Page 81 of A Wish for Us

Cromwell crushed his mouth to mine, my eyes closing as he told me without speaking how much he needed those words. I smiled against his lips when I felt his heart beating next to mine. It was a strong beat, one that my heart tried desperately to chase.

Cromwell pressed his forehead to mine. “I’m falling in love with you too,” he said, his deep voice broken and hoarse. Broken or not, my heart absorbed those words like a flower drinking in the rays of the sun. It expanded in my chest and beat with wild abandon.

“Cromwell…” I kissed him again. I kissed and kissed him as we built up speed and then broke apart into a million tiny pieces.

Cromwell moved beside me and pulled me to him. I watched him from my pillow and wondered how he had fallen so perfectly into my life. How I’d been so lucky. How God had heard my whispered prayers.

Cromwell took my hand. But when his grip tightened and his eyes closed, I knew he was going to speak.

“All he ever wanted for me was to play music. He knew that I loved it. Needed it…but I let him down.” Cromwell’s face crumpled. “And I shattered his heart.” I shifted closer, holding him tighter. Cromwell looked up at me. “Then he never came home.”

Chapter Nineteen

Cromwell

My voice hung in the air, the confession like feathers stuck to tar. I held on to Bonnie like she was my lifeline, keeping me from falling apart.

I swallowed. “My…dad.” Just the mention of that word caused ice to cut down my spine and my stomach to fall.

Bonnie didn’t say anything. She just let the silence keep me calm. I stared over her shoulder at the piano across the room. It made me think of the old wooden piano he’d gotten for me on my twelfth birthday.

“Keep your eyes closed, Crom,” he said as he led me along the hallway in our home.

“What is it?” Excitement zipped through me like the electric pylons outside our house.

My dad’s hands covered my eyes. When we came to a stop, he stepped away from me and dropped his hands. “Okay, son. You can look.”

I gasped when my eyes fell on the wooden piano across from the table in our dining room. I ran over and stopped just before it. I swallowed and ran my hand over the wood. It was chipped and marked, but I didn’t care.

“It’s not much, Cromwell. I know that.” I looked back at my dad and saw his face flushing red. My mum stood in the doorway, tears in her eyes. I turned back to the piano. “It’s old and secondhand, but it’s in good working condition. I had it checked over.”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, because to me, it was the prettiest thing I’d ever seen. I looked back at my dad. He nodded, seeing the silent question in my eyes. “Play, son. See how she feels.”

My heart beat in a weird rhythm, racing and flipping as I sat on the creakyold stool. I stared down at the keys, and I could just read them, like a book. Colors attached themselves to the notes the keys would produce, and all I had to do was follow their lead.

I laid my fingers on the keys and started to play. Colors so bright they almost burned my eyes danced before me. Rainbows and spectrums took over my mind. Reds and blues and greens, all running ahead for me to chase.

I smiled as the music filled the room. As something happened in my chest. Something I couldn’t explain. When the path the colors led me down ended, I moved my hands back from the keys. I looked up to see my mum and dad watching me. Mum had her hand over her mouth, tears running down her face. But my dad wore a different expression. One of pride.

My stomach squeezed. He was…proudof me.

“How did that feel, son?” my dad asked.

I stared down at the keys and wondered how to put what I thought into words. It was funny; I could just look at music and play what I felt. The colors showed me the way. The emotions that took over me told me what to play. I could speak with my music.

I wasn’t so good with words.

I tried to think of something similar. When I looked up at the wall of pictures my mum had had hanging for years, I knew. I looked back at my dad. “Like when you come home.”

My dad seemed to stop breathing. He followed my eyes to the picture of him on the wall. The one where he was wearing his officer’s uniform. “Cromwell,” he rasped and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Like when you come home…”

My voice shook as I looked at Bonnie and said, “He took me everywhere after that day. He tried to get the right people to see me. People who, like me, could play.” I laughed. “He tried to play once. I tried to teach him.”

“How the hell do you do this?” He shook his head. “My boy, the child musical genius. And his dad, a tone-deaf fool.”

“I played and played. Composers in Brighton took me under their wing. When he went away on tours, I would practice and practice until he came home. Symphonies and pieces poured out of me month by month. And every time he came home, he would try harder. Try to help me reach my dream…”I closed my eyes.