A Wish For Us

by Tillie Cole

“The best music must be felt. By the creator. By the listener. Every part of it from creation to ear must be wrapped in nothing but feelings.”

Cromwell Dean was in so much pain that it took away his joy to play music that he’d once loved. Pain that caused him to shed tears. I ached. Because I knew what that kind of pain felt like.

One after the other, I moved through the instruments, the music like a drug being injected into my veins. I was a junkie who’d been clean for three years, finally getting his fix back. I was unable to stop. Overdosing on the color, the tastes, and the rush of adrenaline it sent sailing in my blood.

can play . . .

Her voice was violet blue. I closed my eyes. It was my favorite color to hear.

Manners cost nothing, son. Always be gracious with those who want to help.

“Enough to know that even though you’re carrying a chip the size of Alaska on your shoulder right now, you won’t leave.” He pointed to the room. “This is your arena. You’re just too pissed and hurt to accept it right now.” He shrugged. “You do see it, but you’re fighting it.” The knowing look in his eyes almost brought me to my knees. “You’re a good DJ, Mr. Dean. Lord knows it pays well these days, and I will no doubt see your name in lights in the future. But with the gift you have, you could be a legend on this stage.” He pointed at the shot of him in the Albert Hall. He sat down. “I suppose the decision will be up to you.”

There was one thing I was sure my heart couldn’t take, and that was Cromwell Dean being sweet to me. I wasn’t equipped for the kind of emotion it inspired.

My eyes watered as I watched him. Because whatever it was that held him back from giving this to himself, from embracing who he was, was all-encompassing. It was smothering him. It seemed like it was destroying him.

this broken boy was burrowing his way into my weak heart.

It was dark before I left. And like a forever-raging sea, my heart never calmed.

Some are not meant for this life for too long. A fleeting glimpse, a silent birdsong. Souls too pure, they burn out too bright, Bodies so fragile, losing the fight. Hearts lose their beats, rhythms too slow, Angels they come, it’s time to go. Lift from this place, to the heavens and skies, Smothered in peace, where nobody dies. Hope left behind in the ones they have loved, No longer caged, now wings of a dove. Wings, white as snow, sprout from my heart. Wings, spreading wide, now to depart. Tears in my eyes, I give one last glance. I lived, and I loved, and danced life’s sweet dance . . .

“Cromwell?” I turned. “What’s your favorite? Your favorite color to see?” I didn’t even think before I spoke the words. “Violet blue.”

Cromwell Dean kissed like he played music—completely and with every ounce of his soul.

squeezed my eyes shut and hung on to him like I would never let him go. I deepened the kiss. I kissed him so I would never forget. I kissed him until he was imprinted on my soul.

“What did it look like to you?” I asked. “My song. The colors.” Cromwell breathed in, then, eyes bright, said, “It illuminated the room.”

like you,” he said, and as the sweetly accented words hit my ear, I wanted to move across the seat and wrap my arms around him. I didn’t know Cromwell well, but I knew he didn’t say those words easily. He lived behind high walls, yet with me, they had started to lower.

I didn’t want to be the cause of them growing back high. In my heart I wanted to be the one to smash them until he was free. But I couldn’t. It just wasn’t fair.

“Cromwell?” He looked up. I could feel my cheeks burning before I even spoke. “What color is my voice?” Cromwell stared at me, eyes full of some kind of light I couldn’t decipher. That small, beautiful smile pulled on his lips again, and he said, “Violet blue.”

“Cromwell?” I asked, and he turned my way. “What’s your favorite? Your favorite color to see?” “Violet blue,” he said in an instant. Violet blue. His favorite color to see . . . and also the sound of my voice. If my failing heart hadn’t let him in before, it did just then.

But I was learning Bonnie Farraday was a complex girl.

I cupped her cheeks and took her mouth again. Now she’d given me her lips, I never wanted to give them back.

Something settled in my chest that I hadn’t felt in years. Something I never thought I’d find ever again. Silver. I choked at the sight. Happiness.

“You’ve complicated things for me, Cromwell Dean. You were never meant to complicate things.”

“It’s you,” I admitted. Bonnie stilled. “You were right. I’d lost my way. My music . . . it didn’t have purpose. There was no story. They were just the colors that made me feel the least.” I wanted to tell her why. But even now, I couldn’t bring myself to say it. I rubbed a strand of her hair between my fingers. “Since you . . . it’s felt different. Music. It’s you, Farraday. You’ve made it different.” I laughed to myself. What I was going to say was cheesy as hell. But it was true. “I’m inspired.” She sucked in a breath. “You inspire me.”

Bonnie Farraday had stormed into my life like a hurricane.

“I wasn’t meant to fall for you,” she said quietly. Brokenly. She laughed, but it held no humor. “We didn’t see eye to eye. And it was meant to stay that way.”

“I didn’t plan for you.” Her trembling hand fell on my cheek. Her hand was cold. “I knew I could never get close to someone. It wouldn’t be fair. To either of us.” She smiled at me, a devastated watery smile. “But your music made me see you, Cromwell. It called me to you. The boy who hears color.”

“I would have lived my whole life trying to achieve even a tenth of the talent you have, Cromwell. It’s why I was so hard on you. Because of the gift you have.” Her eyes dropped. “And I think I would have spent my whole life waiting for a boy to treat me as you have recently.” She swallowed. “Last night . . . it was everything I could have wished for.”

“But you can’t be with me for this next part, Cromwell.” I shook my head. “Shh,” Bonnie said. “I should never have let it get that far. But even though it is failing, losing strength, my heart latched itself to yours, and I had to know what it was like. To be with you.” She sniffed and a tear fell. “You made me feel so cherished.”

She wanted me to go . . . . . . but I wasn’t sure that was something I could do.

“Maybe he was brought into your life to help make it better. Have you ever thought of that? Maybe he was brought in at exactly the right time. When you will need people you love around you most.”

“Why you’ve fallen for him.” Her arm linked in mine. “The way you love music. You were always going to find someone who loves it too.”

Obstacles in life sometimes make you look at the world in ways you never did before.”

“That he’s fallen for you.”

And it would be these memories, and the ghost of his lips against mine, that would inspire me to fight that much harder.

“Because you, with your questions and tenacity, made damn sure that I faced some shit I didn’t want to face. You pushed and pushed until I couldn’t turn away from it anymore. You pushed until I found myself in here, in the practice rooms, picking up instruments I hadn’t touched in three years.”

“Cromwell brooder-of-the-century Dean actually laughed.” She closed her eyes, making my heart fucking melt. “And it was bright yellow.” She opened her eyes. “Like the sun.”

When you laughed . . .” She nudged my arm. “It illuminated the room.”

Because Bonnie Farraday was perfect. Perfection with an imperfect heart.

“She’s everything, East. Fucking everything!”

I gasped for breath when pure fear stole all the air in my lungs. Fear that I’d lose her before I truly got the chance to know her. My favorite color ripped from my life. Bonnie taken away before she could leave her fingerprint on the window of the world.

Until Bonnie Farraday walked into my life on a beach in Brighton and started bringing me something I didn’t even know I needed—silver. Happiness. Her.

She was my God-given gift. The girl that brought me back life.

brings music to my silent world, East.” I smiled, feeling my chest shimmer. “He plays music for me that says more to my heart than his words ever could.”

Because I thought of him. Cromwell Dean brought with him hope. And right now, it was the most important thing in my world.

Cromwell looked up at me. I took a moment to savor him. To leave a photograph in my soul of the moment his walls fell down and he led me, hands grasped and fingers entwined, inside his heart. Where I would never leave. Where I forever wanted to stay.

We hadn’t been together long, but when your time is finite, love is felt stronger, faster, deeper.

“I’m falling in love with you,” I whispered, letting my soul take the lead and speak its truth unguarded. Cromwell stilled, and his blue eyes fixed on me. My hand lay on his cheek. I swallowed. “I’m falling in love with you, Cromwell Dean. So very deeply in love.”

“I’m falling in love with you too,” he said, his deep voice broken and hoarse. Broken or not, my heart absorbed those words like a flower drinking in the rays of the sun. It expanded in my chest and beat with wild abandon.