Crescendo

Chapter 6

Soundtrack for this chapter:
Canon in D—Pachelbel
Believer—Imagine Dragons
Second Chance—Shinedown

6

Theo

It confused me to no end as to how she could make me want to rip my fucking hair out and kiss the life out of her at the same time. Jules was the most frustratingly beautiful and stealthily guarded woman I'd ever met, and I didn't know if I should run after her or forget everything about her. Yet who was I fooling but myself? There wasn't the slightest chance I'd forget about her, and I was fairly certain she wouldn't forget me either. I simply had to wait.

It wouldn't have been right for me to chase after her. I could tell that she wasn't someone who wanted the chase. She'd want to be the one to make the decision to seek me out. I kept telling myself that she knew where I lived, that maybe this game would end in a surprise twist where she was the one to come knocking on my door. But no matter how many times I told myself this, I didn't believe it any more than the last.

The wall that was built around her the night I ran into her in the park hadn't been there the night she came home with me. If it had been, I can't imagine that she would've been so ready to go back to mine.

She also seemed to have crafted this perception of the kind of person I was that irritated the shit out of me, mainly because it wasn't all that accurate. My pride wanted to show her how wrong she was; my heart wanted to show her that if she just gave me a chance, something could develop between us.

When I got home the night after she kissed me and ran, no one else was around. On my way to the stairs, I passed the piano we'd acquired after my grandma moved into a nursing home. Mom and dad kept it at their house until Dan and I bought ours, but I hadn't touched it once since moving in.

I sat at the bench and opened the hood covering the keys. The second my fingers set down on them, muscle memory took over, and they started playing out Pachelbel's Canon in D as if they were making the most natural movements in the world. I got about thirty seconds in before I pulled my hands from the keys.

Flashes of my twenty-second year came back. The dust, the heat, the blood; the feeling as if all of the air in my lungs had been ripped out. During my recovery, in between trips to the physical therapist, I took up the piano.

"No drumming until you're fully healed," the doctor said.

That pissed me off. I wanted to slam out my frustration, my irritability, my anger against the skin of the drums, but the sharp movements could jeopardize my long term recovery they said, potentially keep me from fully healing; a whole lot of good that advice did.

The day I was told I'd never be able to fill a combat position again was the second worst day of my life. My parents looked at it as a blessing, everyone did; they didn't understand that I didn't join the military to waste away on a base for my entire enlistment.

I brought my hands back to the keys and finished out the song. Playing the piano had been my recourse for every emotion I was unable to express during that time; it was the only thing that kept me sane.

***

Almost a week after my second encounter with Jules, my brothers and I sat down to dinner together, but Aiden scarfed down a plate and whipped out the door to meet his friends before Dan and I had gotten halfway through the meal. I knew I was going to lose my shit on him one day; I could only be patient for so long.

When we were done eating, I got up from the table to start doing the dishes, and Danny came up behind me and put his hands on my shoulders.

"Let's go to Midtown. We haven't been there in a few weeks, and I can tell you need a night out. New band playing tonight, too."