I Was Already Gone novel · Chapter 18 of 24
Chapter 18: The Night Before
On Friday night, with the showcase a day away, Roxie unlocked practice room B and said, "Rehearsal."
"We rehearsed twice today."
"Then this is the third."
She locked the door behind us and put the key in her bra.
The room was exactly as I remembered it, with the piano, the two chairs, and the window that looked at a brick wall.
I stood in the middle of the floor, because that was where she had told me to stand the first time.
"Sing the chorus," she said.
I sang it.
"Better. You don't apologize to the wall anymore."
"I apologize to you."
"For what?"
"For all the days I didn't say what I wanted."
She put her hands flat on my ribs.
They were warm through my shirt, and her rings pressed in, small and cool.
"Breathe in," she said. "Push my hands out."
I breathed in.
I pushed her hands out, and my heart went at her palms.
"That's not nerves," she said.
"No."
"Tell me what it is."
I had been practicing the sentence for a week, in the shower, at the stove, on the way to class.
I did not need any of it.
"I want you," I said. "I want to take you apart on this floor, slowly, and then fast. I want you loud enough that the whole building knows my name."
Her breath caught.
"I want you in the front row tomorrow, and I want to look at you first," I said. "I want to wake up where you are, and I want to be the one who answers on time. Every time you ask me something."
"Elliott."
"I'm not done."
She grinned, and her eyes were wet.
"I want your mouth," I said. "Now."
She kissed me so hard that I walked backward until my spine hit the piano.
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