After Forever Read Free Page B

I’d stay here with Ever, no matter what.  
    “I just want you to know, son, that we’ll be here for you. We’re here for you.”  
    Gramps was restless, though. I could see it. He hated being inside, hated sitting in the chair, hated the close walls and the smell of sickness.  
    “You should go back to the ranch.” I picked at the thin, scratchy white blanket, tugging on a loose thread.  
    “Gerry and Miguel can handle it.”
    “There’s nothing for you to do here, Gramps. I’ll be out of here before long, and then it’ll…it’ll just be me sitting in Ever’s room.” I was tired suddenly. Again. So tired. A broken heart was tiring. “For real, Gramps. I’ll be fine.”
    “We’ll stay a few days.” He said this in a way that made it final. I nodded, and felt myself drifting.

solace in the strings

    Eden

    I pulled the bow across the strings, eyes closed. It was off, a raw note, and I brought the bow away. Sighed, drew a deep breath, and tried again, stilled the shaking in my hands and the ache in my chest.  
    Perfect.  
    I started slowly, playing one note, a second, a third, and then I was into the prelude to “Suite No. 1 in G Major, ” as played by Yo-Yo Ma. His Six Unaccompanied Cello Suites was a masterpiece, and when I didn’t know what else to play, what else to do, I would find myself playing that. Bach, yes, but Yo-Yo Ma’s interpretation specifically. There was something about his tone, the way he emoted through his instrument, that spoke to the core of my soul.  
    I floated away, then sank into the rise and fall of the notes, the sweep of the bow and the voice of my Apollo, my cello. I let the music pull me under its spell, made it mine and let it take hold and erase all the thoughts within me, all the hurt and the confusion. It was my solace, this cello, the music, the sonorous voice singing to me, appealing to the notes of my blood, the eloquence in my hands. It could soothe me, shelter me, for a few moments, from the hurt and the darkness and horrors of being alive and so, so alone.  
    I moved and breathed in a lonely world, and Apollo alone knew my tears, felt them fall upon his shoulders. He scoured them from me, took them and allowed them to fall, and never judged me. When my heart broke, he comforted me.  
    “Suite No. 2 in D Minor” rippled from the strings, and I poured myself into it, let it flow like a river. Let the grief go with it, the pain.  
    I found myself playing the allemande to “Suite No. 6 in D Major” and I cried then. It was Ever’s favorite piece to listen to me play. I’d auditioned to Cranbrook with it. I faltered near the end, my bow slipping on the strings as I sobbed. I played through it, played through the shivering, shuddering, wracking sobs, playing through it for Ever, because this was the only way I could grieve.
    When the piece was done, I let the bow slip from my fingers and rested my face against Apollo’s neck, struggling to breathe through the pressure of grief in my chest and the ten-ton weight of misery in my soul.
    Ever was, truly, my only friend. I’d never made many friends in high school, and none here at Cranbrook Academy of Art. I was too wrapped up in my cello, in mastering each new piece, in my classes and homework. There’d been a few brief forays into friendship, usually with guys from the music department, and those always devolved into the friendship-sex-Eden-gets-dumped cycle. And every time, Ever was there to eat junk food with me and force me to work it off at the gym and listen to me bitch about men and how stupid I was to think anything would ever change.  
    More recently, I’d been consumed with my attempts to compose my own cello solo. It was a project that was quickly beginning to take over my entire life—getting each note right, each movement and section. I didn’t dare work on the concerto now, though. It required absolute focus, complete internal composure. I lacked those things, lacked any sense of self.