Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
I could see her debating what to do. I never looked away from her. She took a deep breath then got to her feet. My blood pumped faster around my body when she sat down beside me.
“Well, you had better be as good as you’ve said. You’ve kinda built yourself up, Dean,” she joked, and I laughed out loud. Bonnie froze, shock engulfing her pretty face.
My humor dropped. “What’s wrong?”
“You laughed.” A wide smile pulled on her lips. “Cromwell brooder-of-the-century Dean actually laughed.” She closed her eyes, making my heart fucking melt. “And it was bright yellow.” She opened her eyes. “Like the sun.”
“You got synesthesia now?”
“No. But I don’t need it. When you laughed…” She nudged my arm. “It illuminated the room.”
I smirked and put my hands on the keys. The minute I felt the ivories under my fingertips, it was like coming home. My hands played a few scales, warming up for the music we were about to create. “We need a theme.”
“I know we do. I’ve been trying to get you to agree to one forever.”
I nodded, guilt tightening my chest. “I’m here now.”
Bonnie rested her head on my shoulder. “You’re here now.” She still sounded dubious. Like she didn’t think I should be. But she knew by now that I was stubborn.
The room was silent as Bonnie thought. “It should be personal.” I nodded. I waited for her to finish her thoughts. “What about my journey?” She looked up nervously through her lashes and laid her hand over her heart. “With my heart.” She gave me a watery smile. “And wherever it may go from here. The fight. The uncertainty. The joy…or…” She didn’t finish that sentence. I didn’t need her to.
“Yeah,” I rasped. “That’s good.” Already, my head was racing with ideas, notes forming as she spoke. Distant violins played in the background, trumpets and flutes chasing the melody.
“And for your side?”
I stared at her. “What do you mean?”
“What can we thread into the piece for you? So you’re represented too.”
My hands balled into fists. “I’ve got nothing.” That pit that had lived in my stomach for so long threatened to erupt. Bonnie’s disappointment was broadcast on her pretty face. But, unlike all the other times, she didn’t push me. Her silence screamed her sadness at my response. But, like always, my shutters went up.
“I loved the piece you played that night. The one you didn’t finish.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. “No.” I was being a dick. I knew it. But I just…couldn’t…
Bonnie laid her head on my arm again. It was funny. She was acting no different from all the other times, but now I could see how tired she was getting. Or maybe she was just letting me see her as she truly was. She didn’t have to pretend anymore.
Unlike me.
My fingers started moving, her words circling like vultures in my head. “I loved the piece you played that night. The one you didn’t finish…”
My lips moved to her head, a soft kiss pressed into her hair. But my hands followed the music that was coming from within. A short, rhythmic singular note. A heartbeat. Then another. People. Lots of people all with beating hearts. More. More and more hearts beating in unison…then—
“Mine,” Bonnie said, eyes closed, understanding the musical story I was telling. A single delicate note, out of sync and standing on its own. Bonnie’s smile lifted as a melody came next, light and bright.
Violet blue in my mind.
Bonnie listened, arms clutching mine as I played, my idea jotted down on the keys. “There,” she would say. “Keep that.” I’d play. “Add strings,” she’d add. “Violins and violas taking the top notes.”
I played, and Bonnie wrote down the parts we were keeping on manuscript paper. Hours passed. I looked down at Bonnie resting against my arm and realized she was asleep. I moved my hands from the keys and just stared at her peaceful face.
A slam of pain crowbarred into my stomach as I did. A rush of anger seemed to singe the bones in my body. Because Bonnie Farraday was perfect.
Perfection with an imperfect heart.
I stared down at the piano. As the keys stared back at me, the familiar pain of loss cut through me, making me lose my breath. The emotions I kept trapped inside threatened to break free. But I couldn’t face them and this. I inhaled Bonnie’s scent and tried to keep from falling apart.
I had to think of Bonnie. Nothing else.
We’d talked some. She’d told me a little of what the doctors said. She’d wanted to stay in school for as long as she could. I could tell by her eyes that she was determined. But I could tell by how tired she was, by how she struggled with such simple tasks, that she wouldn’t be attending classes for long.