Page 92 of The Darkness is Calling

I don’t even know how I get through the recital.

Piece after piece, my soul weeps through the sorrowful notes I release instead of useless tears. When anger seizes me, I change the tone of the rhythm, but I return again to the sad melodic lines. I pour every pain inside me into the mournful colors of the music.

Only when I press my fingers to the keys, to create the final sounds, do I think of the people who will probably boo me and unleash the harshest criticism of tonight’s performance in the coming days.

A complete failure, born from a moment of pain.

Like an echo, the last note dissolves before my eyes like smoke. Until today, it had a name and a dream around it.

But everything is over.

The knot in my throat becomes painful, but when I rise to my feet and turn toward the audience, a storm of applause and admiring cheers strikes me so hard that my tears of pain mix with the emotion of the moment they are giving me.

Several people come toward me, their arms filled with enormous bouquets of flowers, and Anna joins me to help with them.

She is crying.

Her tears take me by surprise, just like the smile spread across her whole face.

“It was sublime, Ekaterina,” she says, deeply moved. “Art. You took the piano to another level with this concert.”

I still cannot believe it, and because of that, all my movements are mechanical. I bow politely to the audience, surprised to see them continue clapping and whistling with admiration.

A truly brilliant moment for me.

Yet shadowed by one man.

Backstage, someone helps me with the flowers, and Oksana throws herself into my arms.

“You made me cry,” she says, looking at me through damp lashes, her tears having slightly ruined her makeup, mascara smudging at the corners. “You broke my soul. If only you could have seen yourself up there... you were one with the music.”

“People are still crying,” Anna exclaims, amazed, clapping her hands with enthusiasm. “You were astonishing!”

I look at both of them, but it is Dima’s somber face that makes me speak.

“But I was alone,” I whisper.

I take a few steps toward him, but his cold expression betrays nothing except a shadow darkening his eyes.

“So it’s true.”

“I don’t know,” he says through his teeth.

“I do.”

An enormous bouquet of white roses is waiting for me in the dressing room, but I am certain the sender is not the one my sick heart is still hoping for.

Of course it’s not.

I pull the card with golden filigree from among the flowers, recognizing it from the other bouquets I have received from him, and read Oliver’s elegant handwriting.

“My heart was with you, even if I could’t be there in person.

I am proud of you, because I know with certainty that you were extraordinary.

I love you, and I cannot wait for us to be together again in two days.

Love, Oliver”