Chapter Twenty-Five Cromwell

Chapter Twenty-Five

Cromwell

I stood, staring at her through the glass window. She had a ventilator in again and chest drains that took the fluid from her body. But I had hope again in my heart.

Because she’d survived the operation. And so far, the doctor told us, it was a success. But as I stared at her face, her closed eyes that today the doctor told us should open, I knew it wasn’t that easy. Because today she had to wake up and be told that the heart that had so seamlessly melded to her body was that of her best friend, her twin…Easton.

I ran my hands down my face and turned to see Bonnie’s parents on the sofa. They were holding hands, but their faces were vacant and destroyed. Everything had happened so quickly. Too quickly, so everything was just hitting them now. They’d cried when they’d seen Bonnie brought back from surgery, but they hadn’t spoken much.

I had no idea what to say.

I looked at the spot beside me. Where Easton normally stood. My chest constricted as I thought of him. As I thought back to the first day when Easton had taken me under his wing. As he paraded us through campus, larger than life. His vibrant paintings that over time had dimmed to darkness. And the colors that had surrounded him, the bright colors that had muted to grays and blacks.

Guilt swam strong in my veins. Because I’d seen the colors fade. But I thought it was because of his sister.

The police had come by. They had ruled Easton’s death a suicide, which we knew. And they’d brought a letter. A letter they had found in his truck, addressed to Bonnie. Mrs. Farraday was clutching that letter as if it would somehow bring her son back.

I walked out of the hospital and pulled out my smokes. As I brought one to my mouth, I suddenly stopped. I glanced up at the sunny sky, at the birds singing mustard yellow and the leaves rustling bronze, and threw the cigarette to the ground. Then I walked to the bin and threw the whole pack away.

I slumped on a nearby bench and everything hit me. Emotions built so high within me that they choked me. I wanted to run to the music room and pour it all out. But that made me think of Lewis, and I had to push that anger back down or it would destroy me too.

Patterns of music appeared in my head when I thought back to the first time I played the piano, when the colors showed me the way. I heard violins play pizzicato, heard a flute come in next. Then the piano would lead, telling the story of a musician born. Of a father sitting beside him, spurring him on. I saw my father fade in a solo cello. I squeezed my eyes shut. Then the story continued.

A hand squeezed my shoulder. I started and looked up. “She’s awake,” Mr. Farraday said.

I swallowed. “Does she know?”

He shook his head. “She comes off the ventilator tonight.” He nodded, showing a strength I admired. “She’ll know soon enough.”

I got to my feet and followed Mr. Farraday down the corridor to Bonnie’s room in intensive care. I washed my hands and stepped through the door. Bonnie’s brown eyes landed on mine. She had a tube down her throat, hiding her lips, but I saw the smile in her eyes.

She’d kept her promise. She’d made it.

“Hey, baby.” Taking hold of her fingers, I leaned close and kissed her forehead. My lips shook, hating that I had knowledge of something that would destroy her. Bonnie’s hands tightened in mine. I closed my eyes and fought back the tears that threatened to fall. “You were so brave, baby,” I said and sat beside her. A tear fell from the corner of her eye.

Her eyes started to close. Tiredness pulling her under. I stayed beside her as long as I could. I waited in the waiting room as her mum and dad visited with her too. Then, when night fell, the doctor made us all wait outside as they took her off the ventilator. When the doctor came back through to get us, I felt a damn canon explode in my chest. I followed her parents to the room. Bonnie’s mum ran over to her and gently held her in her arms. Her father followed, and I hung back.

When they moved aside, Bonnie smiled at me. She was covered in machines again, but her smile was huge. I came close, then kissed her on the mouth. Her breathing hitched. “I love you,” I whispered.

Bonnie mouthed it back. Her eyes lifted to the room again. My heart plummeted. I knew who she was looking for. Her eyebrows pulled down and she blinked, the question clear in her eyes.

Where is Easton?

Her dad stepped forward. “He couldn’t be here, sweetheart.” He was trying to shield his sadness from her, but it wasn’t working. Bonnie watched him like a hawk. Mr. Farraday stroked her hair back from her face. But Bonnie looked at her mum slowly falling apart on the chair beside her. Then she looked to me, and her bottom lip trembled. My hands clenched into fists at my side. I felt useless, unable to keep her from feeling what I knew she was about to feel.

“Easton?” she said, her voice croaky from the tube. Water brimmed in her eyes. “Where…is he?” I dropped my eyes, unable to watch this unfold. I tried to breathe, but the boulder in my chest wouldn’t let me. “Hurt?” she managed to ask.

Her mum sobbed, unable to keep it held back. Then I looked up and saw that Bonnie was looking at me. I had to go to her. My legs carried me forward and I took her hand.

Mr. Farraday stood. “There was an accident, sweetheart.” His voice broke on the last part.

Her hand shook in mine. “No.” The tears that had been brimming in her eyes tipped over her lashes and fell down her cheeks. And I watched as her free hand slid from her mum’s and painstakingly slowly made its way to her chest. She closed her eyes over her new heart, and her entire body started to shake. Tear after tear fled down her cheeks and onto her pillow.

I bent down and pressed my forehead to hers. It only made her worse. Wracking sobs fell from her mouth. Mr. Farraday had said Easton had had an accident, but I was pretty sure that Bonnie knew the truth.

Easton, for whatever reason, felt displaced in this world. No one knew this better than his twin.

“Bonnie,” I whispered. I closed my eyes and just held her. Held her as she fell apart. The moment that was meant to be a celebration had turned into a tragedy in her eyes. In all of ours.

I held her that way as she cried so hard I worried something would go wrong. She’d just woken up from major surgery, but I was sure that nothing but finding this had all been a nightmare would take away her pain.

Bonnie cried until she fell asleep. I didn’t go anywhere. I held her hand, just in case she woke up. Her parents went to the waiting room. They had things to handle with the police and the hospital. I couldn’t imagine having to cope with all of this at once. How do you celebrate one child being spared from death only to lose the other in such a devastating way?

Right now I felt numb. But I knew what would come. I couldn’t have all of these emotions warring within me and them not bubble to the surface. But for now, I pushed them down as far as I could.

I must have fallen asleep, because I woke to the feel of fingers in my hair. I blinked my eyes open and looked up.

Bonnie was looking at me. But just as before, her eyes were wet and her skin was pale and patchy from crying. “He took his life…didn’t he?” Her words were bullets to my heart.

I nodded. There was no point in lying to her. She’d known it from the minute she’d woken up. Bonnie held on to my hand. Even now, only a couple of days after surgery, her grip was stronger.

She was stronger.

I was sure, somewhere, Easton had a flicker of a smile on his face at that fact.

Bonnie breathed in deeply, her lungs filling with such a large amount of air that color immediately sprouted on her cheeks. Her hand took mine with it as it went to her chest. I heard the new heartbeat. The strong and rhythmic heartbeat under my palm.

It was magenta.

When I’d listened to Easton’s heart under the stethoscope, it had been magenta.

“I have his heart, don’t I?” Bonnie’s eyes were closed when she said it. But then they opened and her gaze fixed on me.

“Yes.”

Her face contorted with pain. Something seemed to change in Bonnie at that instant. It was as if I watched her happiness and her soul flee from her body. The color that surrounded her switched from purples and pinks into browns and grays. Even her hand, which had been holding mine so tightly, slackened and pulled away. I tried to take it back, but Bonnie shut down like the gate of a fort.

Impenetrable.

I stayed in her room for two more days. And with every passing second, the Bonnie I knew and loved pulled further and further away. I wanted to cry when I played some Mozart on my phone and she turned to me, eyes vacant, and said, “Could you please turn that off?”

Bonnie was healing, but her mind was broken. One night, I thought she’d come back to me. She’d awoken at three in the morning, put her hand in mine, and rolled to face me. “Bonnie…?” I’d whispered.

Her bottom lip shook, her exhausted eyes barely open. “How can my heart be fixed but already be broken?” I moved beside her and held her close. Just holding her while she fell apart. It was such a small thing, but in that moment, I’d never felt more useful to anyone in my life.

But the next morning she pulled away from me again. Back to the Bonnie that was trapped in her head, in her pain. The Bonnie that was shutting everyone out. Physically getting stronger but emotionally falling apart.

The nurses gave me big smiles as I passed by their station on Bonnie’s new ward. So far, her body wasn’t rejecting the heart and she was doing well, well enough to leave intensive care. I took a deep breath as I approached her new room. Only when I got there, Mr. Farraday was standing outside. “Hi,” I said and moved to open the door.

He stepped into my path. I frowned. His face was pale and sad, filled with regret. “She’s refusing to see anyone, Cromwell.” I heard the words, but they didn’t sink in. I tried to move past her dad again. But he only blocked my path once more.

“Let me through.” My voice was low and threatening. I knew it. But I didn’t care. I just had to get in there to her.

Mr. Farraday shook his head. “I’m sorry, son. But she’s…she’s finding life real hard at the minute. She doesn’t want to see you. Any of us.” I saw the agony on his face. “I’m just trying to make things better for her, son. Any way I can.”

My jaw clenched and my hands started to shake. They curled into fists. “Bonnie!” I called, my voice loud enough to draw the attention of everyone in the ward. “Bonnie!” I screamed. Mr. Farraday tried to usher me back. “BONNIE!” I dodged Mr. Farraday and burst through the door to her room.

Bonnie was sitting in bed, her back propped up against pillows. She was staring out of the window. Then she turned to me. “Bonnie,” I said and took a step forward. But I froze mid-step when Bonnie looked away. When she turned her back on me completely.

And then they came. The floodgates opened, and all the emotions of the past few weeks came hurtling forward like the heavy crescendo of a bass drum.

I stepped back and back again as I pictured Easton with his wrists slit. Bonnie having a heart attack in my arms. Easton on the gurney, the rope hanging from the tree. Then Bonnie…finding out Easton was gone, that his heart now beat as hers.

And I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t fucking cope. I turned just as two security guards came toward me. I held up my hands. “I’m going. I’m going!” I risked a glance back at Bonnie, but her back was still to me. I started jogging down the corridor, but before I’d even made it out of the hospital I was at a full sprint. I made it to my truck, all the colors and emotions melding into one. My brain pulsed like a drum. My head ached, pressure behind my eyes so strong I could barely see.

Neon colors were fireworks in my brain, lighting up until I couldn’t take it. I slammed my truck into park and practically jumped from the car. I burst through the music building, no plan ahead, just following my feet. My fist pounded on a door.

The door flew open, and Lewis’s face was all I could see. I grabbed my head, and then, not caring if anyone heard, said, “I want to do the gala.”

Lewis’s mouth fell open, and I saw the shock on his face. I brushed past him and entered his office. “Bonnie got the heart.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Easton killed himself…” My voice broke, and sadness crashed over me like a tidal wave. I choked on the memory of the rope, the gurney…of Bonnie.

“Cromwell.” Lewis stepped closer.

I pushed out my hand. “No.” He stopped dead. “I came to you because no one else understands.” I hit my head with the heel of my hand. “You see what I see, feel what I feel.” I sucked in a breath. “I need help.” My hands fell away from me, my body starting to lose energy. “I need your help with the music. It’s building up. The colors. The patterns.” I shook my head. “The music is too much, too much at once, the colors too bright.”

Lewis came closer again. Just as he reached me, as he held out his hand, I stepped back. I saw his face. I saw the desperation. I saw the need to talk. Then my eyes tracked their way to the flask on his desk. The liquor. The dark circles under his eyes. “I’m not here for anything else.” He froze, then he pushed his hand through his hair. Just like I did. That was another crowbar to my gut. I choked on my voice, but managed, “I’m here for the music. I don’t want to talk about anything else. Just please…” My eyes dripped with tears. Bonnie’s rejection was spurring me on. If she heard my music, if I played the gala, she’d hear the music was for her. She’d see that I loved her. She’d see she had a life to live for.

With me.

Beside me.

Forever.

I lifted my eyes to Lewis. “Please…help me…” I tapped my head. “Help me put this down in music. Just…help me.”

“Okay.” Lewis ran his hand through his hair again. “But Cromwell, let me explain. Please, just hear me out—”

“I can’t,” I said, choking. “Not yet.” I shook my head, a cave tunneling in my chest. I tried to breathe, but it felt too hard. “I can’t cope with that too…not yet.”

Lewis looked like he wanted to reach for me. His hand was raised, but I couldn’t go there. Not yet. “Okay.” He met my eyes. “We have little to no time, Cromwell. You ready for this? It’ll be days and nights, endless days and nights, to get this where it needs to be.”

A sense of purpose so strong settled the storm within me. “I’m ready.” I sucked in a breath, and this time I could breathe. “I have it inside me, Professor. I always have.” I closed my eyes, thought of my dad, Bonnie, and the music that had tried to claw its way from my soul for too long. “I’m ready to compose.” A sudden shift in me seemed to calm my mind, my emotions. “I’m done with pushing it all away.”

“Then follow me.” Lewis led me to the music room he’d taken me to the night I’d found Easton, wrists slit, in our dorm room. I moved straight to the piano and sat down. My fingers found their place on the keys, and I opened my soul and let the colors fly.

Reds and blues, purples and pinks swarmed around me, engulfing me in a cloud. And I let them fall where they lay, my fingers showing me the way.

Azure.

Peach.

Ochre.

And violet blue.

I would forever chase the violet blue.