Accidental Notes: A Novel

Chapter 34

Keeping Score

Not sure what this story is? The synopsis is available here.

Catch up on chapter 33 here.

In two days, fifteen hours, and fourteen minutes, I’ll be in California again. Not that I’m counting. It’s going to be a lot easier to accept that Dad won’t ever be around once I’m not sharing a space with him. In the meantime, in one day, four hours, and thirty-four minutes, I have another audition and nowhere to practice.

Adaya: So I have my next audition tomorrow… if I can find a piano to use. Any chance I can use your keyboard?

Grayson: First things first. How are your hands feeling?

Adaya: Getting better. I need to warm them up before I can be sure, but I no longer think I’m dying.

Grayson: Good. See you soon

By the time he’s finished texting me, I’m knocking on his door, my boots soaked from the slush outside. For as beautiful and brutal as a snowstorm is, the brown slush it morphs into is almost laughable. Pitiable. I kick off my shoes on the stoop and slide them off as I step onto the hardwood. Mrs. West smiles at me. “Back so soon?”

“It’s been more than fifteen hours,” I say.

There are a lot of things I’m definitely not counting.

She laughs brightly. “He’s in his room. Do you want a snack?”

“No thanks,” I call. I’m already to the stairs. When I get there, Grayson’s standing at the top, looking down at me, and those fifteen hours have been a lifetime. Twelve stairs between us is far too many. I clamber up as fast as I can, and Grayson grips the rails like it’s taking all his effort to not rush down to meet me.

I hardly slow down as I reach him, half tackling him as I get there. Grayson takes a few steps backward. Even the way he’s squeezing me is a breath of fresh air.

We slow down somewhere near his bed. I fall against it. My grandmother’s house is a burden, but here I’m entirely free.

“Uh, Adaya?”

Grayson’s standing there, looking awkward, in his own room. I realize I’m lying on his bed.

“Is ‘use your keyboard’ a euphemism for something, or…”

“Right. Sorry.” I sit up and straighten my clothes even though nothing actually happened between us. My cheeks heat like something did. “Uh, not that I’m opposed. I guess. I mean, you probably know that. But my audition’s tomorrow — ”

“Play some scales,” he says, his mouth pressed tight like it’s trying to be stern, but he’s holding back a smile, one that shines through his eyes.

Half in a daze, although now it’s partly embarrassment, I play the F scale first, a family tradition I can’t shake. The webbing between my fingers stings as I stretch past octaves and into arpeggios. I flinch and Grayson must notice.

“You don’t have to do this. It’s okay if you can’t play. I’m sure you can — ”

“What, reschedule for a third time? I’m already getting too much leeway from Mr., uh…”

The teasing disappears from Grayson’s eyes. “If you can’t remember your piano teacher’s name, you have bigger problems than the cuts on your fingers. Are you sure you’re okay?”

I laugh, but it comes out more breath than sound. “Oh, no, I know his name. It’s just… he’s been dating my mom. And they’re getting married. So maybe I should call him Sebastian instead of Mr. Gutierrez?”

“They’re — what?”

“I found out they were dating on Monday, and Tuesday evening that they were engaged. I knew when I saw you last, but I didn’t know how to bring it up.”

He leans against a wall, looking at me, probably trying to get a read on how to respond.

I swivel the chair all the way around and bring my knees up. “I’m actually… kind of excited? The point being, I can’t reschedule. I need to do this now if I’m going to get to do it at all.”

“But if you tear up your hands when they’re nearly healed…”

My hands aren’t better by a long shot, but when I spread my fingers, the scars stretch without reopening. “It hurts. The scars are probably going to last. But I can play piano. Grayson, I can play piano.”

I turn to the keys again and play an octave with my left hand, chords with my right. F major, B flat major, C major, D minor. An A minor thrown in sometimes in place of the C major, to make it my own. I brave individual notes. Happy ones.

“Adaya?” Grayson sounds concerned. “Are you… improvising?”

I finish the progression and smile at him. His eyes feel as bright as snow. “It’s the easy chord progression, isn’t it? The one from every song ever?”

“You couldn’t even do that a week ago, though. I asked and you froze. This time you just played. You trusted yourself.”

He kisses my forehead softly. Then my nose. “I’m proud of you.” I tilt my head up so we can kiss again, a small peck before he pulls away from me. “But we’re wasting your precious practice time.”

“You consider this a waste of time? Fine then,” I say, and play the saddest melody I can remember offhand, the “It’s Quiet Uptown” refrain from Hamilton.

Grayson sits down cross-legged. “That’s quite the song choice,” he says. “Freudian?”

I laugh. “Probably.”

“If you want to spend your time kissing me, I’m the wrong person to tell you no. But I know how important this is to you, and I want you to feel prepared.”

“That’s really thoughtful, Grayson. Thank you.” I scan the room before I turn back to the keys. As much as I want to practice, I’m looking for any excuse to keep talking to him. I imagine something to tease him about, him teasing back, me reaching over to tickle him, the keyboard soon forgotten behind us.

But what catches my eye is a trophy on a shelf. I recognize it immediately. When I was ten years old, there was nothing I’d wanted more. My posture stiffens. “You kept a reminder of the worst day of my life.”

He follows my gaze and I stare at him, waiting for the smugness I remember from our recital. The easy way he laughed at me for coming second. But all that shows up is honest confusion. “That was the worst day of your life?”

“Okay I’m probably exaggerating, especially now, but… I did everything right, Grayson. Everything. Every single note. And yet that trophy’s sitting in your room. You laughed at me afterward. I’ll never forget how tightly you held that trophy.”

He squeezes my hand in his so tight my scrapes burn at his touch. “You thought I was laughing at you? I guess it could have looked that way. But I wasn’t laughing at you. I felt like I was getting away with something. Of course I knew you were better than me.” Grayson’s hand pulses in mine, but the rhythm isn’t steady, not the way it usually is with him. “Do you want to know why I held that trophy so tight?”

“Of course.”

“The same reason I hold your hand too tightly now.”

“I don’t follow.”

He doesn’t meet my eyes as he loosens his grip on me until his touch is closer to reverence. “I’m terrified someone will take away something I know I shouldn’t have gotten in the first place.”

All this time when I thought he was smug. “Grayson, I — ”

He shakes his head, and looks down. His words come out fast and quiet. “I know you’re going home in a few days, and I don’t know what it will mean for us, but I want you to be my girlfriend. It’ll be long distance. We’d have to figure it out as we go, and I know you don’t like that. You already told me I wasn’t part of the plan, so I get it if the answer is no, but I would’ve hated myself if I never asked.”

“Grayson,” I repeat. My brain has forgotten the other 30,000 or so words I’m supposed to know. The only word that matters is his name.

“That’s not an answer.”

“I know it isn’t. Is it okay if I don’t have an answer? You’re right. Changing the plan scares me. Long distance scares me. Relationships scare me. I’ve never done this before and everyone screws up the first time they try something.”

Grayson’s hand gets a little looser in mine. “I get it.”

“I’m not finished yet. I don’t know how much I want to think about this before the audition, but I’m glad I’m terrified. The fact that I’m scared of this means it’s important. It means it’s worth it. But we can figure out the details later. I want to focus my attention on you when we work this out, and I won’t be able to do that until the audition is over.”

I’m done with words. I lean over and kiss him again and again, quick kisses, happy kisses that probably aren’t very romantic. But something sparks in us both and our kisses get longer, more drawn out.

Then he pulls away. “I thought you said you wanted to focus on the audition. Not that I’m opposed to this. At all. I just — ”

“Even the most focused musicians need their breaks,” I say. I end my break the opposite way he started it. One more kiss on the lips. One on the nose, then one on the forehead.

“And even the best breaks have to end. Did you bring the song?”

I sit up so fast I knock my head against his chin. I want to apologize, but I can’t. I’m too busy trying to remember the last place I saw Brennan’s music.

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