Lawless by Tracey Ward Page B

silently in the corner, it’s golden wood notched and abused. A set of drums worn white by countless palms percussing its surface stands still. Listening. The entire room is listening, absorbing as I play. As I pour myself into the song. As I give it everything I have and come up short.
    “Holy shit.”
    My fingers stumble, my timing thrown off and my focus gone.
    I spin on the stool to shout at whoever burst in and startled me, but my anger dies on my lips when I meet his eyes.
    “Sorry,” Lawson apologizes immediately. He stands straight, pulling himself up from where he was leaning against the doorframe. “I kept my mouth shut as long as I could. But holy shit.”
    “What are you doing here?”
    Only a faint light is coming in from the hallway behind him, his face almost entirely cast in shadow, but I catch the flicker of a grin on his lips. “Believe it or not, your dad told me where I could find you. I think he did it just to get me off his property.”
    “I doubt that was it,” I assure him, completely sure that it is.
    He moves slowly into the room, circling wide. “You don’t have to lie. Dads don’t like me. It’s no secret.”
    “He should at least wait to get to know you before he hates you.”
    “He thinks he already does.” He stops on the opposite side of the gleaming black piano, one of the only instruments in the music room that’s undamaged, and puts his palms on the surface. “It’s creepy being back here.”
    “It’s an elementary school,” I chuckle. “How creepy can it be?”
    “How often do you come here?”
    “Often. I’ve been coming here after hours since the fourth grade to practice.”
    “I’m surprised you don’t have a piano at home.”
    I hover my head over the keys, hiding behind my hair. “No, we do. The acoustics are better in here, though. And I play the same thing over and over again for hours. It gets irritating for anyone else in the house.”
    And the piano my parents spent the entire household Christmas fund on six years ago is old and always out of tune.
    “What were you playing just now?” Lawson asks. “It sounded complicated.”
    I laugh, nodding my head. “It is. It’s not an easy one. It’s Schumann. Fantasie .” I drag my fingers unceremoniously over the keys, sending a string of nonsense through the air. “I’m not good at it.”
    “It sounded good to me.”
    “Because you’ve never heard it played well before. I’m clumsy with it. I get distracted, I dismantle the tempo. It throws everything off.”
    “Distracted by what?”
    “The song. The story.”
    “It has a story?”
    I grin at him. “All music has a story.”
    He smiles, taking a seat in a metal chair to my right and leaning forward on his elbows. “What’s this one about?”
    “Schumann was in love with a girl. She was nine years younger than him but a piano prodigy. They fell in love. Her parents didn’t approve.”
    “Lot of that going around,” Lawson says dryly.
    “Ha ha,” I laugh theatrically. “Anyway, they wouldn’t let them see each other so he wrote her music with hidden messages. Fantasie was one of them. It was a love letter. One she could play over and over again, knowing it was for her. When she turned eighteen he proposed, she accepted, her parents said no, and they sued them for the right to get married. A judge gave them the go ahead and so they did.”
    “It’s a nice story. I can see why you like the song.”
    “Yeah, well, that part is nice. Eventually Schumann tried to commit suicide, was tossed into a mental hospital, and died.”
    “Oh.”
    “Yeah. But the song is good, right?”
    He frowns. “I don’t know anymore.”
    “Yeah,” I sigh. “Me either.”
    “Play me something else.”
    “What do you want to hear?”
    “What do you want to play?”
    “ Fantasie . Flawless.”
    “No. What do you like to play? What makes this fun for you?”
    I stop to think, absently plucking at the keys as I do.
    I look at Lawson. At his patient