The Low Notes (7 page)

He saw her squinting from the stage, looking into the darkness to the back where he stood. She was searching for him as she sang the truth and he felt as though one more lyric, one more instance of seeing her slender hand caress the ivory keys, might have him running to the stage. Instead he turned and walked out. Though his stomach felt like emptying and his eyes felt like watering, he walked out and left Nina alone with her song.

His memory of Friday night set him in a trance that was broken by the very thing occupying his mind. The bell rang loudly and he flinched. Kevin’s eyes moved slowly upwards as he realized someone was standing in front of his desk. He saw her milky white arms holding books tightly to her chest and he forced his eyes to reach hers quickly. Nina peered down at him and scoffed looking at the card he held in his hand.

Kevin was startled by her presence. He was still amazed by the affect she had on him. He glanced down at her information card, realizing she’d seen him staring intently at it and he quickly folded it up and shoved it in his pocket.

He offered a stack of handouts from the classes she missed and struggled to find words to explain to her what she needed to make up. She glared at him and he opened his mouth to speak.

With his mouth gaping open, he ran his eyes over her face quickly. “Just do the reading and look at the handouts. Don’t worry about making up the assignments, I’ll take care of it,” he lowered his voice, noticing how quiet the class had gotten since the final bell.

Her face softened and she nodded slowly before taking her seat as Kevin stood and made his way to the front of the class. Looking out at his students and seeing Nina tucked in the back row as she'd been in that first tumultuous day, Kevin felt a sigh of relief roll through him. He was glad she was back in class.

Chapter Thirteen

She tried to be angry with him. She tried to hold on to the pain she felt seeing him waltz in and back out The Black Jewel, toying with her, but she couldn’t. His boyish bumbling as she caught him staring at something as pitiful as her student information card made her heart swell. It was as if that card had been her picture in a beautiful gold frame and he was looking longingly into her face.

The class wasn’t as horribly awkward as she expected. It wasn’t the same as it had been the first day. Now that they knew the truth about each other and had some time to process it, the tension was lessening. It still remained difficult for her to look at him. He stood at the front of the room, lectured, and wrote on the board like any other teacher but to Nina he wasn’t Mr. Reed. He was Kevin. Kevin the idiot.

“
So this is the first big assignment. I want to see really good work. Poems are due Wednesday. Impress me,” he said, wiping his notes from the board as the students packed their bags just before the bell rang out. Nina waited in the back watching Kevin closely as he cleaned the white board. The last remaining student stepped out into the hall and then it was just the two of them sitting in the starkly lit room.

“
You know, I can do the make-up work,” she started then smiled seeing Kevin jump at the sound of her voice. Their eyes met and they both let out a nervous laugh.

“
You scared me,” Kevin said. Nina stood up smiling widely.

“
D-don’t worry about it, Nina,” he stuttered and slowed to say her name softly. She nodded and her smile faded as she approached him at the front of the class.

“
Nina,” he whispered as a warning to her as she stepped closer to him. It was the closest she’d been since the moment they kissed at the end of their date. She looked up at him and heard him sigh quietly as he in turn looked down at her.

“
No, I need to say this. I'm sorry. I really am. I've never been more sorry for anything in my whole life. The thought of hurting you--it's just...” Nina's voice trailed off and she averted her eyes. She thought she heard him sigh but she didn't dare look. Not with her emotions so exposed in this moment. She pulled her bottom lip inward and bit down on it lightly, keeping any risk of tears away before going on.

“
There’s so many things I wish for. I wish I was older, or that you were younger. I wish you hadn’t found out the way you did. I wish I would've told you the truth in the first place. I wish none of it mattered. But mostly, I wish you and I could talk. Just have a conversation. I wish we could've had the chance to get to know each other better so we’d know if what's between us would be worth all the trouble. Worth fighting for, you know?” Nina said.

She adjusted her book bag and shrugged with a crooked smile before turning and walking out.

She made it to the hall and glanced down at her hands, watching as they trembled. The night before she practiced those words in the mirror, making sure he'd realize she was starting the conversation she wanted so desperately to have with him.

“
Nina!” she heard James call out from behind her, the thumping of his feet getting louder as he reached her with a loud thwack. His face popped into her peripheral view and she could see he was wearing a huge grin.

“
Oh my God! I just saw your English teacher. Meow!” he said, huffing out a breath, slowing his pace to match hers. Nina’s heart thumped at the mere mention of Kevin, her hands still jittering from nerves. She forced a smile as they walked to the auditorium. Her mind was swimming with thoughts of what she’d done, what she’d said.

Nina wanted to tell James the truth. She wanted to tell anyone. Her frustration with the feelings inside her was coming to its peak and she needed to talk about it. Fear built up in her mind about James’ tendency to blow surprises and spread gossip. But would he really do that to his best friend?

“
Are you alright?” James asked as they reached their class.

She turned to him, forcing the same fake smile she'd worn for days. “Fine.”

James made a frown at her and patted her on the top of her head playfully. Pressing her lips together, Nina felt a hint of guilt for the lies piling up between her and James.

Nina took the time to let her mind wander as she played the boring notes of the vocal exercises for the class. Kevin's face was the first thing to enter her thoughts. Strong jaw and dark eyes, the softest lips she'd ever touched and the thin lines crossing his brow...

Her mind wandered all day through math and physics, through study hall and on to lunch. Then school ended without warning and she realized her entire day was consumed by Kevin. Going home, she wondered exactly when it would all stop and she'd be able to think of something other than her English teacher.

Chapter Fourteen

After dinner and a lazy hour of television, Nina slinked upstairs to her bedroom. With her mind clouded all day by thoughts of Kevin, she was starting to feel accustomed to having his face burned behind her eyes each time she shut them. Sitting at her desk, she pulled out the handouts he'd given her and began reading over them.

She tried to move onto to her math homework afterward but she was too fidgety. Nina closed the weighty calculus book and tossed it on the bed watching it bounce once before she reached for her cell phone hearing the delightful ding as a voicemail popped onto her screen.

“
Hello Darling, hope all is well. You'd better be studying. Only kidding, have a good night, sweetheart. Sorry we keep missing each other. Love you.” Her father's voice sounded so unfamiliar. Her eyes rolled by reflex and she deleted the message without giving it a second thought.

Another chime came from the phone and a new text message took over the screen.

Hi.

It was a two letter word from a phone number she’d seen only once on her phone but thank God she'd saved the number. She'd forgotten she'd done it until that very moment. Maybe it was a mistake. Maybe she saved the number wrong and this was a stranger. If it were really from him...

Nina breathed in sharply, realizing she'd been holding her breath as she stared at the word. She glanced around her empty bedroom, irrationally paranoid of someone reading over her shoulder even though she knew her sister was asleep down the hall. With butterflies filling her stomach, she looked at it again.

The most difficult part was deciding whether to believe it was real or not. Had Kevin actually hit send? Did he expect a response? If she didn’t respond, what would class be like the next day? There were so many complications. She was angry their romance had been stolen from her before it even began. The thought that it was all her fault and Kevin somehow hated her were eating her up inside. Still, seeing his face in class, in the halls, in her dreams even, gave her a thrill. The idea of waiting until her first period class cleared out, leaving the two of them alone in the room, gave way to fantasies she was too embarrassed to even write in a journal.

His rough hands gripping her waist, the click of the door handle as she pushed in the lock. Each time she saw him, her mind went straight to thoughts of him clearing his desk with one swift sweep of his arm and laying her down upon it. Nina shook away the thoughts; her head spinning when the phone hummed in her hand, another chime ringing out.

This is a terrible idea. But...conversation started.

Her hand was trembling and her heart was beating loud in her ears. She no longer cared about it being a terrible idea. She didn't care about the consequences or the complications. So she started tapping away on the screen.

Chapter Fifteen

The walk from Kevin’s kitchen to the living room was roughly fifteen steps. He’d been counting as he walked into the kitchen to get a beer then back to the living room to see if Nina had replied to his text yet. He’d already taken three trips and cracked open three beers, his mind reeling from the notion of what he'd just done. He knew it might’ve been the biggest mistake of his life but he didn’t care. Her words earlier gave him the strangest feeling. As if her apology made it all okay again. It wasn't true; he still wrestled with the right and wrong of the whole mess. But when he got home and reached into his pocket pulling out the pale blue card he'd been daydreaming over hours before, it dawned on him fate might have a hand in all of this.

He tried to think of the reasons not to follow his heart. The job wasn’t that important to him. He might not even get hired on full time. It was a temporary thing. He was waiting on responses from three publishers who had his manuscript and though he knew he couldn’t get rich off of a book deal, it could end up being comparable to his salary for half a year. In fact, subconsciously, he was getting up and going to work each day not for the money but for Nina.

Seeing her smile as she walked to her car with her friends in the afternoon, that’s what he wanted. Did she know he waited for her in the parking lot? Had she seen him passing by the lunchroom nonchalantly, peering in through the smudged glass walls at her? Did Nina know when they passed each other in the hallway he was strongly compelled to whisk her into the nearest empty classroom and put his hands on her?

The refrigerator had been standing open for several minutes and he starred into it as if it were a black hole. He wasn’t hungry. He was anxious. He closed the stainless steel door and leaned back against the island that stood in the middle of the kitchen, staring at the gleaming appliance. Glancing down to his feet, he saw Sasha asleep on the hardwood floor next to her food dish. He smiled, watching her lips and whiskers twitch as she dreamed.

From the living room came a quiet noise Kevin recognized immediately--the glorious
ding
of a text message. His stomach fluttered as he slowly took the fifteen steps.

He bounced toward the coffee table in two giant leaps and clicked to open the message. Shutting his eyes for a moment, he breathed in and prepared himself for the possible outcomes. She could hate him, think he was creep, or she could really want to have the conversation she mentioned earlier. Oddly, he didn’t know which of the three would be the worst.

He read the message.
OK. How are you?

Nervous,
he typed back, worried she wouldn't keep responding.

The thought barely had time to form before he heard another ding.

Me, too. How is this supposed to work?

He heaved a sigh.
Good question, Nina
, he thought. He never experienced the kind of angst he was filled with now.
All over a teenage girl
, he thought to himself. It couldn't work. Could it? What was
this
anyhow? A relationship, a friendship, a secret?

He sighed and read the text one last time before calling out to Sasha to join him upstairs. Surely sleeping on it would help. But as Kevin drifted off to sleep, the torment followed him into his dreams.

The vision of Nina on an enormous stage with powder blue lights painting her skin seemed more than real. She wore a tight fitting red top and a short Catholic school girl's skirt. He watched her as she opened her mouth to let out a note. Nothing happened. The seats of the venue were empty in front of him. He sat in the back row on the far right side. His eyes frantically squinted to see her as he realized how far he was from her. She was gasping for air, unable to speak, sing or breathe. He tried to stand to help her and suddenly the stage was in front of his class and the students were all in their seats with him at his desk. She glanced at him with a smirk before holding up a book to show the class.