Translucent

Translucent. Enough light to be visible. Not enough to be truly seen.

TAYLOR is a pianist with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Offstage she wears worn-in denim and boots. Onstage, concert silk.

She likes knowing where the line between them is. She likes knowing where most lines are.

What she trusts is control: the tempo, the distance, what she eats, how she spends a day, how much of herself anyone is allowed to see.

She has built a good life inside those limits.

Then, at a fundraiser she nearly skips, she meets CALLUM.

He does not crowd her. Does not try to impress her.

Just pays attention.

Not only to what she is saying, but to the hesitation before an answer. The joke that changes the subject. The piece of Chopin she has practised for years but her hands still can't quite master.

Something about him gets past her usual calibration.

Which would be simpler if there were not already someone she had spent years trying, and failing, to put entirely behind her. Some nights, her phone still lights up with the number she never deleted.

TAYLOR is not the only one keeping part of her life out of reach.

CALLUM is easier to like than he is to know. He can be open about almost anything, provided it is not the thing that matters.

There is a manuscript he never talks about. Parts of his past arrive in pieces, usually after TAYLOR has already realized there was something missing.

For all the attention he gives her, he is careful about where hers lands.

TAYLOR should know better than to keep looking.

She does anyway.

What grows between them does so slowly, awkwardly, and with both of them still keeping one hand on the door.

In time, TAYLOR can see the wall.

The hard part is still on the other side.