The Adagio of Rivals and Desire

The practice room was a tomb of sound.

Leo could hear the ghost of it, lingering in the air even now, hours after the last official rehearsal. A particular phrase from Chopin’s Second Ballade, played not with the stormy passion he favored, but with a chilling, crystalline precision that made his own interpretation feel suddenly clumsy. It was Elena’s ghost. It had been following him all week.

The prestigious Alistair Grant Fellowship was a one-in-a-generation opportunity: a year of study in Vienna, a debut recital at the Konzerthaus, a career launched not with a whimper but a cannonade. Only one pianist would get it. The final round, a week from now, would decide. The conservatory’s hallways thrummed with a brittle tension; you could see it in the averted eyes of the other four finalists, in the way their teachers offered tight, strategic smiles. For Leo Moretti, with his tousled dark hair and a tendency to attack the keys as if wrestling a demon, the greatest obstacle wasn’t the jury or the repertoire. It was the woman in Room 3B.

Elena Vance. He saw her name on the schedule, a neat, sharp script next to his own, dividing the precious grand piano hours. He’d heard her play before—everyone had. It was technically flawless, intellectually formidable, and to Leo’s ear, emotionally arid. It was architecture, not art. She was all sleek, ash-blonde ponytail, perfectly fitted black dresses, and a demeanor so cool it could frost glass. They’d exchanged perhaps ten words in three years, all variations on “you’re in my light” or “that’s my copy of the score.” Rivalry was too warm a word. It was a cold war.

Tonight, frustration drove him back. His own practice had been a disaster; his fingers felt like sausages, his beloved Brahms capriccio turning into mud under his hands. The echo of Professor Riedel’s critique from that afternoon’s masterclass still rang in his ears: “Moretti, your passion is commendable, but must it sound like a bar fight? We are sculpting sound, not assaulting it.” He needed the piano. He needed to conquer it. Slipping into the darkened hallways of Granville Hall after hours was a time-honored tradition, a quiet trespass every serious student committed. The building itself seemed to hold its breath at night, the portraits of past virtuosos staring blankly from the walls, the scent of old wood, lemon polish, and distant anxiety clinging to the air.

As he approached the door to the main practice wing, a sliver of light from under the door of Room 3A gave him pause. Then, the sound. Not the full-bodied roar of the Steinway, but a single line of music, repeated. A left-hand passage from the same Chopin Ballade that had haunted him. It was being dissected, note by note, chord by chord, with the patience of a surgeon. The rhythm was perfect. The touch was lethally even.

Elena.

He should have turned around. Found another room. Instead, a perverse curiosity rooted him to the spot. He leaned against the cool wall, listening as she deconstructed the phrase, then rebuilt it, slower, then faster, then with a subtle rubato that surprised him. It wasn’t mechanical. There was a thought behind it, a specific, considered emotion. He found himself mentally playing along, his fingers twitching at his sides.

The playing stopped. The silence was abrupt, total.

Then, her voice, clear and devoid of warmth, came through the door. “Are you planning to lurk out there all night, Moretti, or would you like to come in and criticize in person?”

Heat flushed his neck. Busted. He pushed the door open.

She was alone in the pool of light from the piano lamp, the rest of the room in deep shadow. She didn’t turn to look at him, her back straight as a ruler, her hands resting lightly on her knees. The score was open before her, covered in her precise, minute annotations.

“I wasn’t lurking,” he said, the defensiveness in his voice immediately annoying him. “I was listening. It’s a public hallway.”

“At eleven-thirty on a Wednesday. Very public.” Now she turned. Her eyes were a pale, startling blue, like winter sky. They assessed him without welcome. “Couldn’t sleep? Or was your own practice not going well? Riedel got under your skin today, too, I assume.”

The accurate guess needled him. “It was fine. I just… wanted another hour.”

“The piano is occupied.” She turned back to the keys, a clear dismissal.

“There are other rooms.”

“The other Steinway has a sticky B-flat in the upper register. You’d hate it. You have a violent relationship with B-flat.”

A surprised, grudging laugh escaped him. She wasn’t wrong. He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms. “So what’s your diagnosis, Dr. Vance? On my playing?”

She played a soft, dissonant cluster of chords, a sound like shifting ice. “You play like you’re trying to start a fight with the composer. It’s all passion, no perspective. It’s messy.”

“And you play like you’re performing an autopsy,” he shot back, stung. “It’s all perspective, no passion. It’s bloodless.”

For a long moment, the only sound was the faint hum of the fluorescent lights in the hall. Then, to his utter shock, she shifted slightly on the bench. “Prove it.”

“What?”

“Prove it’s bloodless.” She nodded to the empty space beside her on the wide piano bench. “Play the Ballade. The più lento section. Show me your messy passion.”

It was a challenge, pure and simple. A gauntlet thrown in the quiet, late-night space. Every instinct told him to refuse, to walk away and preserve the enmity. But a deeper, more competitive instinct stirred. He wanted to make her hear it. He wanted to shatter that cool composure with sound.

He walked over, the space suddenly charged. He caught a faint scent of her—crisp linen and a hint of rosin. He sat, careful to leave a few inches between them, but he could feel the heat of her body, a stark contrast to her demeanor.

He flexed his fingers, placed them on the keys, which were still warm from her touch. He took a breath, closed his eyes for a second, and began.

He didn’t play it like her. Where she had been precise, he was expansive. He leaned into the melancholy, let the melody sob, allowed the left hand to surge like a troubled heart. He didn’t just play the notes; he inhabited the ache between them. It was messy. It was raw. He finished the phrase and let the last note fade into the silence, the sustain pedal holding the echo like a held breath.

He looked at her. Her face was in profile, illuminated by the lamp. She was staring at the keys, her expression unreadable.

“Well?” he said, his voice quieter than he intended.

“You altered the fingering in measure 147,” she said, not looking at him.

“It’s more intuitive.”

“It’s less secure.” Then she finally turned her head. Her winter-blue eyes were no longer just cool; they were alight with a fierce, focused intensity. “But the crescendo into the recapitulation… you took it from nowhere. It was like watching a wave form. How?”

The question wasn’t an accusation. It was a demand for data. And in that demand, Leo heard the first crack in the wall. He didn’t see an enemy in that moment. He saw a pianist.

“It’s in the harmony,” he said, turning toward her. “You’re listening to the melody, but the tension is all in the bass line. Here.” Before he could think, he reached over, his right hand covering her left where it rested on her knee. He meant to guide it, to illustrate the point. The moment his skin touched hers, a jolt went through him. Her hand was slender, strong, surprisingly warm. He heard her sharp, tiny intake of breath.

He pulled his hand back as if burned. “Sorry. I…”

“Show me,” she said, her voice low. She placed her left hand on the lower keys, her posture expectant.

Swallowing, Leo positioned his right hand beside hers, not touching this time. He played the bass line alone, a dark, ominous rumble. “Hear that? It’s not just supporting. It’s pulling. It’s the engine. If you let that drive, the melody doesn’t just sing; it soars because it’s being chased.”

Elena listened, her head tilted. Then, she played the same line. She mimicked his weight, his touch. It was good—remarkably good—but it was an echo. “Again,” she said.

He played it again. Then she did, this time with more of her own force, blending his impulse with her control. The sound was richer, darker, more dangerous.

“Yes,” he breathed, the critic in him delighted. “Like that.”

A slow, almost imperceptible smile touched her lips. It wasn’t warm, but it was real. It was the smile of solving a complex equation. “Your passion is still messy, Moretti.”

“And your precision is still cold, Vance,” he replied, but the old insult had lost its sting. It sounded like a fact, not a weapon.

“Then perhaps,” she said, turning to face him fully on the bench, the few inches between them suddenly feeling like a charged gap, “we have something to learn from each other.”

That was how the truce began. Not with a handshake, but with a shared chord.

It became a secret, their late-night congress. The official competition continued by day—icy nods in the hallway, performances in masterclass where they’d dissect each other’s playing with polite, lethal accuracy for the professors. They moved through a world of whispered strategies and observed practice sessions; they saw the nervous tic of the Russian prodigy, heard the overly cautious Mozart of the scholarship student from Toronto. The pressure was a shared atmosphere, but in it, they were isolated planets, aware of each other’s gravitational pull. But after ten p.m., the rules changed.

They met in Room 3A. Sometimes he arrived first, sometimes she did. The door was always left unlocked.

They argued over phrasing. They debated pedaling until their throats were dry. He taught her how to find the wild heart in a Schubert sonata; she showed him the architectural genius in a Prokofiev toccata, how its fury was built, brick by terrifying brick. The nightly sessions grew shorter in description but deeper in substance. The initial debates about technicalities evolved into a shared language. He’d play a phrase, and instead of criticizing, she’d say, “The color is too dark there. Try thinking of it as silver, not black.” He’d watch her struggle with a Romantic passage and murmur, “Stop conducting it from your head. Feel it here,” tapping his own sternum. The space between them on the bench steadily diminished.

One night, they were working through a fiendishly complex section of the Rachmaninoff Second Sonata. Leo was wrestling with a cascading sequence of notes, his brow furrowed.

“You’re forcing it,” Elena observed, her voice close to his ear. “Your shoulders are up by your ears. You’re trying to muscle it.”

“It needs power,” he grunted, missing the same note for the third time.

“It needs release,” she corrected. “Here.” Before he could protest, her hands came around from behind him, her fingers lightly settling over his on the keys. Her front pressed against his back, her chin near his shoulder. He froze, every nerve ending acutely aware of her proximity. Her scent enveloped him—linen, rosin, and something uniquely her.

“Don’t push down,” she whispered, her breath warm against his neck. “Let the weight of your arm fall. Like this.” She guided his hands, not playing the notes herself, but adjusting the angle of his attack. Her touch was clinical, instructive, and utterly electrifying. “Now, again.”

He played the passage. The notes flowed, clear and powerful, without the usual percussive edge.

“See?” she said, but she didn’t move away. Her hands remained loosely over his. He could feel the rapid beat of her heart through the layers of their clothes. The air in the room grew thick, charged with something far beyond pedagogy.

“Elena,” he said, his voice rough.

She withdrew her hands as if scalded, returning to her side of the bench. A faint blush colored her cheeks. “You had the technique wrong,” she stated, but her voice lacked its usual conviction.

“I know,” he said, still feeling the ghost of her touch. The unspoken thing was in the room now, a third presence at the piano. It hummed in the spaces between their words, in the accidental brushes of shoulders, in the way their eyes would meet and hold a second too long after playing a particularly resonant chord. The following nights were a study in exquisite tension. They would play duets on one piano, their hands crossing, their arms brushing. They’d argue, but the arguments ended with lingering glances, not cold shoulders. The competition was now a week away, then five days, then three. The outside world pressed in—the Dean’s pointed questions about their preparation, the other competitors’ anxious energy in the hallways—making their secret sanctuary feel more fragile, more stolen.

The night before the final round, the tension was a live wire. They weren’t working together. They were taking turns, running through their competition programs, each lost in their own private world of fear and hope. The fellowship hung between them, the ultimate, unmentionable prize.

Elena played her final piece, Stravinsky’s Piano-Rag-Music, with ferocious, brittle accuracy. When she finished, the last percussive note hanging in the air, she sat perfectly still, her shoulders tense.

“It’s perfect,” Leo said from the worn sofa in the corner. He meant it technically. It was also, to him, utterly inhuman.

She spun on the bench. “Don’t. Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not. It’s flawless. You’ll win.”

“Will I?” she asked, the question stark and raw. Her composure was fraying. He could see it in the tight line of her jaw, the slight tremor in her hands as she laid them in her lap. “You heard Riedel today. He said my Beethoven was ‘admirably controlled.’ That’s conservatory-speak for soulless. They think I’m a machine. Sometimes… sometimes I think they’re right.”

The confession, so quiet and pained, shattered something between them. This wasn’t the invincible rival. This was the woman underneath, exhausted and doubting. Leo stood, drawn to her distress like a magnet.

“Riedel’s an old fossil who thinks emotion is a typo,” he said, moving to stand before the piano. “You know what you have. You have control. You have clarity. I have…” He gestured helplessly at his own chest. “Chaos. And sometimes it’s just noise.”

She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide in the lamplight, reflecting a vulnerability he’d never seen. “I want your chaos.”

The words hung there, naked and profound.

He was standing before her. He didn’t remember moving. “What?”

“Just for a minute,” she whispered, her voice cracking. “I’m so tired of being perfect. I’m so tired of the control. I can play every note correctly and it feels like… like I’m playing behind glass. Show me how to let go. Show me how to break the glass.”

He understood then. She wasn’t just talking about the music. She was offering him a glimpse of a crack in her armor, and asking him, the only person who might understand, to help her widen it.

Slowly, giving her every chance to pull away, he reached out and took her hand. It trembled slightly in his. He lifted it, pressed her palm flat against his chest, over his heart. It was hammering, a wild, arrhythmic beat. “Feel that? That’s chaos. That’s what it sounds like inside, before it comes out. It’s not pretty. It’s not controlled. It’s just… truth.”

She didn’t pull her hand away. She left it there, her fingers curling slightly into his shirt. He could feel the heat of her skin through the cotton. Her gaze was locked on where her hand met his chest, then traveled up to his mouth, his eyes. The air between them was no longer just thick; it was resonant, a held chord waiting to resolve.

“Show me,” she breathed, and it was both a plea and a permission.

He leaned down. It was not a gentle kiss. It was a collision, a release of all the weeks of tension, rivalry, and unspoken fascination. It was messy, and passionate, and utterly devoid of precision. Her lips were softer than he imagined, and she met his hunger with a desperate intensity of her own. Her free hand came up to clutch at the back of his neck, pulling him closer, her fingers tangling in his hair.

The world shrank to the points of contact: his mouth on hers, her hand on his chest, his hand coming up to cup her jaw, his thumb stroking the astonishing softness of her cheek. She made a small, broken sound against his lips, and it undid him completely. He poured every ounce of his frustrated passion, his competitive fire, and his dawning, terrifying tenderness into that kiss.

He broke the kiss, both of them breathing raggedly. Her lips were swollen, her eyes dazed. The perfect Elena Vance was gloriously, beautifully unraveled.

“Was that…” he rasped, the words leaving him in a rush of air, “…was that enough?”

In answer, she stood, closing the final distance between them. Her body aligned with his, and he could feel the slender, strong lines of her, the rapid flutter of her heart against his. “No,” she said, the word a mere puff of air against his mouth before she kissed him again.

This time, it was slower, deeper, a deliberate exploration. The taste of her was of mint and the faint, metallic tang of adrenaline. His hands slid down her back, over the fine wool of her dress, drawing her tightly against him. He was hard, achingly so, and the pressure against her abdomen made her gasp into his mouth.

She pulled back, her cheeks flushed. “Leo…” His name on her lips was a new music, a melody he never wanted to stop hearing.

“We should stop,” he said, not meaning it at all, his forehead resting against hers.

“We really should,” she agreed, even as her hands slipped under his shirt, her cool fingers skating over the hot skin of his back. “We have a competition tomorrow.”

“It’s terrible strategy.”

“The worst.” She found his mouth again, her kiss turning hungry, insistent. Her hands tugged his shirt upward, and he broke away just long enough to pull it over his head and discard it. Her eyes darkened as she looked at him, her gaze traveling over his shoulders, his chest. The admiration there was as potent as any touch.

He looked around the room, the reality of the hard floor and the piano bench suddenly seeming inadequate, a cliché he refused to accept. His eyes fell on the wide, deep windowsill that overlooked the darkened quad. It was padded with an old, dusty cushion, a forgotten perch for tired musicians.

“Not there,” he murmured against her lips, nodding toward the bench. He took her hand and led her the few steps to the window. The streetlights outside cast a soft, diffuse glow into the room, painting her skin in silver and shadow. He unzipped her dress slowly, the sound loud in the silent room. The fabric slipped from her shoulders, puddled at her feet. She stood before him in simple, sheer underthings, pale and elegant in the moonlight. She was more beautiful than he could have imagined, all graceful lines and subtle curves.

“You’re staring,” she said, a hint of her old defensiveness returning.

“You’re breathtaking,” he replied, simple and honest. He reached out, traced the line of her collarbone with one finger, then followed it to the strap of her camisole, slipping it off her shoulder. She shivered, but held his gaze.

He bent his head, kissed the hollow of her throat, then the slope of her shoulder. Her skin was like satin, carrying her unique scent. Her head fell back, a soft sigh escaping her. Emboldened, his lips traveled lower, over the lace edge of her camisole, until he took one taut peak into his mouth through the fabric.

Elena cried out, her fingers tangling in his hair. “Leo…”

He helped her out of her remaining garments, his hands reverent. Then he lifted her, her legs wrapping around his waist, and turned to settle them onto the wide windowsill. The old cushion was firm, the night air cool against their heated skin. The city stretched out behind her, a tapestry of distant lights. Here, they were suspended between the world of the conservatory and the vast, unknown night.

He kissed her again, deeply, as he freed himself from his trousers. When he entered her, it was with a slow, deliberate pressure that made them both gasp. The feeling was overwhelming—a tight, silken heat, a completeness that struck him to his core. She clung to him, her arms around his shoulders, her face buried in his neck.

He began to move, and the rhythm was unlike anything they’d practiced. It was improvisation, a syncopated, urgent exploration. It was her controlled breaths dissolving into ragged moans against his skin. It was his own muttered, nonsensical praises. It was the cool glass of the window against her back, his hands gripping her hips, the distant sound of a siren weaving a dissonant counterpoint to their melody.

He watched her face, a masterpiece of unraveling ecstasy. Her eyes were squeezed shut, her lips parted, every ounce of her formidable focus turned inward, toward the sensation building between them.

“Look at me,” he rasped.

Her blue eyes flew open, locking onto his. In them, he saw the chaos he’d shown her, reflected and magnified. He saw surrender, and power, and a raw need that mirrored his own. He saw the woman who had dissected Chopin with surgical precision, now coming completely, gloriously undone.

“I see you,” he whispered, the words a vow against her lips.

That was her undoing. A shudder wracked her body, and she came apart with a sharp, keening cry that she muffled against his shoulder, her inner muscles clenching around him in rhythmic waves. The sight and feel of her climax tore his own from him. He buried his face in the curve of her neck, groaning her name as he spilled into her, waves of pleasure so intense they bordered on pain.

For a long time, they stayed entwined on the windowsill, limbs heavy, hearts slowly calming. The cool glass was a shock against his heated skin. He shifted, pulling her against his chest, and she came willingly, her head resting over his heart. They didn’t speak. The silence was full, resonant.

Finally, she stirred. “Tomorrow…”

“Don’t,” he said softly, kissing her hair. “Not tonight.”

“But I won’t be able to think of anything else.” Her voice was small. “What if… what if this was just strategy?”

He pulled back to look at her. “Do you believe that?”

She searched his face, her own a landscape of conflict. “I don’t know what I believe. I only know I’ve never felt less in control. And I’ve never felt more.”

He understood. The guilt was there, a sour note beneath the harmony. Was this a betrayal of the competition? A manipulation? Or was it the only real thing in a world of performance? He had no answers, only the weight of her in his arms and the terrifying sense that the ground had shifted beneath him. “Then we play tomorrow for ourselves,” he said, though the words felt inadequate. “Not for them.”

They dressed in silence, the earlier passion replaced by a heavy, complicated intimacy. As she fastened her dress, she wouldn’t meet his eye. The Elena Vance armor was slowly reassembling, but it was cracked, and he could see the light shining through the breaks.

They did not speak of it the next day. They dressed in their performance attire—he in a tuxedo that felt like a costume, she in a severe, elegant gown of midnight blue—and passed each other in the green room with only the briefest, most charged of glances. The other finalists buzzed with nervous energy, fingers tapping silent scales on thighs. The air between him and Elena was different, thicker, laden with the memory of skin and sighs and unanswerable questions.

They performed. Leo went first. As he played his Brahms and Chopin, he didn’t think about technique or the jury. He thought about the feel of her hand on his chest, the taste of her skin, the way she had looked at him in the moment of shattering—not as a rival, but as a witness. He played with passion, but for the first time, it was a passion directed, focused, given shape by an underlying tenderness he hadn’t known he possessed. The chaos had found a container. It was no longer a fight. It was a love song, raw and vulnerable and utterly his.

He took his bow to strong, surprised applause, his eyes finding her in the wings. She gave him a small, almost imperceptible nod. Her expression was unreadable.

Then Elena played. She walked to the piano, a vision of cool composure. She sat, adjusted the bench with her usual precise ritual, and began her Stravinsky. It was, as ever, technically staggering. The notes were diamond-sharp, the rhythms exacting. But halfway through, something shifted. A phrase lingered, bleeding into the next. A rhythmic edge softened, then pushed forward with a new, visceral pulse. The brittle, intricate architecture remained, but now a wild, living heart beat audibly within it. She finished with a chord that wasn’t just precise; it was profound, a complex sound that contained both steel and sorrow, resonating in the hall long after her hands left the keys.

The applause was thunderous, morphing into a standing ovation. From his place in the wings, Leo watched her take her bow, her face a mask of serene grace. But he saw the slight tremor in her hands as she smoothed her gown.

They announced the winner an hour later, in the Dean’s oak-paneled office. Leo and Elena stood side by side, not touching, the inches between them an entire universe. Dean Whittaker, flanked by Professors Riedel and Lin, peered over his glasses.

“This was an exceptionally difficult decision,” the Dean began, his voice echoing in the tense room. “Two remarkable artists, two very different approaches. We heard powerful, emotive storytelling from Mr. Moretti. And from Ms. Vance, a masterclass in control and intelligence, with a… surprising and welcome new depth of feeling in her final performance.” He paused, letting the words hang. “However, the Alistair Grant Fellowship seeks not only excellence, but a distinctive voice with the potential for growth. A voice that can be honed. This year’s recipient is… Elena Vance.”

Elena’s breath hitched, a tiny, sharp sound. Leo felt the world tilt, then right itself with a sickening lurch. He had known it was possible, likely even, but the finality of it was a physical blow. He turned to her, and before he could think, he was smiling. A real, painful smile. He reached out, took her cold hand, and gave it a firm squeeze. “Congratulations,” he said, and he meant it, even as a part of him splintered.

She looked at him, her eyes wide with shock, then dawning triumph, then something else—something like anguish. “Leo…”

He shook his head, silencing her. “You earned it.” He meant that, too. The Elena who had played tonight was not the one he’d heard a month ago. She had found the chaos. And he, somehow, had found a little of her clarity. The cost of that exchange now sat heavily in his stomach.

He found her that night, back in Room 3A. Not practicing. Just sitting on the bench, her fingertips resting on the silent keys. Her fellowship letter lay on the floor, discarded.

“Shouldn’t you be celebrating?” he asked from the doorway, his voice flat. “Champagne with the Dean? Calls to your parents?”

She didn’t turn. “I couldn’t.”

He came in, closed the door. The room still felt charged with their history. He stood behind her, looking at the reflection of her face in the polished black lid of the piano. She looked exhausted, and utterly alone.

“You played like a goddess,” he said. It was the truth.

A tear escaped, tracing a path down her cheek. “It was your playing. I heard you. I felt it. And then I… I just let go.” She finally turned to look up at him, her eyes swimming. “I won because of you. Because of last night. That’s not fair. To either of us.”

“No,” he said softly, sitting beside her, careful not to touch her. “You won because you finally let you out. I just had the privilege of being there when the door opened.” He paused, the next words difficult. “Vienna is a year, Elena. A year of masterclasses, performances, connections. It’s everything.”

“I know.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “And you’ll be here. Or… you’ll go somewhere else. The runner-up usually gets the Residency at Brevard.”

“It’s not Vienna,” he said, and the bitterness he’d been holding back seeped through.

“No,” she whispered. “It’s not.”

The silence stretched, filled with the ghost of every note they’d ever played in this room. The future yawned before them, a daunting score they couldn’t read.

“What do we do?” she asked. The question was barely a whisper, stripped of all its usual precision.

He looked at their hands, resting inches apart on the bench. He thought of the rivalry that had become a dialogue, the tension that had become a connection, the enemy who had become the most intimate confidante he’d ever known. He thought of the chaotic, beautiful mess they’d made.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, and it was the most honest thing he’d said all day. He wasn’t offering a neat duet, a perfect harmony. The reality was messier, more frightening. “A year is a long time. A lot of notes.” He finally reached for her hand, lacing his fingers through hers. They felt cold. “Maybe we see what melody we can write from a distance. Maybe it falls apart.” He brought her hand to his lips, kissed her knuckles, feeling her tremble. “But what I know is that what happened here… that wasn’t a strategy. That wasn’t part of the competition. That was real. And I’m not ready to let that be the final chord.”

Elena looked at him, and the last of the ice in her winter-blue eyes melted, leaving something warm and bright and terrified and hopeful. She leaned in, and her kiss was not a promise of a happy ending, but a promise to try. It was a question mark, a fermata over an unresolved harmony, composed not on sheet music, but on the silent, waiting keys between them, and on the uncertain, open space of the year to come.