiding her all week. But then I'd seen the other families gathering, the parents with their expensive cameras and proud smiles, and I'd looked down at my faded jeans and water-stained jacket, at the cheap flowers wrapped in paper that was already starting to wilt from the moisture.
I didn't belong there. In that world of marble floors and designer dresses and people who could afford to send their daughters to private music lessons and buy them grand pianos. I didn't belong anywhere near her.
So I'd left the flowers—which had cost almost everything I'd made from two weeks of tutoring—and run before anyone could see me and ask questions I didn't know how to answer.
The rain had tapered off to a fine mist by the time I reached the river, barely more than dampness in the air that clung to my skin and hair. I should go home. Should check on Lily, make sure Mom wasn't having one of her bad days, maybe try to get some studying done for the physics exam on Tuesday.
But my feet carried me in the opposite direction instead, toward the water. Toward the spot where I'd sat with Summer a few weeks ago and let her feed me dinner like I was something worth taking care of. Where I'd lost my mind and tasted her skin and scared us both with how much I wanted her.
The bench was empty when I got there, the river dark and choppy under the gray sky. I sat down and stared at the water, at my reflection fractured and distorted by the ripples, and tried to figure out what the hell I was doing.
The flowers had been stupid. Reckless. They'd cost money I couldn't afford to spend, money that should have gone toward Lily's speech therapy or Mom's medication or the electric bill that was already two weeks overdue. But I'd walked past that flower shop on Newbury Street and seen them in the window—those ridiculous hydrangeas with their gradient of pink and purple, clustered together like they were trying to hold onto summer even though winter was coming—and I'd thought of her.
Summer. With her bright laugh and her fierce loyalty and the way she looked at me like I was worth something more than the sum of my mistakes.
The saleswoman had tried to tell me they were too expensive, had suggested cheaper alternatives, but I'd insisted. Had counted out the bills from my wallet while she wrapped them in paper, had written that stupid card because I didn't know what else to say, had carried them to Symphony Hall like an offering to someone I had no right to worship.
And then I'd left them there and run away like the coward I was.