Page 86 of So Not My Thing
I kept the pedal down, my eyes closed, the fading note cradling me.
A soft clap started, and my eyes flew open, peering past the bright edges of the spotlight. “Who’s there?” I asked.
Miles stepped forward, still a shadow in the darkness beyond the stage. “I didn’t know you sang. Or played.”
“I used to.” I pulled the lid down over the keys.
“Don’t stop,” he said. “You’re good.”
“Sorry, I’ll head upstairs. I thought you were gone for the night.” This felt even more naked than the tarot reading, and I was so tired of the feeling.
“No, don’t. I got a free concert, and that’s not fair, especially if it wasn’t something you’re ready to put out there.”
“It wasn’t.” My words were barely audible. He didn’t even ask me who it was about. He didn’t need to.
“We got new security cameras. It was a condition for insuring that beast.” He nodded at the piano. “You set off the motion sensor, and when I saw you on the screen”—he held up his phone—“I couldn’t believe I didn’t know you were an artist too, so I came to see for myself.”
“I’m not. An artist,” I clarified. “I just...I don’t know. I saw it, and I haven’t played in a few weeks, and I wanted to figure some stuff out, and that’s where it decided to come out, I guess.”
“Look, I was going to come over to your place tonight anyway to see if we could talk. Again. Or mostly I could talk. I wanted to say some stuff, and...” He sighed and shoved his fingers through his hair. “You showed me yours. How about if I show you mine?”
I shook my head a tiny bit. “What are you talking about?”
“Been working on something. What if you be the audience and I put something out there?”
“Sure.” I started to slide from the bench.
“Stay,” he said. He hopped up on the stage and sat next to me, lifting the lid and running his fingers lightly over the keys. “It sounds good, huh?”
“Yeah. So good it kind of...”
“Kind of what?” he prompted me softly.
“Kind of makes my chest hurt.” I cringed at how stupid that sounded.
He nodded like that made perfect sense. “I feel that. I like it so much it doesn’t want to stay inside my body.”
It was that exactly. I tumbled even further toward loving him in a way that I couldn’t come back from. I should get up and leave for self-protection, the only tool I’d had over the last month to keep me safe. But I didn’t. I stayed where I was. It felt too good to sit next to him. He smelled like soap, and the short sleeve of his soft blue shirt brushed my arm, sending tiny sparks down my spine.
He rested his fingers on the keys and made a small throat-clearing sound before playing.
“We were so young when our paths first crossed
I was too immature and the moment was lost
Now we’re grown and together again
With a chance to make it what it should have been.”
I went totally still. This song was about me. There was no way it wasn’t. He did a chord change, and my heart rate accelerated because it meant he was leading to the chorus, and the chorus of a song always told the truth. It was always the bottom line.
“We can write our own brand-new beginning
Scenes still waiting for us to write the ending
Let me show you how this story could unfold now
I can be your hero, baby, let me show you how”
