Everything You Are

by Kerry Anne King

as if rigor mortis has reached out tendrils from the coffins to their front-row viewing seat and frozen her still-living muscles.

The moment that Phee fell in love with Braden Healey is lodged in her memory with the same pristine clarity as her first glass of Scotch. Both had a similar effect on her. The burn, the sense of melting away, the instant addiction.

“I’m already cursed. How much worse could it get?” Plenty worse, as it turns out. Not that the cello or any mysterious curse is to blame. Braden is his own curse. Everything that has happened is his fault. All of it.

At the center of the music, he is whole. All of his confusion—his anger, his grief, his guilt—turns to gold, a process of alchemy.

Every lecture that came her way from her parents or her teachers involved the word “too.” Too loud, too excited, too bossy, too opinionated, too much.

The two loose ends of the flashback flail, loose in the breeze, connected to nothing.