Porcelain Keys (32 page)

“Aria.”

I glanced back at him, and he was standing up with an anxious look on his face.

“Can you . . . can you come to the tree house tonight?”

The thought crossed my mind that I should say no, that I should go back to Devin and put Thomas out of my mind, but instead I said, “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Meet me there at midnight, if you can. Wear something warm.” He smiled, making that little dimple appear on the side of his mouth.

I ignored the flutter in my stomach and nodded, then turned to go meet Devin.

H
ey,” I said
contritely as I approached Devin in the orchard.

“You could have left me a note.” He smiled, but his expression was stiff, like he was trying to subdue his emotions. “I was worried.”

“I’m sorry. I left the house this morning in kind of a rush.” I considered telling him about the significance of this day for Thomas, but it seemed inappropriate. “I just wasn’t thinking.”

“It’s all right. It wasn’t too hard to find you.” He took my hand in his and we began walking back to the house. “So . . . did you get the answers you need?”

I thought back on everything Thomas had told me, but there was so much I hadn’t even swallowed, let alone digested. “I think so.” It was the most accurate response I could give.

“When is he leaving?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I was thinking. Maybe we should just go get a hotel
room or something. Or we could go spend the rest of our trip at your old teacher’s place.”

A small part of me wanted to consent, to pack up my things and be done with this place. But my heart revolted at the thought. There was still unfinished business here. Not only with Thomas, but with Dad. “We’re leaving the day after tomorrow,” I said. “I’d like to spend a little more time with my dad.”

“So spend some time with him today, and we’ll go check in somewhere tonight.”

“He’s at work until tomorrow morning. Besides, Vivian would be offended.”

His hand tensed around mine. “Are you sure you don’t just want to spend more time with
him
?”

“Devin—”

He stopped and turned to me. “Be honest, Aria. I’m not blind. I can see how much you’re affected by him being here.”

“Of course I’m affected. How would you feel if the person who was most important in your life vanished off the face of the earth, then reappeared out of nowhere years later?”

“But . . . who is the most important person in your life now?”

“You.” The immediate response made my answer sound trite. I closed my eyes and pressed my fingers between my brows to ease the tension there. “I just need time to think. I’ve been bombarded with unexpected feelings and information—I need a chance to sort through it all.”

I felt his hands on my shoulders, and I opened my eyes to see his perplexed face just inches from mine. “What do you have to sort through? He hurt you. Almost beyond
repair. I remember how unreachable you were. I remember the sound of your sobs that night in the practice room. All because of him. I would never do that to you. I would never hurt you.”

I brushed a piece of hair from my face and looked into his eyes. “I know.”

“Please . . . just tell me nothing is going to change between us.”

“Nothing is going to change between us.” But as he wrapped his arms around me and held me uncomfortably tight, I could feel the uncertainty of my words. I buried my face in his chest. I felt unsteady, oddly pliable, like a piece of clay that could be molded and shaped by whomever’s hands I was in. At the moment, even though Devin pressed me closely to him, I was in Thomas’s hands. They possessed the power to alter the life I’d become accustomed to. And I floundered in my effort to find the strength or desire to resist him.

You’re in trouble,
I texted Nathaniel once we were back at the house.
Why didn’t you tell me?
I hit send and dropped the phone in my back pocket, then went to the parlor.

I spent all afternoon at the piano, with Devin working nearby on his sheet music. I played absentmindedly, my mind still back at the fire site with Thomas. Like watching a movie, I paused at certain frames, rewound phrases, and skipped over parts that were too hard to stomach.

I thought about the way his lips curved around the words,
I thought about you all the time
, and the piercing blue flame in his eyes when he said,
I kept everything you gave me
. What exactly had he meant by that?

Meet me there at midnight
, he had said. Something stirred inside me again, like wings beating furiously to escape a captor’s hand. I considered that maybe my heart was not as unfettered as I’d supposed.

Just before midnight, I slipped out the back door to go meet Thomas. I’d spent most of the evening debating whether to go, and finally acknowledged that I needed to make a choice between continuing in my relationship with Devin or taking a chance with Thomas. I told myself it was for this purpose—to gather the information necessary to make that choice—that I went to meet him.

The closer I came to the tree house, the stronger some unseen force tugged me toward it and the more my anticipation bubbled over. But when I got there, he was not there.

I expected to feel anxious, but instead a calm washed over me. He would be there soon; I was sure of it. I leaned against a wall and stared at the spot where I used to sleep on the nights Dad’s behavior forced me out of the house. I recalled the morning Thomas had discovered me here, and the thought made me smile. I ran my fingers over the telescope in the corner, remembering all the nights we’d spent up here together, looking at objects in the sky. And then I waited. Waited for him to come. I paced slowly, peering out the windows on either side for a sign of him.

I heard a thud, then something like metal scraping against metal. I glanced out the east window and saw the yellow glow of a lantern coming nearer through the trees. I smiled and stepped away from the window, twisting my hands, my heart thumping against my chest.

When his face appeared in the doorway, illuminated by the lantern, I thought my heart would burst. He climbed into the tree house. His chest was heaving, like he’d been running. He slid off his backpack and set it down. “Sorry I’m so late,” he said. “It took me longer than I thought it would to get here.” He smiled and walked past me, assailing me with his alluring scent. As he set the lantern down, I noticed his hands were shaking.

“You’re cold,” I said. “We can go back to the house.”

“I’m not cold.” He took his gloves off. “I’m actually a little too warm.”

“Then why are you shaking?”

“I’m tired.”

I took his hand in mine to test the temperature. It was warm. It was also very rough. I turned his palm up, and saw that it was blistered and crusted with dried blood. “Thomas—your hands,” I said with alarm. “What have you been doing?”

He pulled his hand away. “Working on something.”

“On what?”

“A project.”

“What project?”

“You’ll see in a few hours.”

“No—tell me now,” I demanded.

He shook his head. “A few more hours. Right now, there’s something else I want to show you.” He unlatched the roof, then with a bit of a struggle, slid it along its tracks. Turning off the lantern, he lay down and gazed up at the open sky.

I stared at him, unsure what to do. He patted the space next to him. “Come here.”

After a moment’s hesitation, I joined him on the floor
and looked up at the star-filled sky. Every sense seemed heightened—the air I breathed, the tingle of the night on my skin, the silence of the winter air—it was all flavored by him, lying two inches from me.

“Are you cold?” he asked.

“No.” It was true. I didn’t know if it was an unusually mild night or if it was just the heat emanating from him, but I felt strangely warm. I waited for him to say something, to tell me what he wanted to show me, but he was quiet. I turned to look at him, and his eyes were closed. “So, what are we looking at?” I said in a hushed voice.

“Just wait. You’ll see it in a few minutes.” He glanced at me, a little smile on his lips, then turned his face back to the sky and closed his eyes again.

“It’s strange being up here again,” I pondered aloud.

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know . . . it’s a bittersweet place for me. It was my refuge, but it reminds me of the reasons I needed a refuge. And it reminds me of you.”

He opened his eyes, but kept his gaze on the sky. “Is that part of the bitter or the sweet?”

“Both.” I whispered, but he didn’t respond. Wanting to hear his voice again, I said, “Tell me about the place you live. What’s it like?”

He started talking about Zierikzee, about the friendly people, the historic architecture, and the boundless sea. He told me how he’d been spending all his spare time in his apartment: writing, painting, listening to music that calmed him. I wondered what he’d been listening to, and I imagined a room somewhere in the Netherlands, filled with paintings that his hands had created.

Recalling something he’d said earlier, I said, “You said
you didn’t visit Amsterdam—much. Does that mean you went there sometimes?”

A half-moon had risen over the wall, flooding the tree house with silvery light. He turned to look at me with a guilty expression that made my stomach drop. “I visited Amsterdam once, last summer.”

“What for?”

His eyes turned rueful, and he propped himself up on an elbow. “My favorite piano concerto was being performed at the Concertgebouw, so I took a trip to see it.”

It took me a few seconds to decipher his meaning. “You mean . . .” I sat up with mouth agape, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of me. “You saw me perform?”

He sat up. “I was at the train station with Stefan, about to board a train to Brussels, when I saw the poster. It was like fate sending a lightning bolt straight through my heart. I didn’t know if you’d be performing, but I took a chance and got on the train for Amsterdam anyway. I didn’t have any nice clothes, so I showed up at the Concertgebouw in shorts and a T-shirt.” He paused long enough for my heart to knock against my ribs at least a dozen times. Then he turned to me and said wistfully, “You were amazing.”

An unexpected surge of anger ripped through me. “Why didn’t you come talk to me?” I slugged him in the chest, and there was nothing playful or gentle about it. My fist ached from the blow, and my eyes burned with tears.

He caught my wrist before I could pull away, and he looked me straight in the eyes. “You were with Devin. I saw you in the crowd after—with him. And you looked happy. Happier than I’d ever seen you. Like you’d healed from every heartache and injustice you’d ever suffered. I just couldn’t bring myself to ruin it for you.”

Slowly, the anger drained from my body, and all that remained was an agonizing sorrow that left me speechless. Thomas let go of my wrist, and I swiped the tears from my cheeks. Feeling a little faint, I lay back down. I recalled the performance in Amsterdam, remembering it had been one of my best that summer. There had been something in the air that night—something aromatic and euphonic and electric. It had elevated me to the peak of musical passion. The thought of him being in the audience as I performed unaware made my heart ache with regret.

“I went back home,” he said sadly, “hoping I’d be able to let you go after seeing you so happy with someone else. But it had the opposite effect. My feelings for you only intensified. I couldn’t eat or sleep, and I would lie awake at night, searching for the right words to come and ask for your forgiveness.”

Thomas lay back down, folding his hands over his chest and gazing up at the moon. “Then one night, when the moon was shining through my bedroom window, something occurred to me.”

“What?”

He drew in a deep breath and exhaled, making a puff of vapor in the crisp winter night. “You ever notice how, even though the moon is sometimes hidden in shadow, it never turns its face from the earth?”

“Ah—an astronomy analogy, of course,” I teased in an unsteady voice. I looked up at the moon, at the crater that was a constant landmark on its surface. “I’ve never really thought about it, but yeah—you’re right.”

“Well, I guess I’m sort of like the moon. Only instead of being gravitationally drawn to the earth, I’m drawn
to you. There will always be some unseen force that attracts me to you, something at the center of my soul that tugs and aches to be near you. And even in my darkest moments, when I’ve been lost in shadows, I’ve never turned away from you.”

Even if I had known what to say, the sudden lump in my throat would have prevented me from saying it. My vision turned cloudy again, and soon tears were trickling from the corners of my eyes into my ears. If Cupid’s arrow was a literal thing, this must be what it felt like to have my heart pierced by it. Painful and divine all at once.

He propped himself up on one elbow and gathered me into his arms, hovering over me so his face was just a couple inches from mine. His dark hair and the planes of his face glowed softly in the light of the moon.

“I love you, Aria,” he whispered. “I’ve loved you since that first morning I found you in this tree house. Please . . . tell me I’m not too late.” He brushed the back of his fingers over my cheek and lowered his head until his forehead touched mine. His lips lingered over mine, tempting me. “Please . . . just say the words.” Feeling his warm breath on my lips sent my pulse racing.

He stayed there, as though waiting for me to tilt my face and make our lips meet, making the choice mine. Every nerve in my body tingled with anticipation, and soon enough, I gave in. Sliding my hand to the nape of his neck, I tugged his head down a fraction of an inch, just enough that our lips met.

His kiss was warm and tender, his breath sweet in my mouth. But the effect it had on me was anything but tender. It was as though my heart had lain lifeless in my chest for the past two years, and kissing him sent a jolt straight to it,
stunning it back to life. An electric current surged through the rest of my body, leaving a trail of sparks under my skin and fire on my lips.