Nobody in Particular(34)

Her reply comes quickly. Omg love you both. Thank you. And have fun for me!

At some point, I end up at the mouth of a sprawling hallway. It’s empty here. Quieter. No one to glance at me, wondering who the hell I am and why I’m here. So, I start down it.

The marble flooring beneath me is dull gold, red, and forest green. On either side of me are columns covered in ornate designs of what looks like legit gold. Every few feet, stone-trimmed alcoves shelter priceless statues and vases. I steer clear of these. I would rather not get myself into lifelong debt by breaking one, thanks all the same.

I pass about a billion sprawling doorways, peeking into them as I go. It’s like a museum, room after room filled with rich tapestries, and vases, and statues. Antique armchairs, sturdy wooden desks, fireplaces and daybeds and violins and—violins?

My shoes squeak on the floor as I stop to get a better look. It’s not violins, plural. There’s a violin, displayed next to a cello—both of them standing in front of floor-to-ceiling windows. Farther in is an enormous gold-trimmed harp. And against the back wall is the most stunning grand piano I’ve ever seen in my entire life—and that includes the photos I put on my “when-I’m-rich-one-day” manifestation mood board last year.

I definitely shouldn’t be wandering into random rooms and touching shit, but it’s like I’m hypnotized. You can’t just see an instrument like this and walk past it like it never happened. Holding my breath, I run my fingers over the cold, dark surface. It’s a concert grand piano—a perfectly restored antique. It’s decorated with jewels, and it’s got a mother-of-pearl border. If I had to go full The Price Is Right, I’d guess it’s worth more than my house.

For the record, I’ve read “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.” I know damn well you do not waltz uninvited into strangers’ rooms and sit on their chairs and sleep in their beds and play their ungodly expensive pianos.

And of course, I touch it anyway. Just one key. Just to see.

It’s beautiful.

I stare at it for a while, wrestling with myself. Then I run to the hall to check. It’s deserted. Everyone here is in the ballroom, which is about a mile away. I can barely hear them, so there’s no way anyone could hear me over the orchestra. So, no one would ever know, right?

I head back to the piano, splay my fingers over the white keys, and start playing from memory.

The melody begins slowly, delicately. The music resonates rich and deep, and the room’s acoustics give it an echo like I’ve never exactly heard before. I couldn’t ask for a better sound. Gradually, my heartbeat slows along with the tempo, and I fade out. I don’t exist outside of the music anymore. Maybe I never did. The point of my being lies in my fingertips and what they can translate on these keys. They know what they’re doing without me having to think. I watch my hands skirt across the keys, gaining momentum. On and on.

The special thing about music, I think, is how it connects people. Even if we don’t speak the same language, or like the same things. Even if we don’t like each other. I can sit at a piano and feel my feelings and play a song, and transplant those feelings into someone else without saying a word. And even when those feelings are sadness or grief, there’s a melancholy sort of beauty to them that makes the shared emotion welcomed.

I hate that I know all of this about music, and I still can’t use it for the purpose it’s meant for because I’m so terrified of that connection. Because opening myself up to strangers is putting myself on a platter for them to pick apart and criticize, and I just can’t. But I wish, right down to my soul, that I could. A part of me knows that if I could just learn to trust the world, I might be able to use music to do so much good in it. I was given a gift, and I work my butt off to cultivate that gift, and here I am at the final hurdle, wasting all of it because I can’t believe that if I let the world see me, it’ll like what it sees. Not when so many people in my past felt otherwise. And honestly, it’s felt like every time I’ve tried to explain this to someone—my piano teachers, my mom, Rachel—they haven’t gotten it. Why would I put this much time and effort into piano if I don’t want to perform?

God, the thing is, I do want to. I just don’t know how to become the sort of person who can.

I used to be. I’ve been taking lessons since I was five, and Mom had me playing songs for family and friends even earlier than that. But that was until last year. I played a piece for the school talent show, and Maddison and her crew—the girls who gave me hell back then—giggled loudly the entire time. Then, after the show, Maddison came up and said, “Good job” with a shit-eating grin. The kind that lets you know she actually means That was embarrassing to watch.

The same happened when I played as part of the orchestra in the local theater production. Maddison hunted me down at school and, laughing again, she told me she saw me play at the musical. Again, there was a joke there only she and her friends got. Then the last straw happened when Maddison found an old video I’d posted of myself playing, and she tagged a bunch of her friends in the comments, who then went on to tag other people. Obviously, there was some sort of group chat happening in the background. I never found out what they said, but my imagination could fill in the blanks just fine.

I’ve never been able to even think about playing for people without getting nauseous since. All those years of practice, right down the drain.