Free High Note by Jeff Ross Page B

convince myself it didn’t matter. I had the part, and I was doing an incredible job. But it did matter.
    It mattered a lot.

Fourteen
    “H as Crissy forgiven you?” Denise asked when we were off in a corner at the post-performance reception. My parents were going to take Sean and me for a late dinner. I wanted to soak in the opening-night glory, but I could barely make an appearance before leaving. The real party, I knew, would be on closing night.
    “I don’t think there’s anything she needs to forgive me for,” I said.
    “I guess I mean, has she accepted her role?”
    “No, she certainly hasn’t.”
    “That’s too bad for her,” she said.
    “It is.”
    “For both of you.”
    “I guess,” I said.
    “You’re hurt,” Denise said. I could see Sean watching me from the doorway. “It won’t always be like this.”
    “It won’t?” I said hopefully.
    “You’re going to lose friends. But you’re also going to find out who your true friends are.” She put an arm around my shoulders. I don’t know what happened—maybe it was the hugeness of the night—but I began to cry.
    “Oh, sweetie.”
    “I’m okay,” I said. Though, of course, I wasn’t. I felt awful. And then I got angry, because on the night when I should have felt better than ever before, I was sitting there crying over someone else’s bitterness. Crying over the fact that, yes, I had won the part, but in a way I’d never wanted to. Why did Denise have to tell me what had happened? Why did Crissy have to be the loser? Why did everything get so complicated and crappy right when it felt like my life was starting?
    “It sucks,” Denise said. “It really, really sucks. But it’s not your fault. You know that, right?”
    “Yeah.”
    “You had a great night out there. You’re a star,” she said. “You have an exciting future ahead of you. I can feel it. Don’t let anything or anyone change who you are, Hailey McEwan.” She spun me around and looked me in the eye. “You have a real talent. It’s going to make people jealous. But that isn’t your problem. It’s theirs.”
    It felt even more horrible to hear this. Of course, it was true. I hated how the world seemed to revolve around competition. But audiences don’t want to see second place. They want the stars. The most talented.
    The best.
    * * *
    At the restaurant, my parents heaped praise on me. And it felt great. All of it. It was one of the best days of my life. But I still kept seeing Crissy’s hurt face. Not because of something I’d done, but because of who I was and what I could be.
    “Suffering,” Sean said at one point, when my parents were questioning the waiter about the wine and their attention was elsewhere.
    “This again?” I said.
    “I’ve been thinking about it, and maybe the moral of this story is about suffering.”
    “Well, you’ve been talking about it enough. I’m sure it had to lead somewhere.”
    “You’re suffering because you want things to be like they used to be. But you also know you have to look ahead. You are suffering because of the past and the future.”
    “That is generally what people do,” I said. “We remember and we wonder.”
    “Ah, good. Yes, exactly. Crissy is suffering in a different way. She’s suffering from wanting.”
    “Okay. But she brought that on herself,” I said.
    I hadn’t told Sean what Denise had told me about the vote. I didn’t think I would ever tell anyone. It was going to be one of those secrets that lingered inside me forever. The weirdest thing was that right after Denise had told me how the vote had gone, while I’d sat there alone in the dressing room, staring at my reflection in the mirror, the only person I’d wanted to talk to was Crissy. I’d wanted to tell her how unfair it was. How stupid. But I couldn’t. I never could. Even if it might make things better, I was going to have to keep this inside me forever and never tell a soul.
    “She brought it on herself,” Sean agreed. “But