In Harmony (Fenbrook Academy #2)(36)
Author: Helena Newbury

Chapter 23

The next day, we slept in. With Connor spooning me from behind, his strong arm around me, it took a lot of hammering at the front door before I grudgingly pulled myself out of the black syrup of sleep and into the harsh, bright daylight.

I padded to the door, wrapped in a sheet. I got there just as my father opened it from the outside.

I gave a kind of half scream, half yelp, pulling the sheet tighter around me. My father averted his eyes but, as always, found a way for it to be my fault. “I got tired of waiting,” he said. “Go and put some clothes on! Do you know what time it is?” He snapped back the cuff of his tailored suit and checked his Rolex. His beard was perfectly trimmed, as always, the little glasses he wore polished to a brilliant shine. I felt my knees weaken, a hot flush of shame spreading across my face. “I’m…I’m sorry—”

My half-scream brought Connor stumbling from the bedroom in his jockey shorts. He slid to a halt in front of my father as he got the gist of the situation, then drew himself up to his full height and tried his best to be formal. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Connor.”

My father just stared at him—at his tattoos, in particular. “This is your recital partner?!” he asked in disbelief. “This is the violinist?”

I opened my mouth to speak, but Connor got there first. “Violinist? No. Guitar.”

My father looked at him. “Electric?” he asked, as if the word polluted his mouth.

“Yeah,” said Connor. “We’re really good together.”

My father glanced between the two of us, his lip curling.

“You—shouldn’t have just burst in here!” I told him weakly. “I’m twenty-one.” But I wasn’t twenty-one. In my mind, I was six years old, being admonished for anything and everything.

“You didn’t answer your phone,” said my father. “You didn’t answer the door. And now I find out you lied to me about your recital.”

I couldn’t have the conversation dressed in a sheet. “I need to put something on,” I told him, and went to the bedroom. I threw Connor his jeans and then closed the door for a second while I tried to get my breathing under control. The room was spinning. All of the nerves, all of the panic I’d felt months ago, everything that Connor had helped me free myself from…it was all back. All that mattered was my father and my future.

Twenty-one years of habit grabbed hold of my soul and shook hard. I started to wonder if my father was right. If I hadn’t invited Dan to Flicker that night, if I hadn’t been so scared of public speaking that I flunked all my presentations in the first place—

It’s all my fault.

I didn’t want to face him, but I couldn’t leave Connor out there alone. I pulled on some clothes and opened the door.

“Karen’s amazing,” was the first thing I heard Connor say.

“Mmm-hmm.” My father. “And what’s your plan, when you graduate from Fenbrook?”

I winced as I heard Connor hesitate. “Nothing…concrete,” he said.

My father didn’t help him out. He just left it hanging there, like evidence. I joined them in the hallway. “I think I need to talk to my father alone,” I told Connor.

“You sure?” Connor looked between my father and me. He wasn’t scared of him, I realized. I’d never met anyone before who wasn’t intimidated by him.

I nodded silently. Connor disappeared into the bedroom to get the rest of his clothes and I stood there under my father’s glare. When Connor returned, he kissed me tenderly on the lips, ignoring the look my father gave him.

“I’ll call you later,” he promised, kissed me again and was gone.

My father stood there staring at me, while I stared at the floor. There were no hugs, but then that was normal.

“Well,” said my father. “This time, you’ve outdone yourself.”

I took a deep breath, digging my nails into my palms to try to control my panic. “It’s not what it looks like.” Which was a mistake, because of course he called me on it.

“Oh, really? What is it, exactly? Tell me your good reason for throwing away your career and bedding an Irish dropout.”

“He’s not a dropout!” I said angrily.

“Straight-A student?”

I hesitated for a split second and my father gave me a look. The exact same withering look he’d given me when I was eight, and he’d come home to find me painting the side of the house purple because I thought that would turn it into a magical fairy castle that could fly.

I told him in a shaking voice about Dan and the panic to find a replacement and how Connor had saved me, carefully leaving out the part about his grades. The aching humiliation of having failed him was even worse than I’d feared it would be, but there was one small silver lining—the relief of not lying to him anymore, even if I did hold back about Connor being a hair’s breadth from flunking. It was out in the open at last.

And then the relief turned to sick fear as it all went horribly wrong.

My father shook his head. “I could have spoken to Fenbrook. You know I have pull there. I could have forced them to make an exception for you—you could have performed solo. A proper performance, not some mismatched gimmick.”

A sick dread started to spread through me, because I knew where this conversation would lead. “No,” I said quickly. “I argued with Professor Harman. There’s no way they’d have let me perform solo.”

My father sighed. “You were probably tearful and begging. You don’t know how to stand up to people—you never have. I’ll threaten to sue—they can’t fail you because some idiot breaks his arm.”

It was exactly what I would have wanted, in the days after Dan was mugged. Now, I couldn’t imagine anything worse. I shook my head, trying to head it off. “It’s too late—” No, no, no, please don’t!

“Nonsense. I’ll head over there right now and have it out with Harman. I’ll pick out something for you to play solo and coach you personally—I can stay here until the recital.” He stood up.

And then the panic was full-blown and real inside my chest, stealing my breath. “No,” I said, my voice little more than a croak. “Stop!”

He was halfway to the door. “We’ll talk later, Karen, when I’ve cleaned up your mess.”

And that was it. I had to decide, right then, between my future and Connor.

The terrible truth was that I knew my father was right. Rehearsing for a solo piece in just three weeks would be tough but, with him coaching me and no partner to worry about, we could practice night and day. As Harman had told me, the whole point of the recitals was to learn teamwork. Playing solo would give me a massive advantage. If my father pushed Harman into letting me do it, I could almost certainly get top marks and walk straight into the New York Phil. My chances would go from slim to near-certainty.

And Connor would be royally screwed. He’d be in the situation I’d been in when Dan broke his arm. He wouldn’t be given the chance of a solo performance, and without a partner he’d be unable to perform. He’d miss out on the credits and despite all his work on the essays he’d fail to graduate.

My father opened the door. “Stop,” I said again. He ignored me. “Fucking stop!” I yelled.

He slowly closed the door. “Did I just hear you curse at me?”

I held up my hand. “Just—I’m sorry, just…stop.”

“Is that him? Is that how he affects you?” he asked, his voice tight.

“Of course not! God, I’m twenty-one!”

“You keep saying that as if it means you’re automatically fit to run your own life. Clearly, you’re not.”

My entire life, I’d been scared of my father. I’d followed every rule he’d set, obeyed every instruction given because he was my father and therefore right. But for the first time, I wasn’t sure.

“I need to think about it,” I told him. “I don’t want you to go to Harman…not yet, at least.”

He shook his head. “Karen, you’re not thinking clearly. I’ll go and talk to Harman and—”

“If you pull me out of the performance with Connor, I’ll drop out entirely.” I folded my arms. “No recital at all. And that means I won’t graduate.”

He stared at me. “Why would you do that? Just to spite me?” He sounded genuinely hurt.

“No! I just….” I sighed. “I can’t just let Connor down. Don’t talk to Harman or I will just drop out. Okay?”

My father shook his head. “I don’t know what’s come over you, Karen, but if you insist on this melodrama—very well. Do your thinking. I’m staying at my usual hotel.”

He walked out, closing the door quietly behind him because slamming it would have been undignified.

I leaned against the wall, letting out a long breath, and then slid down to sit against it.

When I’d met Connor, he was on a downward path—he was going to flunk. I was on my way to the New York Phil, and a stupid, random mugging had changed that. Connor had saved me, I’d saved him and maybe our plan would work…and maybe it wouldn’t. But my father had just given me a chance to put everything back how it was. Was it so bad, to reset everything to before I met him?

The worst part of the decision was, I knew that if I told Connor about it, he’d say to go ahead and do it. He hadn’t wanted to graduate, when I first met him. He’d seen his time at Fenbrook as a chance to party, nothing more.

And yet…I knew that it wasn’t that simple. When I’d seen those lyrics in his guitar case I’d uncovered the real reason for his not trying, and by helping him I’d changed his path. I’d made him believe he was capable of more, that he could have a better future. Could I really rip all that away from him, even if he wanted me to—even if he begged me to?

But if I didn’t, I’d be giving up my future—my whole career—to give someone who hadn’t wanted to graduate in the first place a slim chance at success. All of my years of practice, all that time inside playing while other children enjoyed a normal life, might be wasted. If I stuck with Connor and our plan, and we didn’t get the result we needed, would I blame him? Would it poison things between us? Until that morning, performing with Connor had been my only chance, a crazy, last-ditch effort—we’d try, and if we failed, we failed. But now, doing the duet with him was a choice…and that meant I could be wrong.

I tapped the back of my head against the wall. I didn’t know what to decide. I didn’t even know how to decide.

***

Connor called me later that morning, and I reassured him that everything was fine. I didn’t tell him about my father’s offer, because I needed the decision to be mine and mine alone. I tried to tell myself that nothing had changed—we were still in love and we could stick to our plan and it would be as if my father’s visit had never happened.

Except that was a lie. Everything was different, because now my father’s offer sat there throbbing at the back of my mind, dark and cancerous, eating away at our happiness.