“Evie swears she hates sports,” Corinne states, and Daniel grabs his chest in mock injury.
“You’re killing me, Miller,” he says as I slide down behind my computer chair and flip my laptop open. “Besides, I could’ve sworn I saw you wearing a Duke basketball shirt last week.”
“I like Duke.” I cast a wary glance over my shoulder, not missing the way Corinne flashes a slightly hurt look at him. “Lend me that kickass memory of yours for my world history test tomorrow,” I say jokingly, trying to lighten the mood.
I turn back to my computer. It takes me a few tries to access my campus email—I’ve only checked it once since the first day of class—but once I’m logged in, I see there are two new messages from Rhys, one for each lesson I skipped after the first.
“Let me guess, late assignment?” Daniel asks, and I nod, glad he can’t see me rolling my eyes.
“Tell you what, you let me get this in on time, and I’ll come with Corinne to all your baseball games and show tons of ... school spirit, okay?”
Temporarily placated, Daniel returns his attention to the video game, but I can feel his eyes on the back of my neck as I open Rhys’ first message.
From: rhys.delane01@founders.edu
To: evelyn.miller13@founders.edu
Date: Fri, Aug 23, 2013 at 4:42 PM
Subject: Time
It’s now past 4:30 (your lesson started at four, in case you were curious) and I’ve made a list of all the things I could have done with my time while I waited for you to stand me up again.
1. Go to my other job. Yes, I have two. It’s one of those sacrifices you’ll eventually make when you grow up.
2. Clean my apartment. Yet another sacrifice.
3. Get a head start on grading for next week.
4. Are you getting the gist of this yet? Let me know what your plans are for Monday.
In the second email, the one sent Monday around noon, his message is much less scathing—a simple request for me to let him know by three if I’d be at our four PM lesson, otherwise he would assume I didn’t plan to show up.
Staring at the words on the screen, I feel my face heat up at the shame that starts to roll through me. Selfish. Always, always selfish. Hitting reply to the email he sent me two days ago, I type a quick note, Rhys, I was wondering if you might have a chance to talk this afternoon? and then hit send. I barely have enough time to check my Gmail account before I see a new email from him pop up in my campus email.
From: rhys.delane01@founders.edu
To: evelyn.miller13@founders.edu
Date: Wed, Aug 28, 2013 at 5:03 PM
Subject: Re: Time
Will twenty minutes from now in PR#4 work for you?
It takes me a minute to grasp that PR#4 refers to the practice room that I should’ve been to at least three times by now. I respond that I’ll see him there. Shutting my computer, I grab my purse and room keys from my bed and head toward the door.
“Oh, you’re already going to dinner?” Corinne asks, her dark eyebrows knitting together. Pausing her video game, she glances down at the phone beside her on the bed. “It’s early, but we can come with—”
“No,” I say quickly, the word a little too harsh even to my own ears. Shaking my head, I backtrack. “I mean, I’m not going to dinner yet. I’ve got to go meet my advisor but after that—say six-ish?”
“Definitely.” Her shoulders sag in relief and as she grabs the controller, she tells me, “Good luck with your advisor. I have Communication Theory with one of her old students, and I’ve heard nothing but absolute horror stories.”
I give her a cool smile, tell her thanks, and wave goodbye to Daniel. Racing back to the music building for the third time today, I go over what I’m going to say to Rhys. In the back of my head, I can hear Kendra’s cool voice of reason telling me that the truth is always nice.
Too bad the truth is often crippling.
When I arrive, I find the door open and Rhys is already sitting behind the piano, touching the keys carefully. At the sound of me rushing into the room, he lifts his chin, a wave of surprise passing over his face because he probably didn’t expect me to show up. He quickly replaces it with a cordial smile.
“Shut the door behind you?” he requests.
“Yeah, of course.” I close it with the heel of my foot and then press my back up against it, wringing my fingers together. “Look, let me start by saying—”
Giving me a view of the top of his dark hair, he keeps his gaze down on the piano keyboard as he interrupts me, explaining in his soft Southern accent, “My wording on that email last week was all wrong.” I finally recognize the song he’s playing as a version of “Yesterday,” stripped of any extra accompaniment, and I can automatically hear the lyrics in my head. “It wasn’t the best of days for me, and I took it out on you. I’m gonna be honest and tell you that I don’t regret calling you out, but I do regret the manner in which I did it.”
Well, hell. Can he be any more blunt? “I—”
“I know I’m not Professor Cameron, and I might not look like what you’d expect from a voice instructor, but I know what I’m doing. I’m fucking good at what I do. If you’ve learned anything about Cameron, you’ll know she doesn’t screw around when it comes to this department.”
“I know.”
Drawing in a harsh breath, he stands up, leaning against the backside of the piano and standing close to me. I blink, unable to form a response. “I’m not gonna beg you to come to your lessons, Evelyn. I don’t beg, and I’m sure as hell not gonna do it when it comes to something that only serves to benefit you, but I would think you’d want to improve.”
“I do.” I splay my palms out against the door behind me, pushing as hard as I can. “I’m sorry I missed our lessons.”
“Do you plan to start coming?”
“I—” I feel my face heat up under his intense scrutiny. I’ve wrestled with this in my head since figuring out who he is, but this is something I have to do. Not only if I want to end this year on a positive note, but also if I want to grow up, as Rhys had put it in his email. No matter how much it screws with me, I can’t spend my life maneuvering out of everything that makes me face my past and all my screw-ups.
I can get through this year.
And I can do it without ever telling Rhys about our shared history.
I have to.
“Yes,” I say in a small voice, “I’ll be here on Friday.”
“Next Tuesday,” he corrects me. When I lift my eyebrow, he continues, “I’m leaving town Friday for the long weekend, and Monday is a holiday.”
Damn. I’d almost forgotten about the long weekend, and neither of my parents has made a move to even ask me if I had plans to come home during it.
“And then,” he tells me coolly, “We’ll meet again on Thursday because Cameron asked me to add in an extra day of lessons with you.”
Crap. I had hoped to get ahold of him before she did. “Oh, wow ... she works fast.”
Confused, he narrows his eyes. “She asked me yesterday.”
I give myself a chance to process the fact that my advisor went to him well before talking to me about an extra day of lessons, and then I accept defeat and nod. “Rhys? Why did you tell her I’ve been coming to practice? I mean, what do you gain from it?”
Shaking his head, he laughs as he goes back behind the piano to grab his laptop bag. He strides back over to me wearing a sardonic grin. “This is my job. Nobody wants to admit to screwing up when they don’t even know why it’s happening. So that’s why I want this from you: If there’s something about me that has you doubting my abilities, or doubting your future here, get it the hell out right now.”