Free Brilliant by Rachel Vail Page B

“Not really, no.”
    “Wow, that’s a lot of tight control there.”
    “No,” I said. “It’s not—it just seems pointless to get mad. You know? You end up losing control, saying stupid things and doing stuff you shouldn’t….”
    “That would be a sight to see,” he said.
    I blinked, turned my own eyes down, studied my sneakers. Give it up, Quinn. You are too old to have little-girl crushes now. Abruptly, to change the subject, I said, “I think we may have to move.”
    “Move? Where?”
    “I heard them discussing moving in temporarily with my grandmother.” I hadn’t mentioned this to either of my sisters yet. I hadn’t even admitted to myself that I’d heard it, and hearing myself say it aloud to Oliver I heard it, really heard it, for the first time. I bit my lip. This was not good. I was all jumbled up and starting to sweat. Profusely.
    Always an attractive flirtation move.
    “No!” Oliver half frowned, half grinned. “The grandmother who hates Allison?”
    “She does not! Allison just hates her. It’s projection.”
    “That’ll be a party.” Oliver put the guitar down and stretched his legs out, too. “I’m sorry I won’t be here to witness that.”
    “Why?” I asked, trying for casual. Failing. “Where are you going?”
    “Back to school.”
    I think I managed to say, “Oh.”
    He shrugged. “Yeah. I gave it a shot.”
    “I didn’t realize you had just taken…”
    “Leave of absence. Junior year not abroad. Yeah. So, I’ll be a junior.”
    “Me too.”
    He smiled. No teeth.
    “I mean, obviously…” Oh can I possibly be this lame? “I’ll be in high school.”
    “I know,” he said. “I know you.”
    “What do you mean, you gave it a shot?” I was talking in a higher key than usual, but it seemed urgent that I get him talking so I could catch up with my racing pulse and not make even more of an ass of myself. Although we’d spent half an hour every week for a year sitting beside each other on a piano bench, his hands sometimes touching mine, his shoulder tantalizingly close to mine, his scent of shampoo and fresh air wafting around us—plus a fewminutes afterward chatting in our kitchen, usually—I had never really asked him why he wasn’t at Harvard anymore, what he was doing hanging around our town, taking over some of his mom’s piano students, including Phoebe and me, but basically just, as far as I knew, loafing. I had wondered all year what had happened with school, but I didn’t want to be rude. I didn’t want to pry.
    Well, I did want to pry, but I didn’t want him to think I was prying. But there on his front porch it seemed, finally, like maybe he’d be okay talking about it. And I was determined to stop barfing up embarrassing little pearls about my family and myself. I’ll be in high school. Jesus freaking Christ in a Buick, as my grandmother would say.
    “I mean,” I said, truly unable to shut my mouth, “if you don’t mind saying—what happened?”
    “I had this really great professor. He hated me.”
    “Sounds awesome.” Did he fail out? Oliver Andreas? Not even possible.
    “He was. Brilliant, intense, so hard. I wrote this fugue for his class, and it was kind of a crazy time…you’ll see when you go to college. I was just…I wasn’t sleeping; I was trying to write for the Crimson , and study, and then there was marching band, which is actually way cooler than it sounds, and much more work, plus I was playing guitar a couple nights at this little pub in Harvard Square, and I was dead set on having fun, too, which…Anyway, so, the beginning of the fugue was really good, but I kindof let it get away from me—I guess I got a little overambitious.”
    “Why?” I asked. “Did you try to introduce more than three voices?”
    “Yeah,” he said, his eyes lighting up. “You know Bach’s fugues?”
    “Not really,” I said. “I mean, I like Bach—don’t love him, but he’s kind of growing on me. So, from listening and, well, you