Chapter 33
Now
Ellery is luminous. Not that Dante hasn’t always thought so, but particularly now.
Particularly when she plays “Water Teeth” like he’s never heard it, like she pulls the plaintive sine waves from her very soul, tearing the grief and heartache and loss from her body and spreading it to the cool Santa Ana breeze.
He’s watched this tour from afar, through texts and news alerts, and feels how deeply the experience has cut her. All the backlash, all the secondhand support, the whirlwind of critics and untempered adoration.
He should have been there for her.
He and Selene and Lorraine have stopped playing, letting the song carry Ellery where she needs it to go. The entire amphitheater watches silently. In the first few rows, he sees countless people with tears running down their faces, smearing makeup. Couples huddle together, supporting one another.
This is why he loves music, why he plays even when it hurts, especially when it hurts. Music brings people together. Music tells truths. It took him ages to get to this plane of understanding, but he’s here at last.
Ellery reaches the final chord and stumbles, Jasper twitching in her hands, and Dante is on his feet, racing to her, not even knowing he is doing it, but letting his body carry him.
He stands beside her, holding her hands, the wooden frame of Jasper warm beneath his touch.
Ellery’s tears rally him. With his thumb, he brushes them aside.
“You’re here,” she says. He doubts she knows she has spoken into the microphone.
“Always.” He realizes he doesn’t care whether everyone hears him. Everyone should. Everyone should adore this woman. He tucks a curl of blond hair behind her ear. “I’ll always be here for you.”
There’s a collective gasp in the audience, but he ignores it.
A half-smile cuts through the grief written on her face, and she traces the lines of his new tattoo, words curlicued into a stylish rainbow-colored Celtic knot. “One and Only?”
He leans his forehead against hers and closes his eyes, breathing her in. “It’s you. The One and Only Ellery. I get a new tattoo every time I miss you so badly it cuts.”
That’s when the stage goes dark.