Chapter 28
Chapter Twenty-Eight
October
Kieran
It took me a while to realise what had changed.
Not because it wasn’t obvious, but because I’d been avoiding naming it.
I found the words one night during a video call with Karl.
“The rhythm’s the same.” I stared down at my coffee, watching the surface settle after I’d stirred it for no reason. “Everything appears to be back to normal, but it isn’t.”
“How so?”
The surface of my life in college was the same, but the rumours, the glances, they ran deep, traces of poison that would never leave, no matter what I did or how much time passed.
“Kieran?” he prompted.
I looked up at the screen, at the quiet focus in his expression, and struggled to find words that would verbalise my thoughts and not end up feeling inadequate.
I couldn’t do it, so I went with the simplest explanation.
“My heart’s not in it anymore.”
There it was, simple and unavoidable. I couldn’t pretend otherwise anymore.
My life at the college could be reduced to a single idea—playing something I’d performed too many times.
The notes were still correct, the technique still there, but the meaning had dulled.
I could go through the motions without effort, shape a phrase, correct a mistake, guide a student toward something better…
And none of it felt the way it used to. No matter how much I tried to push through it, to concentrate, to reconnect with what I knew, part of me remained elsewhere. I wasn’t drifting or unfocused, I was …fixed. Wanting.
That was the part I couldn’t reconcile. Because it wasn’t simply that something had changed. I didn’t want it to go back to how it had been before.
Karl didn’t look away. “Then you need to find your heart again. Your passion. Because it’s still there.”
I lowered my gaze again. “I know.”
That was the problem. I had a very clear idea of where I’d left it. Karl knew too. I saw it in the way he watched me, in the things he didn’t say. Thankfully, he didn’t say them out loud. I wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
We moved on to other things after that—practicalities, the college, things that required less from me—but his words stayed where they were, lodged somewhere just beneath the surface, waiting.
It wasn’t until later, when the flat had gone quiet and the day had finally caught up with me, that I let myself think about it properly.
About where my heart was. About who it had stayed with.
I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling, the darkness pressing in around me. And without meaning to, I said his name.
“Stefan.”
I could feel him. The weight of his hand at the back of my neck. The way his voice dropped when he was focused on me. The way he looked at me as though he saw more than I was ready to show.
I closed my eyes, but if anything, that made it worse.
Because now it was no longer memory, but presence, detailed and impossible to ignore.
I could feel his hands on me, playing me like an instrument.
I could smell him, that familiar scent that would fill my nostrils each morning when I awoke in his arms.
The feel of him inside me.
I turned onto my side, dragging the pillow closer, as if that might ground me in something real.
What I wanted wasn’t here. And no matter how much I told myself I understood that, accepted it, had made peace with it, my body didn’t seem to agree.
I pressed my face into the pillow, trying to shut it down, to push it back into something manageable. But even as I forced myself toward sleep, part of me was still there. With him.
And I had no idea how to bring it back.
Diana set her glass down and aimed the remote at the TV, extinguishing it.
I blinked. “You don’t want to watch the film?”
She’d invited me for dinner, which had somehow turned into wine and vague plans for a film neither of us had seemed interested in watching. And I couldn’t escape the feeling she had something on her mind.
I think I’m about to be interrogated.
Not that I’d hid anything from her or Karl. They were my two lifelines, my sounding boards, the only people who truly understood me.
Well, maybe there was one more.
“There’s something I should probably tell you,” she said.
I blinked again as her words sank in. Ah. So this isn’t about me.
A small wave of relief followed, immediate and undeniable. I wasn’t in the mood to dissect my job, my life—or the Stefan-shaped absence sitting quietly behind both.
“That sounds ominous.”
She chuckled. “I suppose it did, but that’s not how I intended it to sound.” She picked up her glass, then hesitated. “The fact is…”
She drank half of it in one go.
Oh my God. I couldn’t recall ever seeing Diana so nervous. I didn’t say a word, but waited it out, letting her get there in her own time.
“I… I’ve been seeing someone.”
I blinked. Stared. “Oh.”
Brilliant response, Kieran.
Diana laughed. “That wasn’t quite the reaction I was expecting.”
I shook my head, my smile finally making an appearance. “No, I just—” I paused. “That’s good.”
She beamed. And suddenly there it was for all to see, clear and unmistakable.
She’s happy. Not in a tentative way, or even a maybe this might work way. She wasn’t questioning it. It was as though she’d stepped into something that finally fit.
“How long have you been seeing him? Or her,” I added quickly. Because with our track record, I wasn’t about to assume anything.
“A little while,” she said. “It wasn’t planned. It just… happened.” Her eyes sparkled. “And it’s a him, by the way.”
I nodded. “And?”
Diana hesitated for the second time. “I think it’s real.”
“I’m glad,” I said in a quiet voice. And I was, completely. She deserves that.
Her smile lit up her face. “Thank you.”
When she didn’t continue, I frowned. “Is that all I get? No name? No scandal? No dramatic backstory?”
She laughed again. “There’s plenty of time for that. Right now I want to talk about you.”
It seemed I’d been right about the interrogation after all.
I let out a quiet breath. “That’s… more complicated.”
“You’ve been back a month, and you already look as if you’re planning your escape.”
That caught me off guard. “Escape?”
She shrugged. “Maybe that’s not the right word. But you’re not here, not really.”
I considered denying it.
“I don’t know if I want to stay,” I confessed instead.
“Because of what happened in college?”
“Partly.” I paused. “It doesn’t feel the same.”
“How?”
I frowned slightly, searching for something that wasn’t abstract.
“I used to know exactly where I fit,” I said. “What I was doing. Why it mattered.” I let out a breath. “Now it feels as if I’ve stepped back into something that doesn’t quite… hold me anymore.”
Diana studied me. “That sounds as though you’ve changed.”
“Maybe.”
Another pause. “And Berlin had nothing to do with that?” Her tone was light but not careless.
I looked her in the eye. “No—it had everything to do with it.”
A small, knowing smile appeared. “I thought as much.”
I gazed at her, thankful she hadn’t analysed it into existence or questioned it to death.
“Well,” she said, picking up her glass again, “it sounds as if you’ve got something worth figuring out.”
“Maybe.”
I knew that wasn’t true. This wasn’t something I needed to figure out. I already knew what had changed. Where it had changed. And why I couldn’t seem to ignore it.
The question wasn’t whether it mattered. It was whether I was prepared to do anything about it.
I leaned back, my gaze drifting towards the window, to the darkened street beyond it. And for a moment, I let myself imagine not being here, but somewhere else. A different rhythm, a different life. One that didn’t feel like something I was trying to return to, but moving towards.
The thought didn’t feel dramatic or overwhelming. If anything, it was clear.
And once it was there, I couldn’t make it go away.
Stefan
I set my keys down in their usual place, removed my coat, and moved through the space with the same efficiency I always had. The day had been unremarkable—work completed, meetings attended, decisions made without hesitation. Everything as expected.
I poured a drink, more out of habit than inclination, and carried it into the living room. My gaze shifted toward the piano.
No. Don’t go there.
I set the drink down without taking a sip and went back to the kitchen, reaching for my phone where I had left it on the counter. I unlocked the screen, confirming there’d been no new notifications.
He’s gone back to his life.
I hadn’t contacted him. That had been a decision.
Maybe it had been the wrong one.
Except the more I thought about it, the more certain I became that there was no maybe about it.
Kieran
Karl appeared on screen with his usual lack of ceremony.
He leaned back, studying me in his direct, familiar way. “You look tired. How was your day?”
“The same as it’s been every time you’ve asked. And it’s usually me who calls you, so forgive me for sounding intrigued.”
He shifted in his chair. “A rather interesting opportunity has arisen here.”
That got my attention. “Oh?”
“The Universit?t der Künste Berlin is currently seeking a pianist to join the faculty,” he said.
“It’s a teaching contract, starting in April, and would include piano performance and chamber music coaching.
Undergraduate and postgraduate.” He paused.
“They are particularly interested in someone with a strong background in the German Romantic repertoire, and experience at conservatoire level.”
I blinked. “I thought you’d retired. Are you considering going back into teaching?”
He gave me a wry smile. “I wasn’t planning on it. But as soon as I heard about the position, I thought of you.”
Oh.
“Karl—”
“I should tell you I’ve already mentioned your name informally,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken. “To a colleague on the search committee.”
I stared at him. “You did what?”
“They were very interested.”
“Karl.”
“Yes?”
“You can’t just—”
“I can,” he said calmly. “And I did.”
I dragged a hand through my hair. “But… you didn’t even ask me.”
Karl arched his eyebrows. “Would you have said no?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. Because I didn’t know.
He smiled. “You would be an excellent candidate. Your work in Manchester, your performances, your research—particularly your Beethoven—this is precisely what they are looking for.”
I exhaled slowly. “And the practicalities? Visas. Language. Brexit making everything complicated—”
Karl waved a hand. “The university is well accustomed to international appointments. They will handle the necessary formalities.” He paused. “But yes, your German will need improvement.”
“That’s putting it mildly.”
Karl’s mouth twitched. “We can find you a tutor.” A beat. “Not Hans.”
I laughed despite myself. “Thank God.”
Karl inclined his head. “The deadline is a few weeks away,” he continued. “There is time to prepare, should you decide to apply.”
I looked away from the screen for a moment, my gaze drifting to the window, to the familiar, unchanged view beyond it.
“I only just got my job back,” I said quietly.
“Yes.”
“And now you’re suggesting I leave it.”
“I am suggesting,” Karl said carefully, “that you consider whether it is still the right place for you.”
I didn’t answer. That question had already been forming long before his call.
Karl leaned forwards. “Forgive an old teacher for speaking frankly,” he began.
That was never a good sign.
“But I suspect Berlin may have more to offer you than a short visit.”
I felt the weight of his words. The possibility.
I looked back at him. “And if I apply?”
Karl smiled. “Then I suspect things may become very interesting. And not merely professionally.”
I stared at him. Karl didn’t need to say it out loud, but we both knew this wasn’t really about the job.
It was about everything that had shifted since I’d come back.
The way the college no longer felt as though it fit.
The sense that I was moving through something familiar without being part of it anymore.
And Stefan.
I looked away from the screen again, my gaze drifting back to the window.
Manchester hadn’t changed. Its streets, its rhythm, the same life waiting for me to settle back into it. Except now I could see the edges of it. The places where it no longer held me the way it used to.
In Berlin I’d seen a different version of myself. One that had felt alive.
He’s offering me a choice. Stay in a life that no longer fit, or step towards one that might.
My gaze shifted back to Karl. He was watching me, not pushing, not interrupting, but waiting.
“You’ve already decided,” he said, his voice quiet.
Something deep inside me settled into place.
“Yes, I think I have.”
I didn’t wonder what Stefan would think.
I already knew what I was going to do.
“I’ll send you the link to the application form.” Karl peered at me. “Please keep me informed of your progress?”
“Of course.”
“And if I can offer any advice for the interview…”
I smiled. “You’re assuming I’ll be invited.”
He huffed. “They would be crazy not to.”
We said our goodbyes, and I closed the laptop.
My phone sat next to it, and just for a moment, I considered calling Stefan.
But what would I say? ‘I’m thinking about coming back?’ ‘I might apply?’ ‘I don’t know what this is, but I can’t seem to let it go?’
None of those felt like something Stefan would respond to, or respect.
I expelled a slow breath. I had a better understanding of the man I was dealing with. Stefan didn’t move on uncertainty. He didn’t step into something half-formed and hope it would hold.
I didn’t want to do that either.
If I was going to return to Berlin… If I was going to step back into whatever this was, I wouldn’t do it with questions or vague possibilities, something that could still disappear the moment it was spoken out loud. I would do it with something real.
My phone pinged, and I saw the link from Karl.
This is the first step.
Not Stefan, not yet.
I opened up the laptop again, clicked on the link, and started reading.
If I get through this, there’s another life waiting for me on the other side.
One that might include Stefan.