There You'll Find Me (35 page)

“But I think we’ve established you did indeed faint at the dance,” my mother said. “And you felt ill earlier that day.”

In all these things, I am more than victorious .
. .

“I’m not sick. Why can’t you trust me?”

“Finley,” my mother said. “This isn’t a matter of trust. It’s a matter of your health, your life. You’ve been very . . . fragile since Will died. Your father and I debated letting you go to Abbeyglen, but we’d seen such improvement. What if your grief is just showing itself in a different way?”

“I have this under control. Please,” I pleaded. “Have faith in me. I’ve overcome so much to be here, to be able to do this program. On day one of being at this school, I got assigned a project involving a dying woman. Me! After the last two years I’ve had? And then Beatrice came after me with a vengeance. I bombed my first audition for the Conservatory. And now . . . this.” I pushed my hair from my face. “This has not been easy for me, but I’m trying. I am. Just give me credit for that. And trust me to know if I feel all dark and broody like I did when you sent me to that therapist. I’m fine.”

“Sometimes she’ll go out for a run morning
and
night,” Nora said.

“I’m stressed.” I grabbed a tissue from Mrs. Mawby’s desk and blotted at my eyes. “And that’s what I do to unwind. My counselor told me to do that. Would you rather I binge eat or drink or do drugs? I thought it was healthy. I have a
lot
going on. Doesn’t anyone get that?” The way they were looking at me. I couldn’t stand it. Like I was already tried and condemned. Like my mother didn’t know what to do for her sick daughter. Well, I wasn’t sick. I could change this today if I wanted to.

“I think you have too much going on,” my mother said. “You don’t even look like you’re sleeping.”

“Och, she practices in all hours of the night, she does,” Nora said. “The sound barely reaches us, but she can’t be getting any rest. And the closer it gets to time for her to leave for New York, the more she plays.” Nora patted my hand. “We’re just worried and—”

“Mom, you know how serious I am about my music. My chance at this school is everything.”

“What I know is that you do everything to the extreme. Always have. From your music, even to your season of rebellion after your brother’s death. Your counselor talked to us about your perfectionist—”

“Just stop.” I covered my ears and shook my head. Everything was so messed up, this tangled ball of string that I couldn’t fix, couldn’t unwind. “My audition is in nine days. Then you can look at me yourself and know that it’s just been stress. And when I play that final note for the committee, I know I’ll be myself again. I know it.” I would let Will go. My future would be set.

Mother rubbed her hand over her bare lips. “Finley, I love you. After all we’ve been through, I just want you to be able to talk to me. To tell me what you’re feeling.”

“And I have.”

She let out a breath, and her bangs fluttered against her forehead. “I want you to take it easy. That audition isn’t worth getting so upset.”

“Trust. Me.” Angry tears melted down my cheeks. “You told me before I came to Ireland that you were giving me my freedom, that you were trusting me to take care of myself. Now let me do that.”

“And this is nothing more than audition anxiety?”

“Yes.” My voice begged with her to let this go. “Yes.”

“Maybe it is nothing,” Mom said. “I hope and pray it is. But all I have to go on is what these ladies are telling me. And the fact that you passed out Saturday is frightening. I want to see you in person, hug you, and know that you are safe and okay.”

And if you’re not, I’ ll bring you home
. She didn’t say it, but it was there. An unspoken promise.

My mom didn’t believe me. None of them did.

“And you will. Next week.” I shook my head as the panic spiraled with the force of a tornado. “I have to get back to class.”

“Give us a hug.” Nora stood up and held out her arms. “We care about you. I want Abbeyglen to be a peaceful place for you. I want to see you happy.”

“And I will be.” Please let her
believe
me. “Soon.”

“But I couldn’t live with myself if we didn’t make sure we were doing everything to help you, love. You’ve become like my own daughter.”

Guilt. Grief. Humiliation. It choked me until I was coughing. “I have to go.” I flung open the door and stumbled into the hall on rubbery legs.

God, they’re so wrong. Like I needed one more thing to deal with
.
Where are you? Why don’t you hear me? Why don’t you speak to me?

Finding the first water fountain, I leaned over it and let the cool water fall over my lips and slide down my throat.

I’d had it. I was done with God’s silence.

Running down the hall, not caring who I passed or that I had tracks of mascara streaking down my face, not even concerned that I was expected back in class, I got to the music room and ripped open the door.

I sat at the piano, pressed my feet to the pedals, placed my shaking fingers on the chipped keys.

And played.

Tears fell unchecked as Will’s song flooded the room. I put every bit of anger, every ounce of fear into the notes, closing my eyes and letting the melody saturate and wrap around my heart like a bandage.

And then I got to the end.

And stopped.

The song just died. Why couldn’t I simply write a few measures and be done? Why hadn’t anything worked?

What if there was no end?

What if it was bottomless as my grief? That it just . . . never stopped.

“God, you’ve taken so much from me,” I said into the deafening silence. “Why? And every time I turn to you, I just feel more alone. Where are you when I call? Where were you when my brother died? Why won’t you talk to me?”

“Because you’re not truly listening.”

I turned, dashing my tears, my cheeks blushing scarlet. “Sister Maria.”

She walked down the aisle like a mighty avenger and sat beside me on the piano bench. “Bad day?” She reached into her pocket and handed me a tissue.

I just nodded. And burst into tears again. “I can’t do this. I don’t know how to . . . just live a normal day.”

“So your normal got changed. You will survive this.”

“You don’t understand.”

“Then tell me.”

How? “I’ve done some stupid things. And I thought I had it under control. That’s all I’ve ever wanted, just to fix things. To make it all okay. To make this black feeling go away once and for all. But it hasn’t. And I don’t think it ever will.”

“You’re still convinced God doesn’t hear you?”

“Would my life be such a mess if he did?”

“If you’re doing it all your way, yes.” Sister Maria propped her elbow on some keys and gave me a small smile. “Didn’t a fellow named Peter once walk on water? We’re all asked to do this throughout our lives. It just looks different for each one of us.” Her bony fingers gripped my wrist. “Right now, this is
your
time. And Jesus has been waiting . . . hands out, saying, ‘Eyes on me. I’ve got you.’”

“Like it’s that easy. Like I haven’t been trying.”

“To truly try means to accept God’s love, his healing, to accept the world can be ugly, but your heart doesn’t have to be. It takes courage, Finley the warrior. You haven’t held on to your anger and bitterness in search of healing, but as a banner of your hurt. Because it’s real and visible and strong,” she said. “But so is God’s love and so are those arms he’s holding out for you.”

“I read my Bible and I see nothing. And when I pray, I feel . . . nothing. I’m so sick of that. That . . . emptiness.”

“And yet it becomes like an addiction, doesn’t it?” Sister Maria’s crystal-blue eyes seared into mine. “Because it’s something you’ve come to know and trust. Closing your heart to God and the rest of the world won’t fill those raw places. It just makes more room for Satan to settle in your heart. Makes his lies easier to believe—that you’re not worthy, that God doesn’t truly care. That he didn’t care about your brother, your family, or you. Finley, you can’t hear the Lord’s voice over all that distraction, even over the sounds of your own pretty music.”

It sounded too simple. “You’re a nun. You’re supposed to tell me God cares, that he’s been there all the time.”

“When it’s Satan, he leaves his calling card—destruction.

That’s how you know it’s him. And that’s certainly what you’re dealing with. Is that what your brother would want, then?”

“No,” I said. “He was so at peace with God. So full of faith and hope . . . and then he was gone.” I sniffed and blew my nose in the tissue. “Sometimes I think what his final moments must’ve been like and I can hardly stand it.”

“Jesus was there. Waiting. With those same arms out. He loves your brother more than even you do. And he grieves with you. God’s been speaking—in this beauty of Ireland, in the majesty of the cliffs, in the healing rhythm of the waves, in the words of Mrs. Sweeney.

In your brother’s journal.” Sister Maria gave my hand a squeeze, and her skin felt as soft as a baby’s. “He says, ‘I’m here. Waiting. When you’re ready to trust what you know . . . and not what you feel.’”

What had Beckett said that night at the tower ruin? Trust truth? These two made it sound so simple.

“You can’t walk on water holding all that weight,” Sister Maria said. “It just makes you sink right down. Let it go, my dear. Your anger isn’t keeping Will’s memory alive.”

“This is all I’ve known for the last two years.”

“Look at Mrs. Sweeney. She’s had a wasting disease most of her living days. Fear held her back.” Sister Maria shook her head. “All those lost years. Does it make sense to you—all she gave up?”

“No.” No, it did not.

“You and Mrs. Sweeney—you both think you’re controlling things. But really, you control nothing. Mrs. Sweeney wasn’t brave enough to surrender, and neither was her sister.
Choose you this day, life or death
. Be a victory story. Don’t be just another life claimed by that bomb, left in the ashes beneath the rubble of that school. I believe you’ve changed Mrs. Sweeney’s life.” Sister Maria hugged my limp body to her. “Now, let God change yours.”

Chapter Thirty-One

• Hours of practice: not enough

• Hours worrying: too many

I
avoided Erin and anyone else who dared to talk to me for the rest of the day. Tomorrow would be better. But today? Today was bad.

My breath came in shallow puffs, and my hands were slick with sweat on my bicycle handles as I pedaled to the set. Helping Beckett was the last thing I felt like doing right now. I just wanted to be alone in my room with my violin.

In a daze, I parked my bicycle. I saw some of the crew working outside the castle and walked to Beckett’s trailer. With feet made of lead, I hoisted myself over the broken step and let myself inside. My chest jerked with a new round of tears as I reached into the refrigerator and grabbed a Diet Coke. I pressed the can to my cheek and allowed the coolness to seep into my skin before opening it, letting the familiar burn trickle down my throat.

The door swung open again, and I turned in relief. “Beckett, I’ve had the worst—”

“What are you doing here?” Montgomery Rush stepped inside, the door hanging open behind him. “Where’s me son?” He took in my disheveled state but made no comment on it.

“I . . . I don’t know.” My nose dripped like a faucet. “He’s probably in the castle with everyone else.” It was then that I got a look at the tabloid in his hand. Not even two full days since St. Flanagan’s Day, and a picture of Beckett with Erin decorated the cover.

Mr. Rush caught the direction of my stare. “Having trouble seeing the headline? It says ‘Vampire Star Crashes Festival with Drunk Castmates.’”

Like I needed another reason to hurl all over the floor. “How can you do that to your son?”

“What I do
saves
me son. Domestic ticket sales on last month’s release will go up ten percent this week.” He tapped the paper. “All because of this.”

“But it’s so . . .”

“Sensational? Sleazy? Look, it’s exactly what you Americans want to read. You eat it up.”