Chapter Thirteen Cromwell

Chapter Thirteen

Cromwell

The place was packed.

People spilled out onto the path to smoke or to move on to the bar across the street. I looked through the window, but I couldn’t see a thing. I ducked my head and walked through the door. There was no sign of Bonnie. The lights were low, except for the spotlight shining on the stage.

As I squeezed through the mass of people toward the side of the room, a table in the dark became free. I slid onto the seat before anyone else could take it. It was ten minutes before the barista came to me to take my order. When Sam saw me, his face frosted over.

He looked behind him and then faced me again, looking panicked. “I can’t believe you’d—”

I held my hand up. “I’m just here for coffee.”

Sam’s face told me he doubted that, but he asked, “The usual?” I nodded, and he disappeared. I wasn’t sure if he’d tell Bonnie I was here or not. So I just sat and listened to three singers. One of them was good. I stared at the tabletop the whole time, seeing colors as they played and sang. I rubbed my head. My temples throbbed, making me feel like I was in the middle of a migraine. My head ached and my neck was stiff. It was because I was fighting them—the colors, the emotions, the tastes. I was fighting them all, when all my body wanted to do was embrace them.

“You can’t stop them , ” my dad’s voice said, echoing in my head. “It’s part of who you are, son. Embrace them . ” He smiled. “I wish I saw and felt them too. What a gift…”

I squeezed my eyes shut, about to just leave, when the manager of the place came to the mic. “And now, a good friend of Jefferson Coffee—our hometown girl, Bonnie Farraday.”

I had a clear view of the stage from my seat. So I saw the minute Bonnie stepped onto the stage with the help of Sam. He passed up an acoustic guitar. It looked battered and worn. But she held it like it was an extension of her arm.

Bonnie didn’t look up at the crowd. Not once. She kept her eyes on the guitar, on her stool when she sat down. She was dressed in skinny blue jeans and a white jumper that hung off one shoulder, showing her pale skin. Her hair was off her face in an intricate plait. She had pearl earrings in her ears, and some kind of charm bracelet hung on her wrist.

“Hey, y’all. This one’s called ‘Wings.’”

Bonnie shut her eyes as her hand found the neck of the guitar. I held my breath as she started playing. Olive greens danced in my mind, the slow strumming of the strings. And then she opened her mouth, and the most vibrant violet blue I’d ever seen flashed like a firework in my head, making my breath catch in my throat. And then the lyrics hit my ears, and my chest ripped apart as the words registered and sliced right to my heart.

Some are not meant for this life for too long.

A fleeting glimpse, a silent birdsong.

Souls too pure, they burn out too bright,

Bodies so fragile, losing the fight.

Hearts lose their beats, rhythms too slow,

Angels they come, it’s time to go.

Lift from this place, to the heavens and skies,

Smothered in peace, where nobody dies.

Hope left behind in the ones they have loved,

No longer caged, now wings of a dove.

Wings, white as snow, sprout from my heart.

Wings, spreading wide, now to depart.

Tears in my eyes, I give one last glance.

I lived, and I loved, and danced life’s sweet dance…

I was frozen to the seat. My body locked at pale pinks and lilac purples. The violet blue kept a shimmering circle with every new bar. The triangles of tempo, switching and molding into different sizes and angles.

A lump formed in my throat as her voice sailed over the coffee shop. My stomach and chest strained so tightly they ached.

My father’s face came into my head—his smiles, his applause…and the time I’d walked away…

A loud round of applause broke through my thoughts. The painting in my head faded, leaving only shadows of color as they gripped on to the darkness. I exhaled, feeling drained, like I’d been running for miles. I took a large gulp of my coffee.

The manager announced a small break. The minute the lights came on, Bonnie turned her head. It was like she had felt me sitting here. Watching.

Her face froze when her eyes met mine. She stumbled off the stage. Sam caught her, and she managed to keep hold of her guitar before it fell. Bonnie said something to Sam then rushed from the stage and out to the back.

I was on my feet in seconds, pushing through the crowd. Sam stood in my path. “No one’s allowed back there.”

I gritted my teeth, prepared to knock this guy out if he didn’t move out of my way. Then I looked out of the window and saw Bonnie crossing the street with her guitar in its case. I didn’t overthink it. I just slammed through the crowd, the lights dimming as the manager came onstage and announced the next performer.

Bonnie disappeared into the park. I rushed over the road and followed her path. She was standing under a streetlight just before the pavilion in the middle of the grass.

My foot snapped a fallen twig, and Bonnie looked up, her brown eyes huge. Her shoulders sagged. She brought her guitar over her chest as if it would protect her. Protect her from me.

“Cromwell…” Her voice was tired and strained. It was because of me, because of last night. What I did. What I’d done too many times. I didn’t like how sad I’d made her sound. “Why did you come here tonight?”

I stared at her, not saying a word. I couldn’t. Now that I was here, I couldn’t say a thing. I just kept seeing the imprint of her colors in my mind. Heard those lyrics playing on loop, stabbing me in the chest.

How did I make her understand? I froze at that thought. Because I wanted her to understand.

Bonnie sighed loudly. She turned her back to me and started walking away. My pulse fired off. She was leaving.

My mind raced, my lips opened, and I shouted, “Your bridge was weak.”

Bonnie froze mid-step. She turned to face me. I edged closer. Only a few feet. “My bridge is weak?” Her voice was husky and exhausted…exasperated.

“Yes.” I put my hands in my pockets.

“Why, Cromwell? Why was it weak?” I could see she was expecting me to shut down. To not explain myself. To run.

“Because the bridge was navy blue.” My face set on fire.

“What?” Bonnie said. I looked around me. I couldn’t believe that I’d even said those words. “Cromwell, what—?”

“The bridge was navy blue. Navy blue tells me it’s weak.” She was a statue in front of me. Her face was full of confusion. I fought the tightness in my chest and cleared my throat. “The rest was olive green and pinks…all but the bridge.” I shook my head to get the image of the navy blue from it. I tapped my temple. “It was navy blue. It didn’t fit. Navy doesn’t belong in good compositions.”

Her mouth dropped open, and the excitement I saw the night I played the piano with her next to me flared in her eyes. “Synesthesia,” she whispered, and I heard the awe in her voice. “You’re a synesthete.” She didn’t put it to me as a question. Bonnie stepped closer, and I wanted to run again. Because it was all on me this time. But I fought it. I refused to run from her again.

I blew out a breath. I’d told her. She hadn’t forced me to say it. She’d just played, somehow got beneath my walls, and the truth came pouring out.

“Cromwell…” She looked at me in a way she never had before. I realized in this moment that she’d always approached me with caution. Her face had always been somewhat closed around me.

But now it was open.

It was wide open.

“What type?” She stopped, and her feet met mine. She was so close. The smell of her peach and vanilla perfume drifted up my nose, and I could feel the sweet taste on my tongue. Everything was more around her. My senses were so overwhelmed that I almost couldn’t breathe. I saw color and fireworks. Tasted sweetness, smelled her scent, and breathed in who she was. It was lines and shapes and tones and colors, metallic and mattes. It all slammed into me like a flood. And I let it in. Like a dam bursting, I let her in.

I gasped at the force of the emotions. “Cromwell?” Bonnie took hold of my arm. I froze, looking down at her hand on me. She went to pull it back. But I reached out and covered her fingers with my own.

Bonnie stilled. Her eyes fell from my face to our hands. I waited for her to pull away, but she didn’t. I heard her labored breathing. I saw her chest rise and fall. She blinked, her long, black lashes hiding what I knew would be huge, shocked brown eyes.

I’d finally let her in.

“Chromesthesia,” I said. Bonnie looked up, her eyebrows drawn together in confusion. I inhaled through my nose and resigned myself to admitting it. “The type of synesthesia I have. Mainly chromesthesia.”

“You see sound.” A small smile pulled on her lips. “You see color when music plays.” I nodded. A quick breath left her mouth. “What else?”

“Hmm?”

“You said it was mainly chromesthesia. What else happens to you? I didn’t know you can have more than one type.”

“I don’t know much about it all,” I admitted. “I have it. Apart from what my da—” I swallowed and forced myself to keep going. “Apart from what my dad told me when he researched it, that’s all I know.” I shrugged. “It’s normal for me. It’s everyday life.”

Bonnie was staring at me like she’d never seen me before. “I’ve read so much about it,” she said. “But I’ve never met anyone with it.” Her fingers tightened on mine. I’d forgotten I was even holding her hand. I looked at the entwined fingers. Something calmed in me. It always did around her. The constant anger inside me faded to almost nothing. It only ever happened with Bonnie. “Your senses mix together, hearing and sight and taste.” She shook her head. “It’s incredible.”

“Yeah.”

“And my bridge was navy blue?” I nodded. “Why?” she asked, sounding almost breathless, she was trying to talk so fast. “How?”

“Come with me.” I started leading Bonnie by the hand through the park. She followed. I didn’t know if she would. If she’d forgiven me for hurting her this past week.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

When she lagged behind, I slowed. She didn’t move any faster. Her breath was coming in pants. I stared at her flushed face and damp forehead. Reaching over her, I took the guitar from her hand.

Red burst on her cheeks. “You okay?” I asked. I had no idea why she was so out of breath.

She pushed some fallen hair from her face. “Just unfit.” She laughed, but it sounded off to my ears. It wasn’t pink. “Need to start on some cardio.”

I kept a slow pace as Bonnie walked beside me. I kept waiting for her to pull her hand away, but she didn’t. I liked holding her hand.

I was holding a girl’s hand.

I kept holding on.

When we arrived at the music department, I could feel the air thicken around us. I paused at the door.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I gripped the guitar tighter, then finally pulled my hand from hers so I could get out my ID to swipe us inside. My jaw was clenched when I pulled away. Bonnie’s eyes were wide on mine, and I knew why I’d hesitated.

I hadn’t wanted to let her go.

It sounded like there were a couple of people in the building. Lines of crimson red floated in front of my eyes as an oboe played in one of the rooms. Bonnie looked up at me, lips parted, about to say something.

“Crimson-red lines.”

Bonnie stopped dead. “How did you know I was going to ask that?”

I stared down at her face. She had freckles on her nose and cheeks. I hadn’t noticed them before. Her nose was small, but her eyes and lips were big. Her lashes were the longest I’d ever seen.

“Cromwell?” Bonnie’s voice was hoarse. I realized I’d been staring. My pulse had kicked up a notch, and I could feel my heartbeat thumping in my chest. The beats brought me strobing flashes of sunset orange.

“You have freckles.”

Bonnie stared at me, not moving and not making a sound. But then her face reddened. I opened the door to the practice room and walked through. I turned on the light and put down her guitar.

Bonnie shut the door. The room was silent. I put my hands in my pockets. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do now.

Bonnie came forward. I couldn’t take my eyes from the shoulder that her white jumper hung off. At her pale skin. “Why are we here, Cromwell?” Her voice was shaking. When I really looked at her, I could see she was nervous. I’d made her nervous around me. I hated myself for that.

I took her guitar from its case. I handed it to her and pointed at a stool. Bonnie hesitated, but she took the guitar from me and sat down. Her hands ran down the neck, just feeling it.

“Sing,” I said, my palms sliding over my jeans when I sat down opposite her.

Bonnie shook her head. “I don’t think I can.” Her hand tightened on her guitar’s neck, and she licked her lips. She was nervous to sing.

“Sing. Play,” I said again. I shifted in my seat, feeling like a dick. But for the first time in years, I found myself actually wanting to help someone. In the only way I knew how.

Bonnie took a deep breath and strummed the opening notes. I closed my eyes. I could see the color better when I did. Like before, I saw olive greens. I saw the shapes and lines and tones. Only with her this close, they were…more.

They were brighter. They were more vivid.

My body twitched as it tried to slam up the walls to block them out. It had been my MO for three years. It was rote. My body trying to shut out the colors. It never really worked. Not once in three years had I been able to fully block them out. They only settled for being somewhat dulled.

But not right now. Right now they were so bright that they were almost too much to cope with. But as Bonnie started singing, the violet blue took over everything. The jagged line at the forefront, the color that refused to be dimmed.

My heart raced as I let my brain do what it had been born to do. Bring color to sound and spark like Guy Fawkes Night in my head. My muscles unwound and the music seeped into the fibers, giving every one of them life. With every barrier I let fall, my body relaxed, the tension I’d carried for so long fading away on Bonnie’s voice.

My head nodded in time to the beat, until she changed the tune, and a jagged navy-blue line, shaped like a lightning fork, sliced through the violet blue, greens, and pinks.

“There.” I opened my eyes.

Bonnie stopped playing, hand frozen on the guitar’s neck. I leaned forward, seeing the still photograph of the colors in my mind. Capturing the moment the canvas was ruined.

Bonnie was watching me, breath held. Her hands were tense on the guitar as if she didn’t dare move. I edged forward, taking my stool with me, until I was in front of her. I couldn’t get close enough to the guitar. So I moved forward even closer, Bonnie’s legs between mine. She looked up at me. I could smell mint on her breath from the chewing gum she always chewed.

“Go back a few bars.” I never took my gaze from hers. Bonnie placed her fingers and played. I was frozen as the color washed over me like a shower. My chest felt so warm.

When the navy blue sliced through my brain, I stopped her hand with my palm. Eyes closed, I moved her hand on the neck of the guitar. I knew where I wanted her fingers to be and what notes she needed to play. “Strum,” I ordered. Bonnie did. I moved her hand again. “Again.” I moved to another chord. “Again.” I did it again and again, following the color pattern in my mind. Painting the colors in advance and following their lead. I mentally painted the notes until they meshed back into the ones Bonnie had created.

My hands lifted off the guitar and Bonnie kept playing. I felt her breath as it moved past my ear, as her voice sang the words of the song so softly. I moved in closer, needing to see the violet blue dance before my eyes. I listened until the last note rang out and took the finished canvas in my mind with it.

Bonnie’s breathing was shallow. It was shaking. I slowly opened my eyes. When I did, I realized just how close I’d gotten. My cheek was next to hers, the ends of my stubble touching her skin. My ear was near her mouth.

I’d moved closer to hear her sing.

To hear that perfect violet blue.

Bonnie’s breath stuttered. I hung close, not wanting to move away. Slowly, I pulled my head back until I faced her, her nose only a centimeter away from mine. Her eyes were huge and filled with something I hadn’t seen in her before. And I wished I knew what it was.

“What…” I swallowed. My knee knocked against her thigh. “What did you think?”

“Cromwell,” she whispered, a slight tremor of vibrato in her voice. “I haven’t…I couldn’t ever write anything like that.” Her cheeks blushed. “Not without you.”

My heart slammed against my rib cage. “I just followed the colors.” I nudged my chin in her direction. “Colors you created.”

Bonnie searched my eyes like she could see through them. Like she was trying to see inside of me. “This is why he brought you here. He knew it still lived inside you. Lewis. It’s what he saw in you.” Her brown eyebrows knit together, a sympathetic expression on her pretty face. “Why, Cromwell? Why do you fight it?”

Her words were like a bucket of ice poured over my head. I moved back, my defense mechanism to flee, to verbally knock her down kicking in. But Bonnie’s hand moved off the guitar and lay on my cheek. I froze. Her touch kept me rooted to the spot.

I fought the need to run. The lump that choked my throat clawing up from my chest. But when I looked at her eyes, I didn’t move. Instead, my lips opened and I said, “Because I don’t want it anymore.”

Her hand was warm on my face. Her fingers soft. “Why?” Tears filled her eyes when I didn’t answer. I wondered if she’d seen something in my face. I wondered if she’d heard something in my voice.

But I couldn’t answer her.

Bonnie’s hand slipped from mine, and I felt like I’d been plunged back into the middle of an English winter. Everything was suddenly cold and dull, stripped of warmth. Bonnie smiled. She put her hand back on the guitar. Lines wrinkled on her forehead. “I can’t remember the new chords.”

I lifted off the stool and moved behind her. “Budge forward.” Bonnie looked over her shoulder at me. Her pupils dilated, but she did as I asked. I sat behind her. She wasn’t close enough, so I threaded my arms around her waist and moved her back. Bonnie let out a surprised sigh as her back moved flush against my chest.

My arms wrapped around her, shadowing hers. The tattoos on my bare arms stood out like lights in the dark against her white sleeves. My chin came just above her shoulder. I caught her sharp inhale.

It was a burst of russet in my mind.

“Hands ready,” I said. I glanced down at her bare shoulder beneath my mouth. Her skin bumped, her ears turned red, and I saw her lips part. I felt the corner of my mouth hook up into a smile.

“Play. When we get to the bridge, I’ll step in and help.” So she did. Bonnie’s words washed over me. But the lyrics were again like a dagger to the heart. The sadness in them as she sang. The violet-blue line of her voice that ran through me like a heart monitor swelled with her emotion. With the words that resonated with her the most.

As the bridge came up, I put my hands over hers. I felt her shudder against me. But I kept going, letting her strum as I placed her hands on the chords that were in sync with the rest of the song. We played it three more times before her hands fell from the strings.

“You got it?” I asked, my voice sounding husky even to my ears. It was being this close to her. Her small body fitting against mine like a piece of a jigsaw.

“Yeah, I think so.”

But neither of us moved. I didn’t know why. But I sat there on the stool with Bonnie Farraday leaning against me. Until… “Cromwell?” Bonnie’s voice cut through the silent comfort. “You can play anything, can’t you? Without lessons or practice. You can just see the music, and you have the skill to play whatever you want.” Her head turned, her lips almost brushing past mine. Her eyes studied me. “The colors show you the way.”

I thought back to the first time I picked up an instrument. It had felt as natural to me as breathing. The colors that danced before my eyes were like a path. I just had to follow them and I could play. I found myself nodding my head. Bonnie sighed. “Can you…could you play my song?”

“Yes.”

Without taking her eyes off me, Bonnie found my hands that were resting over the guitar and moved them into position. She settled back against my chest. “Please play for me.”

She seemed tired, her body leaning against me and her voice quiet. My fingers flexed. The guitar wasn’t an instrument I usually picked up. But that didn’t matter. She was right. I could just play it.

My hands simply understood its language.

Closing my eyes, I started playing the chords. No words accompanied the piece this time. Bonnie stayed silent as she listened. She didn’t move a muscle as the music she’d created poured from my fingers. On the instrument she clearly loved.

When the song finished, silence broke into the room. I felt Bonnie against me. I smelled her peach scent and I saw her bared skin. I hadn’t even realized my fingers had started moving again until the colors showed me the way. And I let them. No fighting it this time. No hiding it from Bonnie. I just thought of her and us and right now, and I used the guitar she loved so much to tell her without words what I was feeling.

Like with muscle memory, my body reacted to being able to create. Real, pure instruments in my hands. Not laptop keys and synthetic beats but wood and string and the colors that led. Peach and vanilla, milk-colored skin and brown hair pushing me on, inspiring notes.

I wasn’t sure how long I played. It could have been two minutes or two hours. I let my fingers loose, let them free from the shackles I’d forced on them three years ago. And with every note played, a part of the anger I fueled each day with my refusal to play, to compose, fell away until it was nothing but vapor, flying away with all of my reluctance to finally feel this.

This addictive, soaring feeling that only music could give. My body reacted like it had taken a deep breath after years of shutting down my lungs. I breathed. My heart beat. My blood pumped through my veins. And I composed music. It was part of me, not something I did. Part of my makeup.

And after this, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to go back.

My hands came to a stop. My fingers felt numb from playing. But it was a good kind of numbness. Addicting. I blinked, clearing my eyes, and saw the piano looking at me from across the room. The violin. The cello. The drums. Adrenaline rushed through me, urging me to play them all. Now I’d had a hit, I needed more and more.

“Cromwell…” Bonnie’s voice sliced through my thoughts. Her hand came up to my cheek, and she turned her head. She had tear tracks down her cheeks. Her lashes were clumped together from the wetness, and her lips were red. Bonnie always had the most peculiar color of lips. Such a deep red that they almost looked unnatural.

Her hand was a damn furnace on my skin. I turned into her palm, and a quick gasp of breath escaped Bonnie’s mouth. “That was beautiful,” she said and dropped her hand. It ran over my fingers that lay on the guitar’s neck.

“These hands,” she said. I could only see her cheeks move from this angle, but I knew she was smiling. “The music they can create.” She sighed. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

My chest expanded, something inside of it swelling at her words. Her finger ran over and over my hand until she finally pulled it away. She yawned, and I could see her eyes were getting small from tiredness. “I’m exhausted, Cromwell. I need to go home.”

I didn’t. For the first time in I didn’t know how long, I didn’t want to move. I wanted to stay in this music room. Because I wasn’t sure what would happen when we left it. I wasn’t sure if the anger would return. The need to run from all of this.

I didn’t know if Bonnie would walk away. After the way I’d treated her, I thought she might.

“Cromwell?” Bonnie pushed. I couldn’t hold on to this moment any longer. I pulled my hands back from the guitar. I needed to get off the stool. I moved my legs, but before I got up, I moved my mouth to her ear.

“I like your song, Farraday,” I whispered and caught her quick exhale.

I closed my eyes and breathed in the peach and vanilla. Bonnie arched into my chest. I dropped my head, running my nose down her neck until my mouth was at her bare shoulder. I brushed my lips over the pale soft skin. Then I kissed it once and moved back off the stool.

I got the guitar case off the floor and took the guitar from Bonnie’s hands. She hadn’t moved off the stool. When the guitar was packed, I finally looked down at her. She’d been watching me the whole time. I could tell by the embarrassed expression on her face. “I’ll walk you back,” I said.

Bonnie got up. Her feet faltered. She pushed her arm out. I grabbed hold of her, pulling her to my side to keep her steady. She was out of breath and seemed too hot.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said nervously. She tried to push away from me.

I kept my arm around her. “I might just keep you here to make sure you don’t fall.”

Bonnie smiled a little and sank back into my side. I walked her back to her dorm. The night was quiet. I didn’t know what time it was. But it must have been three or four in the morning.

Bonnie didn’t say a thing. Not until she stopped dead and looked up at me. “I wish I knew,” she said, voice strained. She needed to get home. She needed to sleep.

“Knew what?”

“What it’s like for you to see them.” She gazed off to the distance, lost in thought. “To hear colors.”

“I…I don’t know how to explain it,” I said. “It’s normal to me. I don’t know what it would be like to not see them.” I shrugged. “It’d be weird.”

“It’d be dull.” Bonnie fell back into step beside me. “Believe me, Cromwell. It would be a dream of mine to step into your world for just a brief moment. To see what you hear…a dream.”

We arrived at Bonnie’s dorm. “You have a room on your own?”

Bonnie’s head ducked, but she nodded. “Yeah.”

“Lucky you.”

She smiled. “You don’t like my twin?”

My lip twitched. “He’s okay.”

Bonnie took her guitar from me. She stood in the doorway, head down and nervous. “Thank you,” she said, looking up at me through her long lashes. “Thank you for tonight…” I nodded. I tried to get myself to move. My feet had other plans. “I guess I’ll see you in class on Monday.” She turned to go inside, but before she could, I leaned in and kissed her cheek. Bonnie sucked in a sharp breath.

“Night, Farraday.”

I had only walked a few feet before she said, “Cromwell?” I turned. “What’s your favorite? Your favorite color to see?”

I didn’t even think before I spoke the words. “Violet blue.”

She smiled and went into her dorm. I watched her go, dumbstruck at what I’d just said.

Violet blue.

I didn’t go home. I kept walking. I walked until I arrived at the spot by the lake that Easton showed me. I sat down on the grass and watched as the sun began to rise.

Birds sang and brought flickers of bright orange to my head. Cars passed, bringing scarlet reds. The same canoeist I always saw paddled in the distance, and I breathed in deeply. I tasted the freshness of the air and the green of the grass. It was keeping the walls from climbing back up. I tipped my head forward and pushed my fingers through my hair. I didn’t like how shaky I felt. Too many emotions were rushing through me, mixing the colors until I wasn’t able to tell them apart…

“I don’t want it anymore,” I said, snapping at my dad as he stood next to the stage.

I pulled on my bow tie and stormed past him. “I missed my footie match with my mates today.” I started pacing. “Instead I had to be here.” I pointed at the hall that was packed with people. All of them older than me by at least twenty years.

“Cromwell, I know you’re pissed off. But, son, the chance this is giving you. The music…You’re so talented. I can’t say it enough times.”

“I know you can’t! It’s all you ever talk about. This is all I ever do!” I balled my hands into fists. “I’m starting to hate music.” I hit my head with my hand. “I fucking hate these colors. I wish I never had them at all!”

My dad put his hands in the air. “I get it, son. I do. But I’m just looking out for your future. I don’t think you see your own potential—”

“And Tyler Lewis? Why is he here now? Why has he been trying to work with me?”

“Because he can help you, son. I’m an officer in the British Army. I have no idea how to foster your talent. How to help you realize your potential.” He shook his head. “I don’t see the colors like you. I can’t even play ‘Chopsticks’ on the piano. I’m out of my league.” He sighed. “Lewis can help you be the best you can be. I promise…I love you, son. Everything I do is only ever for you…”

I blinked away the memory and felt my stomach sink. I sat for two hours just watching the lake. I grabbed a breakfast burrito on the way home but then stopped at the music building. My emotions warred inside me. I wanted so badly to accept all this again—the music, the love of playing, the passion of composing. But the darkness I’d had for three years always lurked near, ready to bring the anger and snatch it all away. But then Bonnie’s face flashed in my head, and a sense of calmness washed through me. I let myself inside and saw the light on in Lewis’s office.

My jaw clenched as I raised my hand to knock. I stopped for a second and just breathed. What the hell are you doing, Dean? I asked myself. But then I thought of Farraday’s smile, and my knuckles hit wood.

“Come in?” The permission to enter was a cross between a question and command. I pushed the door open. Lewis stood behind his desk, sheets of music spread on the tabletop. He was wearing glasses. I’d never seen him wear them before.

“Cromwell?” he said in surprise. His stuff was all over the place. He looked like he hadn’t been to sleep at all.

Join the club.

“Lewis.” I sat down on the seat opposite him. He watched me warily. He sat down, gathering his sheets of music.

I caught sight of them as he did. He stopped and turned them to face me. “What do you think?” I could tell by his tone that he didn’t think I’d answer. But when I saw his scribbled notes on the manuscript paper, I couldn’t look away. He had parts for almost a full orchestra. My eyes ran over the notes, the colored pattern of the music playing in my head. I looked at them all, synergizing them into the symphony he was writing it to be.

“It’s good.” I was putting it mildly. It was beyond good. And by the look on Lewis’s face, he knew it.

“Still in its infancy, but so far, I’m happy with it.”

I looked at that picture of him in the Royal Albert Hall. I always did when I came in here. It held so many memories for me. “What’s it for?” I pointed at the music Lewis was putting into piles.

“The National Philharmonic is playing a huge gala concert in Charleston in a few months, celebrating new music. They’ve asked me to conduct. And I’ve agreed.”

I frowned. “I thought you didn’t conduct your music anymore.”

“I don’t.” He laughed and shook his head. “I’ve been in a better place in recent years…” He didn’t finish that sentence, but I knew it was in relation to his drug and alcohol problems. “I thought I’d give it a go.” He leaned forward and put his folded arms on the table. “It’s Sunday morning, Cromwell. And you look like you’ve been up all night too. How can I help you?”

I stared down at my hands in my lap. My blood was rushing through my veins so fast I could hear it in my ears. Lewis waited for me to speak. I didn’t know how the hell to explain. I almost got up and left, but Bonnie’s face came into my head and had me rooted to the seat.

I played with my tongue ring, then blurted out, “I have synesthesia.”

Lewis’s eyebrows rose.

He nodded. And by the lack of shock on his face, I knew. “My dad…” I shook my head. I even let out a single laugh. “He told you, didn’t he?”

Lewis was wearing an expression I didn’t recognize. Pity maybe? Sympathy? “Yeah, I knew,” he said. “Your father…” He watched me closely. I didn’t blame him. I’d almost torn his throat out the last time he’d mentioned him. When he saw I was keeping my shit together, he added, “He contacted me when I was in England on one of my tours.”

“The Albert Hall.” I pointed at the picture on his wall. “He brought me to meet you. We all came. Me, Mum, and Dad. He was on leave from the army.”

Lewis gave me a tight smile. “Yeah. I invited you to the show. But I wasn’t—” He sighed. “I wasn’t in a good place then. I’d been using for years by that point.” He looked up at the picture. “I almost died that night. Took so much heroin that my agent found me on a hotel floor.” His face paled. “I was minutes from death.” He faced me again. “It was a turning point for me.”

“What’s that got to do with me?”

“I remembered you. I have no memory of that night at all, yet I remembered meeting you. The boy with synesthesia and the ability to play anything he picked up.” He pointed at me with his hands steepled. “The boy who, by ten years old, could compose masterpieces.”

Icy coldness ran through me.

“I failed your father, Cromwell. It was years before I was in a better place to help. I contacted him. I even came to England, but you were already falling out of love with composition.” He met my eyes. “When I heard of his death…I wanted to honor the agreement I made with him years ago. To help you. To help you with your talent.”

My chest was tight. It always was when I thought of my dad. “I kept in touch with your mother. We talked, and I told her about my teaching here in Jefferson. That’s when I offered you the place.” Lewis ran his hand through his hair again. “I knew you had synesthesia.” He raised an eyebrow. “And I knew you now fought classical music. I wondered when it would all finally get the better of you.” He gave me an accepting smile. “You can’t fight the colors you were born to see.”

I wasn’t ready to talk about all that yet. I was here for another reason. “I want to be able to explain it to someone. What I see when I hear music. I want to explain. But I have no idea how.”

Lewis’s eyes narrowed. For a second I thought he was going to ask me who. But the guy knew to keep out of my business. “It’s hard if you don’t have it. It’s hard to explain if you do. How do you know how to explain the absence of something you’ve always lived with?”

I rolled my eyes. “That’s why I’m here. Wanted to know if you had any suggestions. You’re a music teacher, after all. You’ve surely heard of it before. No doubt studied it or some shit.”

He smirked. “Or some shit.”

Lewis got up and took a leaflet out of a rack on his wall. He put it in front of me. It was for a museum just outside of town. “You’re in luck, Mr. Dean.” I scanned the leaflet. It was advertising an exhibition on synesthesia.

“You have to be kidding me. There’s an exhibition on it?”

“Not yet. But it’s almost done.” He sat back down. “It’s a complete sensory experience, created by an artist friend of mine. It’s really quite something.”

“But it’s not open.” I blew out a frustrated breath.

“I can get you an early viewing if you’d like.” Lewis said, shrugging. “He might like more feedback from another synesthete. It could benefit everyone.”

“When?” I asked, pulse starting to race.

“Next weekend should be fine. I’ll ask him.”

I took the leaflet and put it in my pocket. I got to my feet. “You sure it’s good? That it’ll explain what I see and hear?”

“It might be different. Synesthetes often see things slightly differently from each other; there are no rules, after all. The exhibition may not show the exact colors you see for certain notes.”

“Then how do you know it’s any good?”

He smiled. “Because it’s based on me.”

My feet were cemented to the ground as what he said sank into my sleep-deprived brain. My eyes widened and drifted to the picture above his desk, the one with all the colors. “You too?”

Lewis nodded. “It was why I wanted to meet you all those years ago. I’ve met other synesthetes in my life, but none that shared such a similar type to mine.”

I stared at Lewis. I didn’t know if it was because of the shared synesthesia, but I suddenly saw him differently. Not as the professor that kept poking his nose into my business, or the infamous composer who gave it all up for drugs. But as a fellow musician. Someone who followed colors like me. I stared at the composition on his desk and wondered what color story he saw.

“Er…thanks.” I turned for the door. Just before I left, I asked, “What color is D?”

Lewis smiled. “Azure.”

I huffed a laugh. “Ruby red.”

Lewis nodded. I closed the door and made my way back to the dorm. A synesthesia exhibition. Perfect. Now I only had to find a way to get Bonnie to come with me.

She wanted to know what I saw when I heard music.

The thought of letting someone else in that close still rubbed me the wrong way, and the walls began to build once more. But then I remembered her song, and her face when she found out the truth about me. And I pushed the thoughts down. Keeping her face in my head.

And I fell asleep smelling peach and vanilla and tasting sugar sweetness on my tongue.