Forever Checking (Checked Series Book 3) (14 page)

My body starts to calm down. It starts to function properly as I look around the new room, the dining room. The large, immaculate dining room.

I look around slowly. Actually seeing this time.

In the center of the room, a high dining room table. Shiny wood. Leather chairs. In the front corner, a china closet. Expensive-looking dishes. More hanging wine glasses. A few feet away, a mirror on the wall. High. Big. Spotless. Beyond the mirror, bare wall. And in the back corner—

OHMYGOD.

My body begins to lose itself again. Not moving. Not breathing. Not blinking. Not doing anything but staring.

Staring at the back corner of the room.

At the PIANO in the back corner of the room. The black, gleaming grand piano. PIANO.

Chapter 9

music

HE HAS A PIANO. A piano. An instrument that makes music.

Music. Something to play mus—

My mouth, my lips, move without my permission. “You have a piano?” Stating the obvious.

I don’t look at him. I feel him beside me, though. Tense. Stiff. Our shoulders separated by about three inches.

Silence…for I don’t know how long.

{Damien fills it.}

Callie. Say something else or—

He clears his throat as though—

“Yes. It was my mother’s piano.”

Her piano. His mother’s piano. Just sitting in his house. Just sitting here. Or—

Or does he play it? Does he know how to play—

“Can you play something for me?” The words breathe out of my mouth so quickly. So automatically. So stupidly.

He remains rigid.

What the hell are you doing, Callie? Why couldn’t you just ignore the piano? Why couldn’t you just look past it? Seriously?

I don’t know what to do now. So I just keep standing. Three inches away from him. Both of us completely still. Completely speechless. Just standing. My words, my thoughtless, accidental request just looming over us. Around us. All over the place.

But was it accidental?

Or was I, am I, subconsciously testing him, seeing if he’ll admit the truth about avoiding mus—

“I haven’t played in quite some time. Many years.”

Probably since his mother pass—

“ But all right.” Almost a whisper.

All right?
Seriously?
He’s going to play. He’s going to play for the first time in, well, probably in as many years as his mother has been gone. He’d rather do that, face whatever awful emotions music must stir up in him than tell me the tru—

He starts moving toward the piano.

Slowly. Tensely.

Uncertainly.

How can I let him…how can I
make
him do this? I should—

But how can I stop it? How? Without telling him that I know about his mother, that I know that this will be difficult…without talking to him about the whole music thing, I can’t stop it. Can’t stop the gigantic train wreck going on right in front of me.

The wreck is going in slow motion.

He stands right next to the piano now. Just standing. Staring. Lost in thought.

Lost in the past, I’m sure.

{Damien sings right on through the catastrophe unfolding in front of me.}

I don’t know what to say to fix this. I don’t know what to say to stop this. I don’t know if he’d even hear me if I tried.

He’s not here. His eyes are glazed over. Sad. Lost. Devastated.

I have to fix this. I have to say some—

{A Great Big World and C—}

He moves his body in front of the bench. Bending. Bending. Bending.

Sitting.

Right foot at the pedals. Hands resting on top of the keys.

Oh my God.
This is going to happen. This is happening. He is going to play. He is—

Playing.

He’s playing.

A slow song. Classical. Familiar, but I don’t know the name of it. Seems slower than I’ve heard it before, but maybe that’s how it’s written.

There is no music in front of him, though.

It wouldn’t make a difference if there were music there; his eyes are closed. Tightly closed.

His body, still tense. Heavy breathing.

My body, shaking a little. No breathing whatsoever. Hoping for him to make it through the song. Hoping for it to be over. The song. The discomfort. His pain.

Hoping for it all to be over. The secrets. The lying. The lying about music. About therapy. About everything. The worrying. The worrying about music. About therapy. About everything.

It’s too much. Too—

His tempo increases. The song starts to sound more familiar. More up to speed. And his—

And his body softens. His shoulders move as he presses the keys. He leans into the notes he plays, his body reacting to the music. Feeling the music.

His eyes still closed. His eyes are still closed. Not scrunched closed, though. Not tight.

Even faster tempo now. What feels like the right tempo.

My thoughts speed up too
{Damien tries to keep up.}

It’s all too much. Way too much. I can’t do this anymore. I can’t lie to him anymore. And I can’t continuously make him relive painful experiences with his mother. And I—

A key change. A beautiful key change. His hands, his shoulders—his whole body makes it.

His eyes remain closed. Lost in the music.

I’m lost too.

Still lost in my thoughts. In my worrying. In my list of lies that have to stop. The list keeps coming, keeps scrolling through my mind.

I can’t keep pretending to be making progress with this therapy. I can’t keep pretending that it might work. He can’t truly believe that it’s working either. He can’t.

And I can’t keep worrying about it. I can’t keep losing entire nights of sleep over it. I can’t keep looking for Judy around every corner. I can’t—

The music stops. The song ends. He—

“Callie.” Soft. Calm.

He has turned his body around on the bench. He faces out toward me. His eyes are open now. Staring at me.

He reaches out his arm. For me. Reaching out for me.

My body moves toward him. Slowly.

His hand grabs my fingers, pulls me closer. Closer and closer and closer.

I stand beside the piano bench, in between his seated legs.

So close.

He looks up at me. I look down at him. His hands hold mine. Thumbs rubbing back and forth over my fingers. Warmth swirling through my body. Thoughts swirling through my head. Things I should say. Things I
have
to say.

He closes his eyes, and he opens his—

“Callie, we have to talk about something, but before we do that, I want you to know—”

My stomach caves in. I stop breathing.

Oh my God.
It’s about to happen. It’s going to happen. He’s going to tell me about his mother. Right here. At his piano. With the last chords of his music still lingering in the air between us.

He’s still talking, his eyes still closed. “…something that I’ve been trying to tell you for a long time. I even tried to write it last week when we were on the plane, but I scratched it out. Because it should be said in person. It has to be said—”

He’s going to tell me. And then I’m going to have to tell him, tell him that I already know about his mother. Tell him about the music, my music—yet another similarity between his mother and me. A big similarity. For him, probably the most unsetting similarity. And then he’ll accuse me of purposefully keeping this information from him. And then…then he’ll probably just leave me aga—

He stops talking. His eyes open. Warm. Calm. Sure.

He squeezes my hands and closes his knees around my legs, bringing me further in, closer to him. Making me dizzy and—

“I love you, Callie.”

I love you, Callie. I love you, Callie. I love you, Callie.
Helovesmehelovesmehelovesme.

He tried to tell me on the plane.
“I
----
worry about you.”
It was supposed to be
I love you.

All at once, I feel nauseous. And elated. And shaky. And awake. And terrified. And—

{And deaf. Damien’s so loud. SO LOUD.}

He searches my eyes, still holding me close to—

“I…I…I—” My mouth begins before my mind is ready. Before the rest of my body is ready. Before—

“I have music in my head.” There they are. The words I’ve needed to say for…for forever. They are out. Out there. In his house. In—

His eyes. Shock. Disappointment. Every—

“Lots of music. All of the time.” My mouth keeps going. It keeps going. So quickly. At a super speed. I can’t stop it. “And I know that this is all not okay, because I know about your mother. I overheard the nurses in the hospital talking about her. About how she died. About the music.”

His eyes. Pained. Injured. His hands slip to his lap. Slip away from my fingers, from me, leaving my hands hanging in the air.

I snatch them up to me, wrapping my arms around my waist, and I—

“And I don’t want to keep reminding you of your mother. But I can’t seem to stop.”

Stop talking, Callie. Stop hurting hi—

“And this therapy. It’s too much. And it’s not enough. It’s not working. I’m not sleeping. I’m throwing up. A lot. A lot. And—”

His knees lose their strength, lose their grip on my legs. I take a step back, away from him, and—

“And I can’t get blood work. And I can’t stop thinking about blood work. I look for Judy these days more than I look for the murderers.”

STOP Call—

“And I’m lying to you all of the time.”

Add surprised to the emotions on his face, in his—

“I didn’t bring your box of materials back to you tonight, but I can’t give it to you anyway. Because it’s all a lie. All a cover up. I tried to make it look like I did your activities, but I didn’t do them. I didn’t. I didn’t use syrup yesterday. I didn’t touch the money in that plastic bag. And I checked my paper six times instead of one.” I breathe for a partial second and then keep going. “At the salon, I didn’t think about my worst case scenario or my odds or my relaxation techniques or about anything that you wanted me to think about. I never really think about that stuff during our sessions. I just think about whatever I can to distract myself, to
not
think about whatever it is you have me doing.”

Crushed eyes staring at me.

But I can’t stop. “Weeks ago, I never omitted steps from my routines when you wanted me to, and I ate nothing the day after you made me eat those nachos. And—”

His head falls down, falls down to stare at his lap.

Callie, you have to stop. You have—

My body starts shaking uncontrollably. I hold my stomach with a tighter grip, trying to stop the shaking. Trying to stop. Trying to stop the talking. Stop the talking. Stop the—

“I’m not getting better.”My mouth slows down a bit. Becomes soft. Quiet. “So I’m just going to keep making you remember your mother’s struggles unless I do something else. Something else—maybe go on medication or something to help fix this. To help fix me. To help make the therapy work better. But I know that you don’t want me to take medicine because of—”

His head lifts back up. His eyes return to mine. His eyes. Devastated. Speechless. Broken.

My eyes, wet now, become blurry. He becomes blurry. A blurry mess of emotion.

I tear my eyes away from him, turning around. Turning my back to him.

I’ve told him everything. He knows everything. So there’s nothing else to say. No way to fix the pain on his face. The pain that I knew all of this information would bring.

I have to get out of here.
I have to. I have to. I have to.

{Damien, you can stop singing now. It’s all over now. All. Over. Now.}

My throat is so dry. I can’t swallow. My legs feel weak. My eyes, almost blind. Blind and wet. Nothing in the room comes into focus.

I. Have. To. Get. Out. Of. Here.

{Damien, please stop.}

I force my mouth to open, my lips to part, one more time. “I’m sorry.” I whisper the words. Not even facing him.

I hope he hears me.

I keep going. “I have to go. I’m going to call Mandy to have her pick me up.” My voice, my whisper, doesn’t sound like me at all. It’s raspy. Completely uncontrolled. Completely—

“Callie.” He doesn’t sound like himself either. His voice is wrong. Too labored. Too—

“I’ll drive you home.”

My head starts to shake a “no” before he even finishes his sentence. I hope he sees it.

I can’t turn around to check.

I can’t look back at him. Can’t look at him.

Can’t breathe. Can’t see. Can’t think.

Can’t—

Can’t be here anymore.

Can’t.

One.

Two.

Three.

Feet, it’s time to walk. To move. Move. Mo—

Somehow, they listen. My feet, my legs, they listen. They move back toward the kitchen, where my hands grab my purse from the counter. I reach inside my purse, grabbing for my cell ph—

“Callie.”

I freeze. He’s behind me. Not very far away.

I feel him. Feel the tension. Feel the—

“I’m going to take you home.” So quiet. But firm. “Mandy will be out. It’s Thursday night.”

I don’t move. I stay frozen. Everything pounding. Aching.
{Damien pounding. Aching.}

He’s right. I know he’s right. Mandy’s at a bar. Drinking. She probably won’t even hear her phone if I call.

But still. I don’t want him to—

“Come on.” He walks past me. Almost brushing against me. But not brushing up against me.

He opens the door to the garage, holds it open for me.

Not looking at me. Not really looking at anything.

Not really here.

Walk, Callie. Walk. Walk.

One. Two. Three.

I clutch my purse. It’s heavy in my arms. One at a time, I pick up my feet. They are heavier yet.