Read Online Brilliant by Rachel Vail - Free Book Online

cauliflower and smoked Gouda, which we all ate with fake smiles and polite conversation.
    I could not look at Allison at all.
    Afterward, when all the plates were cleared, while he was washing the dishes, Dad joked, “Well, I guess I could ask a couple guys to come over and help me haul theupright up from the basement.”
    “I doubt it would be worth it,” Mom muttered, then turned to us. “Girls, this is not going to be easy. The piano is only the first thing to go. You need to prepare yourselves—we all need to prepare….”
    By instinct I reassured her: “Don’t worry about us, Mom. We’re fine. We’ll be fine.” But I couldn’t, this time, look her in the eyes, either.
    “I’m just saying,” she continued, shutting me down without a thought, not noticing how pissed I was despite my reassurances to her. “It’s not going to be easy….”
    “We’re the Avery Women,” Phoebe chimed in. “Nothing can intimidate us.”
    Dad splashed her with his soapy hands. “Not even dish soap?”
    “Well, maybe dish soap,” Phoebe responded.
    Dad dried his hands on the dish towel and said, “Okay, then, let’s face our demons, shall we?”
    We followed him into the cavernous living room. We stood there silently for a little while, not knowing what to do or where to go. After a minute or so, Dad wrapped his arms around Mom and said, “While it lasted, it sure was grand.”
    She buried her head in his chest. He looked up at the ceiling, which is my trick, too, for not letting tears fall out.
    This time, though, the trick didn’t work for me.
    Suddenly I was on the floor, gasping for air through my sobs. My sisters hugged me, or tried, both at the same time, but I shrugged them off. I didn’t mean to be making a scene, and the last thing I could handle was their comfort.
    Allison looked at me with sad eyes, and Phoebe whispered, “You loved that piano, huh, Quinn?”
    Mom and Dad turned to stare at me, too, as I cracked apart all over the empty living room. They looked shocked. I’d never lost it like that before. “Quinn…” Mom and Dad both started at the same time.
    I shook my head, held up my hand to stop anyone from coming to hug me. I’d had enough of that earlier in the day and didn’t deserve—couldn’t take—any more.
    The caring in their faces literally made me gag, and then I had to struggle to catch my breath again. It hit me hard how much I hated that they all had this image of me: the gifted one, the pianist who voluntarily—no, let’s face it, compulsively—practiced, who gave concerts and won awards, the one who actually could, with luck and work and dedication, become a professional piano player, an artist, a master.
    Not true, probably, but still, it was what they thought. And I’d let them. I’d liked their thinking it, despite knowing I wasn’t that good at all.
    They were staring at me, my whole family, the people closest in the world to me, but what they were seeing wasthe Photoshop version of me, retouched and improved, untrue. They had no idea it wasn’t real.
    They all thought I was shattered by the loss of the piano, that my dashed dreams of myself and our family had to do with competing, winning, music, beauty, success.
    They were wrong. That wasn’t what I was mourning.
    Not even close.
    “It’s just things,” I told them, and ran upstairs alone.

10
    T HE NEXT NIGHT WE WENT to the fireworks at the high school. Adriana invited Jelly and me to go to a party with her, but I explained we had a family tradition, and Jelly said she had the same. Adriana rolled her eyes and empathized and we said good-bye with promises about Saturday at Adriana’s house and meeting JD and Mason, either one or both of whom had previously made out with Adriana. Jelly talked the whole way home from camp about how cool it would be to feel so casual about having made out with this guy and that and then, “No big deal, we can just stay friends.” Wouldn’t that be awesome? “We should