Sonata stared at herself in the mirror.
Inhaled slowly. Exhaled slowly.
Straightened her fringe. Centred her ponytail. Pulled her gloves tight. Adjusted her tie. Secured her gem.
Everything had to be perfect. Was her skirt billowed out right? Did the seams align? Were the shoulders of her top even? Had she used enough eyeliner?
Inhaled, exhaled, slowly.
Stalling.
Stalling stalling stalling.
She should have been on stage, awaiting her turn to perform with her bandmates. Instead, she had locked herself inside her dressing room, trying to avoid heart palpitations, psyching herself up to perform, knowing she had to face—
“Come on, Sona, we’re next. Are you ready yet?”
Okay, maybe she wasn’t locked inside her dressing room, even though she was approximately 99.9% sure she had bolted the door shut with her own hands, and pulled on the knob for good measure to be sure it was bolted tight.
Chasing her thoughts away, Sonata turned around and nodded quickly at Aria.
“I’m, like, so ready,” she lied, pushing a grin.
She was so not.
“No, you’re so not.” Adagio stepped past Aria, raising an eyebrow as she pointed a finger toward Sonata. “Where’s your necklace?”
Sonata knitted her eyebrows together and frowned.
“Stop teasing, Adagio!” Sonata lifted her hand to her neck. “It’s right h—” she stopped short, fingers finding only the knot of a tie at her sternum. Her stomach flipped.
Where was her necklace?
“I—I just had it!” Sonata exclaimed, whirling back around to face her vanity table. Makeup and jewellery fell to the floor in a panicked flurry as she shoved tubes and chains and compacts and rings off, drawers clattered loudly as she pulled them out of their tracks and emptied them of their contents before dropping them, and her chest heaved as she began to hyperventilate.
It couldn’t be gone. It couldn’t.
But it was.
For a moment, she stood staring at the ravaged table, palms pressed down against its wooden surface to support herself as her heart thumped heavily against her ribcage. She lifted her eyes to the mirror and saw Aria and Adagio, exchanging looks with one another, and she spun on her heels to face them, eyes wide and pleading.
Pleading for help— sympathy— forgiveness.
Aria scoffed.
“That’s just like you to go and ruin something,” she said.
“Mmm.” Adagio laughed airily, running a hand through her hair before tossing it behind her shoulder. “I suppose Aria and I will have to go on without you.”
“What?!” Sonata shook her head. “You—You guys can’t!”
Aria giggled. “Oh, can’t we, Adagio?”
“We can, Aria.”
“After all, if she’s careless enough to lose her gem—”
“—there’s no telling what kind of trouble she’ll get us into.”
“I don’t need it!” Sonata insisted. “Listen!”
She inhaled deeply and opened her mouth to sing.
Nothing came out.
No.
She tried again. No. She grabbed her throat.
Silence. No no no—
Aria and Adagio laughed.
“Completely worthless,” Aria said, walking closer to Sonata and flicking her in the forehead. “Some siren.”
“Oh, please, Aria.” Adagio rolled her eyes, sliding around Sonata’s side, tracing her hand up her neck, along her back, down her chest. “No voice, no wings, no magic. As if she’s even a siren anymore. She’s just . . . human.”
Sonata stared at the floor, heart pounding, face flushing, heat rising from her chest to her head this isn’t happening this isn’t happening this isn’t happening and the warmth drove a light-headedness at her forehead, her head spinning and thoughts buzzing and lights dancing in a frightening array—
Wait.
“I know where it is!” Sonata shouted, pushing away from Aria’s suffocating words and Adagio’s suffocating touch, bounding out the door and slamming it shut behind her. She ran past the amphitheatre and hillsides and buildings and cars, she ran across a crosswalk at a green light, she ran through a couple holding hands, she ran and she pushed her own hands out in front of her and threw the doors to Sugarcube Corner open wide and ran to the counter and rang the service bell fiercely.
“Give it back!” She demanded, ring-ring-ringing. “Give it back!”
A girl with curly pink hair and cyan eyes turned to face her, smiling obliviously.
“Give what back, silly?”
Sonata slammed her fists down on the counter.
“My necklace!”
“Ohhhhh, thaaaat.” Pinkie giggled, reaching a hand into her apron pocket before pulling the necklace out, reaching over the counter to affix it around Sonata’s neck. “You left it at my house.”
Sonata began to calm and her breathing slowed to a comfortable rhythm as the panic pulled away from her like a gently rippling low tide. She lifted her hand to grasp at the pendant, feel its realness, before looking down at the silver eighth-note held between her fingers.
. . . and she started to cry.
“Sonata, stop.”
Sonata opened her eyes and stopped.
Only when she realised she was being stared at did she ease herself out of her self-imposed paralysis, lifting her head to see Aria looking down at her with an uncomfortably disconcerted look.
As Sonata pushed herself up, her first instinct was to lift her hand to her neck, and as she did, she grasped the black ribbon before pulling her fingers down along the ribbon to feel the red gem resting at her sternum, and she held onto it long enough to reconnect with reality: the staleness of drying tears on her face, now being rubbed away with a half-closed fist, the darkness of the empty gymnasium, abandoned by all save herself and Aria, the bleacher they sat on together—closely.
Like, super closely.
Aria scooted just slightly to the side.
“You fell asleep on me.” Aria lifted her hand to rub her arm. “I’m gonna be sore the rest of the day now. Thanks a lot.”
“Why didn’t you just—” Sonata stopped herself short as full lucidity returned to her and she remembered what they were still doing at the school, in an empty gymnasium. “Wait, where’s Adagio? Weren’t we gonna run through the number one last time?”
“She went to fix her hair or something stupid like that since you decided to take a nap.” Aria shrugged, lowering her hand down from her arm. She held her silence a moment longer, turning her eyes away from Sonata as if wordlessly claiming plausible deniability that she had seen anything, but it didn’t last long and she looked at Sonata again. “What’s with the tears?”
Sonata pushed her knees together and held her hands atop them, staring at the backs of them like they held some sight of endless fascination, shrugging in response to Aria’s question. She couldn’t even begin to think of how to describe the dream, let alone explain it— there was something about you and Adagio not letting me perform with you guys and also my ex-girlfriend was there the ex-girlfriend I dumped in a really dumb way ‘cause I couldn’t find the nerve to tell her the truth and did I ever tell you I let her wear my necklace even though that’s like the most dangerous thing we could do—
Yeah, that wasn’t gonna happen.
A heavy breath interrupted Sonata’s thoughts and she turned to see Aria with arms folded atop her knees, turned away from her. Sonata clasped her hands together and looked off opposite Aria, wringing her fingers in the uncomfortable silence.
“Look, Sonata.” Aria’s voice startled her, but Sonata refused to face her even as she continued speaking. “Ever since we got here, you’ve been acting weird again— okay, just because you’re looking down doesn’t mean I can’t see that face you’re making. Don’t do that. It’s not like me and Adagio are oblivious to these things, especially since we’ve known you forever.”
Sonata lifted her hands to rest her head in them, staring down at the gym floor silently, and Aria sighed again.
“You kept faltering during practise and you’ve been distracted since Tuesday. We can’t have this. You have to be focused. We’ve come too far to let anything stop us, and we don’t get another chance after this.” There was a pause, almost a jilt in Aria’s voice, but after a moment, she continued strongly. “I don’t know what this is about, but you need to take care of it. This isn’t about any one of us, or even two of us, it’s about the three of us, including you.”
Something caught in Sonata’s throat and she swallowed it down hard.
“So . . . I don’t know. Take care of your stupid issues, whatever they are. Stop being the worst.”
Sonata’s eyes lifted and she stared at the wall opposite her, processing Aria’s words – and after a moment, she found a smile and giggled. “You’re the worst, Aria.”
“Whatever,” Aria replied, and Sonata could just imagine the eye roll. Her tone was mostly flat, but a small laugh slipped out despite her best efforts, and Sonata offered Aria a smile as she heard it – and this time, Aria returned it.
“Anyway, looks like our fearless leader has returned to us. You ready now?”
Sonata let her breath out slowly.
“Yeah. I think I’m ready now.”
·♪♪♪·
·♪♪♪·
“I guess I should’ve been a little more prepared.”
Sonata rubbed her arms through the cloth of her thin sweater – the sleeves of which stopped just below her elbows – and down to the bareness of her skin, eyes wandering around from the crescent of trees surrounding the park to the grassy field where spring flowers bloomed and weeds crowded, and over the sunlit view of the city—everywhere but toward Pinkie, despite the close proximity in which they sat to one another on the weathered bench with its fading green paint.
The weather had been warming, and the day had started out warmly, but then gradually rescinded into chilliness despite the shining sun and cloudless sky. And with that chilliness, Sonata’s choice in clothing for the day – said thin sweater, black and printed with a jagged blue eighth-note overtop a pink heart, denim overalls left off one side with a slight but fashionable distress to the material, and duskily-hued floral-print sneakers – while nothing less than chicly casual and so her, left her vulnerable to an occasional shiver.
And it was after one of these shivers that she felt a coat, the warmth of body heat woven into its soft fibres, laid over her shoulders, and she finally turned to face the girl sitting next to her, helpless to keep from smiling at her as she pulled the sleeves of the coat onto her arms.
“Aren’t you cold without this?”
“I’m actually feeling kinda warm,” Pinkie admitted, rolling up the sleeves of her own sweater and fanning herself with a glance to the side as she fidgeted in her seat.
Sonata looked down at the sleeves of the coat – layered in colour blocks of pink, yellow, and blue – holding the cuffs in her palms. The cold wasn’t the only thing she hadn’t been prepared for; she hadn’t been prepared for this outing, for which she’d bought a small snack but no blanket to sit on, and she definitely hadn’t been prepared to actually talk, even if she’d imagined the conversation a thousand times and a thousand ways over since she’d stormed out of Pinkie’s house a crying mess.
She was ready, but not prepared.
Sonata felt her heart sinking into her stomach, but quickly caught it and herself.
“Um,” she started, pulling a finger along a lock of hair framing her face, “thanks for . . . coming up here with me, even after—y’know, all the . . .”
Pinkie stopped fanning herself and smiled at Sonata.
“Of course, silly! I’m super glad you texted me! I mean, I wanted to talk to you, anyway – I just thought you didn’t want to talk, and . . .” she trailed off, then said: “I can’t believe you remembered how to get here!”
Sonata giggled. “I know, right? That was like—how long ago did we come up here?”
“Four and a half months ago! It was November 16th,” Pinkie replied without missing a beat. She then sheepishly added, “I mark everything important in my planner.”
Something about Pinkie’s words made Sonata feel strange inside – a sort of empty flatness – and she couldn’t think of a response that didn’t sound too melancholic, so she let silence settle between them for some time before finally pushing herself away from the sinking feeling and back up toward the surface.
Treading water was laborious, but sinking meant defeat.
“I brought something for you! I mean, us, but I was thinking of you.” Sonata reached down beneath the bench and pulled her bag up onto her lap, producing a small thermal lunch bag from which she retrieved a plastic container – but upon pulling off the lid, Sonata frowned; her delicate whipped cream-filled strawberries now looked anything but put-together, many having been smeared with cream from their neighbouring berries and others having completely dismantled once-swirls of cream on top.
Sonata sighed.
“They did look nice before I left.”
Pinkie giggled, picking a berry out of the container.
“They look delicious! And anyway,” she said, holding the messy strawberry up, “it’s what’s inside that counts and what’s inside of these is one of my favourite things ever! Whipped cream!”
Sonata watched Pinkie as she ate without regard for the mess she made of her own face in the process, and Sonata felt the buoyancy return to her; the same feeling of belonging, the same childish giddiness, the same disregard for all right and wrong, everything that had first flooded her heart during those weeks of her simple fondness for Sugarcube Corner’s pink-haired attendant growing into something beyond simple fondness with each short chat and snuck cookie. It was overwhelming and frightening but amazing and exhilarating.
“Oh, yeah, I almost forgot!” Pinkie exclaimed after swallowing down the last bite of her strawberry and before reaching into her tote to fish out a thermal bag similar to Sonata’s, thereafter producing a container of deep-fried pastries cut into halves.
“What’s this?” Sonata asked, tentatively picking a piece out of the container as Pinkie lifted it to her and observing the red-and-white filling. Without waiting for an answer, she took a bite from the pastry, finding it to taste deliciously of cherry and cream cheese with a hint of something . . . fresh and zesty?
“They’re chimicherrychangas!” Pinkie set the container down between the two of them, exchanging it for the one Sonata had brought. “I’m still trying to think of a good, catchy name for the other flavours.” She squinted at the strawberry in her fingers. “Like ‘chimistrawberrychanga’ is just a mouthful. Wait, actually, that’s kinda fun to say! Chimistrawberrychanga!”
Sonata covered her mouth, still full with bites of chimicherrychanga, laughing with that buoyancy and lightness that she hadn’t laughed with in months, a lightness like floating upon the water and letting the current carry her without a care. As the laughter subsided and she finished the last of her confectionery, she looked from the flawlessly-folded pastries Pinkie had made to the lopsided, simplistic treats that she’d made, and she let out another sigh.
“I can’t even compare to your baking,” she said, dusting cinnamon sugar off her fingers. “I, like, didn’t even have any idea where to start on my own. I didn’t even bake.”
“Ohmigosh, though, I’d love to teach you sometime! It’s not too super hard.”
“Aria—uh, one of my roommates usually cooks and bakes and that kinda stuff,” Sonata explained, picking up a berry for herself before handing the container back to Pinkie. “But without all the mess.”
“I thought y’r roommatesh didn’t like shweetsh?” Pinkie inquired with a full mouth.
Sonata giggled, wiping some whipped cream off of Pinkie’s face.
“Not sweeeeet sweets,” Sonata began to explain – and that was all it took for their conversation to crescendo and the tension between them to break as Sonata at last told Pinkie about her room/bandmates – and in return, Pinkie told Sonata about her friends/bandmates – and they laughed over stories of people they didn’t know personally, but felt acquainted with through one another – and they let their tangents take them to topics both nostalgic and new.
At some point, Sonata admitted she never actually won the stuffed alligator for Pinkie, but rather, coerced the booth master to give it to her by way of singing – and Pinkie, though disapproving of this dishonest method, couldn’t help but be flattered Sonata would do such a thing for her; and Pinkie admitted that there had never really been a buy-three-drinks-get-a-bag-of-cookies-free special and that she had taken the cost out of her own cheque for the bag and all subsequent free cookies – and Sonata, wholly approving of the vaguely dishonest method, beamed brightly.
They finished off the containers of sweets and relaxed in posture as they conversed; turning to one another rather than facing the hilltop view, crossing and folding legs on the bench, leaning closer to one another, rearranging themselves as the conversation directed them, until finally Pinkie lay in Sonata’s lap and they both fell comfortably quiet, Sonata brushing her fingers through the curly locks of Pinkie’s hair.
“Still cold?” Pinkie asked.
Sonata shook her head, distracted momentarily by a pink curl looped around her finger. “I feel all warmed up.”
“Me too.” Pinkie closed her eyes and exhaled softly.
Sonata lost her grasp on the lock and watched as it bounced away from her finger. She lowered her hand down, reaching for Pinkie’s, and laced their fingers together from the top, feeling Pinkie’s clasp against her own.
“The sunset is really pretty right now,” Sonata said as she looked over the horizon. “You should see it. It looks all fiery.”
“Mmm,” Pinkie mumbled dismissively. “I can see the sun setting any day. I don’t get to lie here with you any day, though.”
Sonata could feel the blush tingeing her cheeks, subtle as it may have been. Content with Pinkie’s response, she leaned back against the bench, happy to ignore the discomfort of public seating in favour of the lull of Pinkie’s breathing; the rise and fall of her chest beneath their intertwined hands – the lingering elation of a fulfilling conversation – the warmth that had once been Pinkie’s still woven into the threads of her coat around Sonata’s shoulders.
She wanted that moment to last forever.
But it couldn’t— and she quickly became aware of how fast the sun was setting, giving way for panic to seep into her chest the lower the sun fell; panic in knowing that the next day would bring with it the semi-finals – and then the final round the following day – and again, Pinkie’s band was still together, and she was still susceptible.
Adagio said they were different, but Sonata was too desperate to think logically.
Too desperate to think logically as she began humming, a soft lullaby-like tune with little threat attached to it, a gentle compliment to the serenity of Pinkie lying on her lap with closed eyes – but the lull transposed, growing stronger, like the roll of a wave building at sea – the cadence of Sonata’s voice rising with force, dripping the very desperation that pulled and pushed the song like the tide – until it finally rose to its peak with the shrillness and vibrato only a siren could achieve, ringing loud and clear and sharp, far from the calm and controlled airs she harmonised with Adagio and Aria, and crashed down with such intensity that Pinkie rose in alarm, eyes wide, hands held mid-air in defensive fists.
“Leave your band,” Sonata commanded with some reverberation of song putting a lilt in her voice, albeit a shaky one.
Pinkie stared, momentarily motionless, before finally lowering her hands. “What?”
“Le—Leave your—your band,” Sonata repeated, the words now sounding less like a melodic command and more like a desperate plea.
“Did—” Pinkie stopped, stared at the bench, and looked up again. “Did you just try to . . . enchant me?”
Sonata broke her gaze and looked away, pulling a hand through her hair. She opened her mouth to speak several times, but every syllable that touched her lips seemed inadequate and became silence. Her reasoning wasn’t good enough, and she knew it, but she tried anyway:
“I just—I just wanted—” she wanted “—to be able to—for us—” for her “—I miss—” she missed “—Adagio and Aria would never—” she, her, herself, Sonata “—there isn’t another way to—”
She pulled the coat off, touching her cold hands to her face. She felt hot and dizzy. There seemed like no good ending to her fragmented explanation, and she couldn’t think of how to piece it together cohesively, and so she sat awaiting a response – but Pinkie said nothing, quiet and unmoving.
“Are you mad at me?” she finally asked, her voice quieter than she intended.
Again, silence. Sonata let her heart sink down into her stomach this time.
“I don’t know what to say,” Pinkie finally replied, looking dazed. “I mean—I don’t know, even after I found out about—about your voice—I really never thought . . .”
She trailed off. She sat silently. Sonata waited for her to stand up and leave – but she didn’t. She stayed. She picked at a piece of peeling paint without looking at it. She stared off into the distance as the sky darkened, she shifted in her seat – and finally, she spoke again.
“I like you a lot, Sonata,” she said with some difficulty, voice edging on a break. “I . . . I love you a lot. I feel happy doing things with you in a way that’s different from normal happy. It makes me dizzy, but a good dizzy, like when you spin too fast on the teacup ride at a carnival and everything’s blurring past you and you feel alive. It’s like . . . melted caramel and chocolate fudge swirl! It’s all warm and gooey and messy but a good messy! But . . . I don’t—I don’t know if we can—”
“We can! I promise we can! You just have to—”
“I’m not going to.” Pinkie looked at Sonata again. She didn’t look angry; she looked disheartened and Sonata only felt more abysmal, having only seen that look on Pinkie’s face during the more taxing portions of the Battle of the Bands – and when she had left her alone in her room without an explanation as to why. “I love you, but I love my friends, too, Sonata. And even if I think what you guys are doing is wrong, I wouldn’t ask you to leave your friends. And I’m not going to.”
Sonata reached for her necklace, turning the gem over in her fingers as she tried to think of something to say, but she had nothing to say. She had nothing to say, and only a quiet question left her lips: “What are you going to do?”
Pinkie’s eyes followed Sonata’s fingers and she stared silently at the gem until finding her own voice again.
“I’m . . . gonna go home and think about all this.”
She took her coat back, picked up her tote bag, stood – then stopped.
“I think you should, too.”
And she left.
And Sonata looked out at the stars and longed for home again.