3 4

downbeat

noun. the first beat of a musical measure.

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SHANE HAD A PLAN TO get Bay to return to the Halston Student Orchestra.

She was going to assemble all of Bay's favorite parts on all her favorite instruments and make a grand plea, but I told her it wouldn't work. Bay's not going to be a percussionist in HSO, or center snare in the drumline, or play kit in the pep band, or tour to any local high schools, or show up to any of the winter season sport games, or attend the drum clinics, or perform in the Spring Recital.

Nada, nothing.

She's out—and she fucking left me to deal with the aftermath. One morning in January she just up and left all the Facebook groups and group chats, without a goodbye or an explanation. Guinness World Records would have lauded Bay for the speed at which she ejected herself from all our lives.

Then I had to deliver that bullshit excuse about her wanting to hustle hard for a postgraduate scholarship, promise that she would come watch our shows and recitals, and explain that her emotionless departure was because she really hates goodbyes. I didn't want anyone thinking ill of her, or having their feelings hurt.

Every percussionist was shell-shocked—Bay was always the most dedicated player—some were even disheartened, but I think Shane and I were the only ones to get heated, the ones who wanted to fight. (I mean, I wanted to fight when I first found out, but Bay killed that.)

"She's gone," I said to Shane, probably a touch too sternly, but I needed her to stop prodding me for more information about why Bay didn't come back this semester. It hurt too much. "I don't know why. You can ask her yourself."

I do know why. Because of me. Because I made the deadly mistake of asking an attachment-phobe to go on a date, and now I've been cold-shouldered like all her other ex-trysts. Each time I tried to get through to her, she went on the defensive. And maybe that was all my fault. Maybe it was warranted, given our history, and how I'd treated her. Maybe that wall around her heart that I wanted to scale was built by my own hands.

There are only four HSO percussionists this semester: me, Shane, Maria from drumline and a Music major (specializing in classical piano) who insists on taking all the tuned percussion parts. Band (all of them, any of them) feels different without Bay. Colder, hollower, less enjoyable. There's a her-shaped hole in every rehearsal, when Shane leaves an opening for a quick-witted barb and no-one takes it and my imagination inserts what Bay would have said, when someone loses sheet music or snaps a pencil lead and there's no quick replacement, when Keller instinctively looks around for Bay before starting the warm-ups, only to remember that there's only one percussion section leader this semester.

As section leader, I distributed the parts out at the start of spring semester, which meant I got my pick of instruments with no-one to fight me on the matter. With music folders, there's no rush to memorize anything, no competition, and now I just show up every Wednesday to play my part, take advice from Keller, pack up, and leave.

I still love music, but maybe I love the environment less without Bay. My leadership rested on hers, my passion was a countermove.

To put it bluntly, I really fucking miss her.

And I thought I was doing such a good job hiding my sour attitude until one Wednesday, a month after spring semester started, when Quen comes up to me and says, "Let's go get dinner."

"I need to study," I tell him. Another unremarkable HSO rehearsal has just ended. I'm sliding the timpani covers back on and zipping them up.

Quen doesn't believe me. "You're down in the dumps because Bay left band. Come on. You get to pick the restaurant." I recognize exactly what he's doing. I took him for a drive after his fight with Noah, talking through his girl troubles, and now he's extending a similar helping hand.

I sigh, zipping the last timpani cover shut. "Fine."

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I choose a hotpot restaurant in a strip of eateries in the center of town.

It's freezing past sundown these days, plus I'm sad, so I want warm comfort food. The walls are polished mahogany, the hotpot booths made of similar dark wood. Gold-accented decorations line the walls and paper lanterns hang from the ceiling. Quen and I slide into the booth adjacent to the full-length windows at the front of the restaurant. A middle-aged woman comes to sink a fresh metal container into the cavity in the center of the table, one large square alongside two smaller ones for different soups and sides.

She starts speaking to Quen in Mandarin, so he orders in the same language, the usual carnivorous selections. "How did she know you spoke Chinese?" I wonder, when the woman wanders back to the kitchen. "Does she know you?"

Quen leans closer, shaking his head. "I have no fucking idea. Mom told me all Chinese ladies over a certain age can clock it at first glance. It's like a superpower."

The food comes, we bathe the strips of meat in spicy sauce, and compare our different engineering internships this semester, and I'm starting to feel better about myself when Quen chooses that moment to say, "You should get Bay back."

A fleck of beef travels down my windpipe and I start choking at the table. At the loud disruption, everyone in the cozy restaurant looks over at me with concern and/or amusement, like ah, the white boy can't handle spice. (Which I can, thank you very much.)

Quen slides me a glass of water with a grin, not worried at all for my wellbeing. After I gather my composure, I glower at him. "Band is not one of her priorities this semester."

"I'm not talking about band," he says. "You need to get her back."

I flinch. Does Quen know? How much does Quen know? I observe his pale face, intelligent dark eyes. Maybe my evasive behavior in Pittsburgh clued him in, or maybe it was my mood swing in Bay's absence, or maybe he is testing a hypothesis as we speak and my response will prove or disprove it.

"I don't know what you mean," I say carefully.

Quen is unconvinced, which makes me think he knows way more than I ever elected to tell him. "Be like that, if you want," he snorts. "But I've watched you guys for four years and you're always your most miserable when you think Bay doesn't like you. And that didn't just start last marching season."

With chopsticks I wrap a delicate strip of pork around a chunk of mushroom and deposit the whole thing in my mouth, chewing angrily. "Course Bay makes me miserable," she infuriates me, "she's a coward. She can talk shit to my face but she can't say goodbye to her own section. They look up to her, and she just vanished. She doesn't want to think of herself as a good person, and she prevents anyone else from doing the same."

Quen presses his mouth into a thin line, and I know they're friends, but I barrel on, "I already tried to win her over once. She said no. Before that, I tried all winter to see her. She said no. Are you really advising me to keep pushing her?"

"No, but—"

Earlier this semester, I made the mistake of going to the Foxhole on a Friday to drink with some friends. Maybe I thought we would talk or fight. Whenever I came into the Foxhole, I used to pester Bay, she'd try to get me kicked out on unreasonable grounds, and we'd end the night equally under each other's skin.

But that time she'd said evenly, "Hi there. What can I get you?"

I leaned over the counter and cocked an eyebrow. "What, now you're pretending you don't know me?"

"Not at all," Bay remarked. No ire. No blazing glare. No get off my territory, Vierra. "I'm just trying to do my job." She looked right through me with those piercing brown eyes—as if I didn't know what it felt like to be buried inside her, as if I haven't memorized all the melodies that she gasped into my ear. It ripped the hole inside me even larger.

Now I don't see her around the Music Department, I made sure never to go back to the Foxhole, but by some cruel twist of fate, Bay has a Geometric Algebra lecture in the same room and directly preceding my Object-Oriented Programming II lecture. I'll be waiting by the doors of the lecture hall, and she'll file out, shining like a blade, with her classmates and exhibit complete avoidance. No eye contact, no snide remarks, even skirting around me if we have to pass each other in the narrow corridor.

It hurts to be ignored.

Another couple enters through the restaurant doors, and lets in a gust of cold air. "If I get her back, she'll find some way to sabotage things or push me away until she can be completely alone. The way she wants to be."

Quen sighs, "Okay. Bay doesn't want to be approached, fine. I just thought this was like the other times."

I watch him suspiciously, as he starts draping more cuts of meat into the bubbling broth in the center of the table. His expression is innocent as ever. "What other times?"

"You guys have a big fight, and Bay goes on her retreat, and you say you hate her, but you don't start smiling until you guys are back to normal," he rattles off, as if it's common knowledge, which it most certainly is not.

"Shut your lying face," I blurt, my cheeks flushing red. Do I act like that around her? I don't, right?

Quen barks a laugh. "No-one gets under your skin like Bay does, and I think she probably feels the same about you. But why should you, the miserable single one, take advice from me, the one in a committed relationship?"

"Fuck off, yours was such a fluke," I retort. If it wasn't for me, Quen would have never made any moves on Krista or even tried to clear the friendzone he put himself in.

"So?" He's smiling proudly. "Still counts."

Quen and I are not exactly love gurus, evidently, but my wingmanning efforts were integral in pushing him and Krista together. In December, a bunch of band people went clubbing town, and I took the initiative to get everyone to abandon Quen at Topaz so Krista (who works there) would have to come to his rescue, all on his lonesome. The same week, Quen became a boyfriend. I'm their fucking Cupid.

My debt from Pittsburgh is repaid. You're welcome.

When the waitress from before comes to clear away some empty platters, he compliments something—food, service, I'm not sure what—that makes her smile and click her teeth and wave it away. Clearing his throat, Quen says, "I'm sorry for dredging shit up over dinner. I'm just looking out for you."

"Yeah, yeah," I grumble, feigning displeasure.

In truth, I'm glad we came out tonight. I needed the distraction.

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a / n :

thanks for your patience while I have been AWOL! this is a busy, exciting summer for me away from the internet. DT is going to be wrapped up in time for Wattys submission, I expect in the next few weeks.

Here is a double update to make up for the kind-of long absence - so read ahead to the next chapter.

xo, aimee