You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone

He sighs, dropping his basket to the elevator floor in front of us, putting up a barrier. “Becca and I dated for a little while last year, but it didn’t work out, and she wanted to get coffee to catch up.”

“You’re not getting back together or anything, are you?”

“No. We’re not. We were just talking.” There’s a sharp edge to his words.

Our voices echo in this small space where we are stuck between floors, stuck between together and apart.

“I hate that you and I can’t ‘just talk’ in public like that.”

“You know why we can’t. You said you understood. I’ve worked hard to build my reputation here, and even a rumor about us could ruin it.” He gives the side of the elevator a light kick. “Why isn’t it working yet?” he grumbles. He takes out his cell and curses under his breath. “No service.”

“Why didn’t you answer my messages earlier?”

Another deep sigh, and he props an arm against the elevator wall. “You’re starting to worry me. You text me constantly, and I work, and I can’t always respond right away like you apparently need me to. And then you follow me? I don’t know what the hell’s going on, but I don’t like it.”

“I had to see you. I—I’m really scared.” I bite the inside of my cheek. “I think I’m starting to show symptoms.”

“Adi,” he says, an eyebrow quirking like he thinks I am making this up to mess with him. Half true, perhaps.

“I’m serious. When it first happened to my mother, she was clumsy all the time, and that’s how I’ve been feeling. You know how she hit her head on New Year’s Eve? I dropped my viola, and now it has this crack, and I’ve never been careless with it—you know that about me. And my moods are all over the place. Also—I’ve been hearing things, seeing things out of the corner of my eye that I’m pretty sure aren’t real. Hallucinations, delusions. My mother has them.” I’m bending the truth now, seeing how far it will stretch before it snaps. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Have you talked to your parents?” His words become gentler, though his face is still anger and hard angles.

I shake my head. “You’re the first person I’ve said it out loud to. It’s—” I force my voice up an octave so it’ll crack with just the right amount of emotion to get to him. “It’s really hard to say, and I’m terrified I won’t be able to play viola, and that’s the most important thing to me—you know that. . . . What happens when I don’t have that anymore? Who am I without it?” Tears trickle down my cheeks.

Finally, his features soften, all his earlier rage turning into sympathy. I used to want him to want me because of me, but if pity is the only way to tether him to me right now, I will settle for it. At least it means he cares for me.

“Come here,” he says, shoeing the laundry basket out of our way. He holds his arms out, and I collapse into them, able to breathe more deeply with his warmth around me. I grip the fabric of his shirt, hanging on tight. He feels bigger than I remember, his arms able to hold more of me. He strokes my hair, uses a finger to catch my tears. “I’m sorry, Adina.”

When I lift my face from his chest, I put my lips to his neck and inhale him, rosin and soap and laundry detergent. I kiss the hollow of his throat until it rumbles with a groan. Then I move higher, bringing my mouth to his, biting down on his lower lip the way he likes.

By the time we reach the first floor, I realize I hadn’t even noticed the elevator had started moving again.

A jazz singer croons through Arjun’s speakers. Two wineglasses sit on the coffee table in front of us. Earlier we cooked dinner together, as much as boiling water for pasta and tossing arugula in oil and vinegar can be considered cooking. His refrigerator barely had anything in it—the arugula was wilted but I didn’t say anything, and he didn’t have pasta sauce, so we just sprinkled shredded cheddar on top of it. One day we will go grocery shopping together, and I will make sure he is well stocked. He probably didn’t have time to go earlier and didn’t know I’d be here. Though I guess he had time to have coffee with Becca.

This cozy Friday night feels like a regular couple activity, but Arjun has been relatively quiet. It’s turned me into a chatterbox. I have peppered him with as many questions as I can think of, more questions about his life in India and classical music and minute details about his family members.

“Why did you stop performing?” I ask him now. I’m wearing one of his collared shirts with the top few buttons undone. It stops at my thighs. We had sex earlier, and while it was good, if rushed—he always makes sure it is good for me—that cannot be the only language we speak anymore.

“It’s nothing dramatic.” He sips his wine and focuses on the ruby liquid as he answers my question. When he speaks again, his voice is weary, as though he is exhausted by my interrogations. But I don’t understand it. I want to savor this adult conversation with my adult boyfriend. I want him to be so fascinated by me that he asks me questions too, but he has barely sent any my way.

“I still want to know,” I urge as gently as I can. It must bring up bad memories. Maybe it’s similar to how my mother doesn’t talk about Israel and her life there.

He sighs. “I’d been playing since I was very young, and it started to feel monotonous. This might sound arrogant, but a lot of the challenge was gone for me. I began to dread performances because it felt like I was spitting out music I’d committed to memory long ago. There was no excitement left for me.”

“Why haven’t you ever told me that?”

“How can it possibly inspire my students? I gave up, but you should go for it?” He shakes his head. “My parents couldn’t understand why I’d give it up, but I wanted out of everything. Out of that life, out of the symphony. I had a cousin in the States, so I moved here. I couldn’t be entirely away from the music, so I started teaching.”

“Do you ever want to go back? To performing?”

“Sometimes. I can enjoy playing simply for pleasure now. There’s no pressure. And I love teaching.”

I draw a quarter note on his knee with a fingertip. “You’re very good at it.”

He shifts his leg away from me, and my hand plummets to the couch. “Thank you.” Then he rises and picks up our wineglasses. “So . . . you’re okay now?”

“What do you mean?” My heart flutters into overdrive.