Chapter 40

40

I walk back to the music room to find that everyone is gathered in a circle.

“She is here!” comes an electronic voice from the middle. I see that it’s Mr. Yoon on the VOCA.

“What’s happening?” I ask as Aled sets up a silver music stand and Cooper reaches into his rucksack, pulling out a hard black violin case.

Mr. Yoon places the VOCA on the table behind him. He opens up his crossword puzzle book and carefully leans it against the music stand. Has he lost his marbles? Why is he putting his puzzle book on the music stand?

Cooper hushes the other guests. I’m about to ask what the heck is going on, when Mr. Yoon draws his bow across the strings of the violin and begins to play.

Gosh.

I expected that he would be good because there’s a literal picture in his cupboard of him winning some kind of award. But that picture was taken years ago, and I’ve never seen or heard Mr. Yoon play an instrument in the whole time I’ve lived next door. And after his anger at me finding the picture, I never thought I would.

I don’t recognise the music but it is slow, winsome, and yearning in a way that makes my heart fill up with melancholy anticipation. Mr. Yoon closes his eyes and starts to relax into it as the piece becomes louder and full of longing. Around me I hear gasps and murmurs from the other party guests, and as I watch my grumpy old neighbour play, it occurs to me that this is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever felt. The notes transform into a quicker, more cheerful crescendo, and I don’t realise that I’m crying until Mr. Yoon plays the last note, his trembling hand creating a vibrato that oscillates around the airy room. He opens his eyes, and I see that his eyes are filled with tears too.

The applause is loud and enthusiastic, and I’m clapping harder than anyone.

“Bravo!” Frida shouts from behind me.

“A star in our midst!” Jan cheers.

The other guests eventually return to milling about, getting to know each other in that stilted, awkward way that I now realise is the way that pretty much all new relationships start out. Mr. Yoon points at the violin and then beckons me over.

When I reach him, he taps the crossword book on the music stand, and I see that resting on the pages of a puzzle are two sheets of paper covered with bars of music. They’ve been neatly written onto the paper in pencil.

“You composed this yourself?” I gasp. “Mr. Yoon!”

He points to the corner of the paper, and I see there in his small neat print: Delphie from Next Door. A Sonata. The date at the top is from two years ago. In fact, I remember it’s the day after my birthday. The morning I took him a slice of my cake for breakfast.

My eyes fill with tears again. My throat is so thick with emotion I can’t say anything. I just catch my breath and smile as I look at the paper full of scratches that just produced the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard. A piece of music named for me.

Mr. Yoon picks up the VOCA from the edge of the table behind him and types into it, his eyes squinting at the letters. I make a mental note to ask Cooper to arrange an optician’s appointment.

Mr. Yoon presses enter on the machine.

“Started writing this a long time ago but I never finished it. I was too afraid to play.”

“Why?” I ask. “Why were you afraid to play? Is that why you got angry with me for finding the picture?”

Mr. Yoon types again. “Long story. Another time. When you came to me at the hospital, I knew how to finish it.”

“He forced me to sneak in his violin,” Cooper says, appearing at my side. He fiddles with his phone, jazz tinkling out into the room once more.

“May I…may I hug you, Mr. Yoon?” I ask.

He shrugs and then smiles and nods.

We hold each other in the middle of the Tyburnia Library music room, and he smells just like his house. Like cigarette smoke and coffee and woolly jumpers, even though it’s summer and he’s wearing a shirt.

“May I cut in?” Cooper says after a few moments.

Mr. Yoon nods before picking up the VOCA machine and wandering over to where Jan and Leanne are chatting to Deli Dan.

Cooper shoves his phone in his pocket. “At the gala, you know, before you…”

“Threw champagne in someone’s face and then accosted an innocent man in front of everyone?”

“Yes. Before that. I wanted so much to dance with you.”

“Why didn’t you ask?” I murmur.

“You would have said no.”

He’s right. I would have. How have things changed so much in just a few days?

“Ask me now.”

“Would you dance with me, Delphie?”

I take his hand in mine. He puts his other hand on the small of my back and presses me to him, guiding me in time with the music, the beat of which I can’t quite grasp hold of but he seems to know by heart.

Beside us Frida and Aled also start to dance, Frida’s cheeks pink with joy, Aled swaying awkwardly from side to side.

Cooper leans his head back, eyes travelling across my face. “Honey,” he says, “you really do sparkle and shine.”

I can’t help but laugh as Cooper raises an eyebrow cornily, referring to the slogan on my terrible nightie. He grins and pulls me even closer.

I think about his mum’s excited words. Cooper is in love with me. He is in love. With me? How can that be when we don’t even really know each other yet? It can’t be. I don’t know about love, but I get the sense that the way I feel right now, dancing with him, is the way humans are supposed to feel. Anticipation. Hope. An excitement about the days to come. And if I disappear back to Evermore, the emotional fallout for a man in love would be…it doesn’t bear thinking about.

Behind me Jan and Leanne laugh out loud at something Mr. Yoon has typed into the machine. Aled has just kissed Frida on the cheek. She gives me a thumbs-up behind his back. Shelley from the corner shop and her sister are chugging champagne in the corner, and Flashy Tom from The Orchestra Pit is talking to Mrs. Ernestine, his mouth full of a Baba sandwich from Deli Dan.

My heart lifts and my stomach churns.

How am I supposed to leave this? This…life. Because what I was living ten days ago wasn’t a life at all. But this? This noise and laughter and mess and fear and…people. Friends. Possible love.

I can’t lose this.

There are people in this room who wouldn’t want to lose me either. I make a difference to them.

I can’t leave. Evermore is too far away. I don’t want to die.

Fuck.

I want to live.

I glance up at the clock on the wall.

I have two hours until Merritt takes me.

I need to find Jonah. Now.

And for the first time in the last ten days, I know exactly where to go.