Virtuoso

February, 4th week

There are darknesses in life and there are lights, and you are one of the lights, the light of all lights.

Dracula, Bram Stoker

One week, she came in touched by snowflakes and happiness, and his breath caught in his throat. He cleared it quickly, then asked, "So, how did you make out with the vibrato this week?"

"I'm getting a hint of it, I think," she responded.

"And the med schools?"

Her cheeks flushed, and she smiled. "I received acceptances from Harvard and Penn."

He had to stop himself from stepping forward to hug her. "Congratulations. It's well deserved. Didn't I tell you not to worry?"

At the end of their lesson, she asked him, "Do you think it'll ever come? The vibrato?"

He answered without hesitating. "Yes, I do. Like I said, these things take time. You have plenty of time."

Softly, she replied, "Two and a half months."

"What?"

"There are two and a half months until our last lesson."

Zak froze. How had the end of February gotten here so quickly? Was it possible that they had known each other for only six months?

"Will you stay for another year?" she asked him.

"No. This is my last semester." The words were bittersweet in his mouth, like blood oranges, but oddly freeing.

"Mine as well."

His high spirits deserted him suddenly. In all likelihood, they would never see each other again. She was off to whatever top-ranked medical school she chose, and he… did not know where he was going. It wasn't that he begrudged her success – he'd meant what he said about her deserving it. It was just that the void in his life suddenly seemed suffocating when matched with the fullness of hers.

"You won't continue taking lessons in medical school, will you?" He tried not to sound accusatory, but he was afraid it came out that way.

"Probably not," Ami admitted.

"Is medicine more important than music?"

"Does it have to be more or less so?" she countered.

Zak sighed, knowing she was right, and asked the question he had really wanted to ask all along. "Will it have mattered to you at all, learning how to play?"

She opened her mouth to say "Of course," but the look of quiet defeat on his face told her it wouldn't be enough. "Yes. You never asked why I started taking lessons in my junior year of college. But I would guess that you don't have many students who start so late."

He shook his head. At the beginning of the semester, he'd been too depressed to pry into his students' motivations, and it had seemed indelicate to bring it up later on.

"I didn't have the opportunity, or the inclination to, earlier. My parents are…separated. My mother is a doctor. My father is an artist, a painter. He left us when I was quite young, and there was plenty of empty space in our house, but no room in our lives for the arts after that. It wasn't until I got to college and was able to explore on my own that I realized how much I wanted to experience this very neglected part of my life."

She took a breath, drawing on her courage to continue telling him the things she had never told anyone else. "Before, I wondered if art made people cruel, or simply careless. As if having that much and that type of talent is so all-encompassing that it just pushes everything else out of its way. But you've shown me that that's not the case. You have infinitely more talent than he does, but you're also much kinder. I am very grateful to you, Zak."

It took every ounce of restraint he possessed not to take her chin in his hands and kiss her as deeply as her words had moved him.

"I think I'm the one who should be grateful."