The Sigma Asset 🏳️‍🌈 (bxb)║AMBYS WINNER 2022

47: The Music Inside Him

Korean Translations at the end of the chapter.

It had been raining all day, the northern side of the beach a miserable wash of muddy sand as the State Park's gullies and streams overflowed into the ocean.

Even the music of my Friday piano lessons was painted in drab gray tones, the sparkling strings and hammers of the piano unable to lift me out of the puddle that I'd been wading in for the past four days.

I should have known that Luke would fuck everything up. Knowing that he was alive had somehow made the sickening feeling of dread worse. Luke was still an asset, managed by The One, who was in debt to El Nube. By far the worst discovery was that Noah was somehow tangled up in Luke's mess. 

And I hadn't seen Will since his birthday party. Too afraid to seek him out, I'd taken comfort in hearing the sounds of him moving around the house over the past days.

It was a relief in a way, to know that we'd slipped too far away from each other to go back to how we were. We could both start thinking about life beyond me going home. I'd be able to plan for teaching piano in Busan, and Will would be able to settle properly in Santa Elena. Perhaps talking about our future plans would make for a more pleasant final two weeks for us both.

My abandoned dinner still in front of me, I mindlessly repeated my new ritual of pulling my necklace out from under my T-shirt, turning the shell over and over again in my palm, touching it to my lips and hiding it again. Perhaps I would give the necklace to Nuna after all. She'd love it, and it would be a message to Will that I was moving on.

My first thought at the sound of Will's key in the door, and his footsteps into the house, was to run to him. So much for planning for the future and moving on. But that would come in time. Giving Will a few minutes to go hide in his room, as was his preferred method of avoiding me, I pulled the exquisite little shell free of my T-shirt once more, kissed it, and returned it safely under my clothes.

But Will hadn't gone into his room; he appeared silently at the kitchen door. "Hey."

Having not heard the rich timbre of his voice for days, my brain faltered and, try as I might, no casual breezy words sprang outta my mouth to save me. "Hey. You hungry?"

Nerves too jumbled to dare to look up from my stone-cold dinner, I drank in what I could of Will through my peripheral vision: battered Chuck Taylors, ripped jeans offering glimpses of olive-brown skin.

"Not yet."

I thought that would be all the words we'd share for the day, but Will didn't flee to his room. Had he forgiven me for throwing myself at him?

Will perched in the chair opposite me, poking away at his phone screen. "I...I saw this in the Newsletter. From Julián."

He offered me his phone, the advertisement section of the Santa Elena Newsletter displayed on the screen.

"Julián's advertising his spare room," I said. "So what?"

"It's near Arenosa Rocks. I thought...you might wanna move there."

"Move there?" My attempt to say it casually came out as a shriveled little croak.

I should have expected it, really. The most efficient way for us both to move on.

Will was throwing me out.

This was a good thing. I'd been determined, optimistic even, to look to the future and make plans for my new life in Busan. Staying with Julián was a logical step toward that. But my head wouldn't nod. My lips wouldn't lift into a smile of agreement.