Chapter 38 Harper
Harper
I thought I could go home after the award ceremony, but two police officers were waiting for me with Dr. Sterling as I stepped off the stage.
Fear shot an icy dagger into my heart as the image of my mother, dead on the couch, filled my head.
“What is it?”
“Langford,” Dr. Sterling said. He looked like he had a headache. “He’s making this worse for himself. If you would come down to the station to answer some questions? Miss Hart is already there.”
Before the ceremony, Sierra had told me that Langford had tried to assault her under the guise of comforting her over Dean’s death.
He’d found her weeping in the room where our Math it was a dark, murky path. But for those moments, I let the anger and hate go, and found love beneath. It was still there, and if she had chance to make it, it was love that would see her through.
And if she fell down again, it was my love for Dash that would see me through. And we’d be okay.
Somehow, we’d be okay.
***
Sunday night, I stepped into the Performing Arts Center Auditorium.
It held thirteen hundred people, and I was amazed to see that almost every seat was filled.
I smoothed down my black dress and took a seat in the middle back, amid the parents and students who were murmuring and perusing their programs.
The light dimmed, and Ezra stepped out into the center of the stage where there was a lone spotlight over him and a sleek black grand piano.
“Welcome to the spring concert. My name is Ezra Wolfe, Advanced Piano instructor, and if you’re wondering how in the bloody hell I got here, you’re not alone.”
A smattering of laughter rippled through the auditorium.
“I am so proud of these ten performers you’re about to hear. They’ve worked hard all year, having survived my unconventional ‘teaching’ style.” He put teaching in air quotes. “Thank you all for coming and showing your support for these talented artists.”
I glanced at my program. Orion was last, playing Rachmaninoff’s étude-Tableau Op. 39 No. 5 in E-flat minor. I smiled to myself.
Showoff.
Ezra introduced each performer, and finally, it was Orion’s turn.
I put my hand to my chest, over my heart, as he came on stage.
He wore a black tuxedo, no tie, the top buttons undone.
He would always be the most handsome boy I’d ever known, but now his face looked even more beautiful somehow.
His smile was soft and real. No mask. Just himself. And his true self was breathtaking.
He shook Ezra’s hand, and Ezra whispered something to him. Orion nodded, gave a small bow to the audience, and then sat down at the piano. He laid his hands on the keys, and I held my breath.
Silence.
The silence stretched.
Orion took his hands off the keys and rested them in his lap. The audience members around me began to exchange glances.
My heart began to pound.
Then Orion lifted his head. “This is for Dean.”
He put his hands back on the keys. There was another moment of silence, and then he began to play.
Not the Rachmaninoff. Not anything I’ve ever heard from the classic oeuvre. Not anything I’ve ever heard before. Not anything anyone had ever heard before.
And it was only moments into his performance when I understood what he was doing.
He’s playing the year.
The music started out light, almost jaunty, but was a complicated weave of overlapping harmonies that danced and sang together like laughter. It then mellowed into something romantic, bringing to mind a moonlit night and a crackling fire. A bonfire.
My hands were clasped tightly over my heart, and I was half in that auditorium, half back on the beach, with his jacket around me under all that moonlight…
The melody deepened and so did the night, becoming velvet and dark and rich before the thunderous lower notes of a storm began to build. It stole my breath that Orion was creating this as he went. Improvising. Weaving a tapestry out of notes from moment to moment, on the spot.
The storm built and built into a raging tempest, and I was back in my house, listening as the rain came down. Orion’s left hand thundered along the piano’s lower octaves, while his right hand trilled the upper notes like raindrops plinking into pans…and then sunlight.
Both hands moved into the upper octaves as the melodies began to sing and tell a story. A love story.
Our story.
Then they grew dark again, descending into the pounding, modern beats of a house party. The house-party beat became a heartbeat, Orion’s left hand alone forming a chord and hitting it over and over. A pulse. A heartbeat that beat faster and faster, and then stopped.
A split second of silence where the entire auditorium held its breath…
and then melancholy swept in with gentle but relentless refrains.
I wiped tears away as fast as they came, as if they were impeding my ability to listen, because the sorrow…
the beautiful sorrow of Orion’s music was breaking my heart until the sun came out.
Softly. A few higher notes amid the melancholic lower phrases, and I was back at Dean’s funeral where the sun shone, beautiful and gold and full of hope.
But Orion didn’t leave us there. He finished his piece with the last notes hovering, not quite cheerful, not despairing, but something in the middle.
Something that was like a question being asked and waiting for an answer.
A future unseen, but with the hopeful harmonies echoing faintly behind, until the last note faded to silence.
Orion took his hands off the keys. There was another quiet in the auditorium.
No one moved or even breathed before the first smattering of applause.
That applause became its own storm—an ovation unlike any I’d ever heard before.
The crowd got to its feet in an uproar. I looked around me, people wiping their eyes, shaking their heads at each other as they slammed their hands together.
Orion stood, gave a short bow, and exited the stage.
It didn’t matter. The audience applauded the empty circle of light until Ezra brought him back.
He gently nudged Orion into the spotlight and stepped aside.
Orion shook his head, humbled, took another bow, and then searched the audience.
There was no possible way for him to see me amid the hundreds of faces in the dark and with the spotlight in his eyes, but I thought maybe he found me anyway.
And hope burned in my heart. We could find each other in the darkest storm or in the bleakest night. We could find each other anywhere.