Page 62 of Exactly What I Needed
Taking a deep breath, I turned away and slowly followed my friend toward the house.
“There, the bleeding has stopped, and it isn’t broken,” Doctor Davenport said, and I smiled gratefully.
“Thank you.” I adjusted the ice pack on my nose.
“I can send in your parents, if you’d like? They’re worried about you,” he offered. I shook my head.
“I’d like to be alone for a bit, if that’s okay. I’m assuming the party is pretty much over after that little incident.” I leaned back against the couch in the beautiful drawing room.
He pushed himself up from his leather chair. “You’d be quite mistaken, my dear. Sydney knows how to keep a party going, and with that band Void or whatever here, things are still cooking.” Walking across the room, he paused at the doorway, his hand on the golden knob. “Come join us when you’re ready. Things will be fine. You’ll see.” He winked a wink that looked so much like Sydney and quietly left the room.
Tears filled my eyes as reality finally settled in. There were hundreds of books behind me, all filled with happy endings, and here I was wishing beyond imagination that somehow there was one for me. The stars sparkling through the three arched windows to my left felt too bright for the solemnity that was within my own heart.
Slowly, I pushed myself up from the leather couch and slid a free hand across the exquisite oak coffee table. Wandering softly across the plush, ornate rug below my feet, I drifted to those windows. Shrubbery bordered the bottom of the panes, which delicately rose to the moonlit sky above me.
The chaos was gone. All that was left in my soul was tired pain and confusion. My gaze drifted to the beautiful grand piano beside me, lit beneath silvery streaks that danced upon keys I hadn’t touched in years.
They beckoned to me, called to me. Reminding me that music can speak in a way that words could never describe. Feelings that needed to bereleased were waiting at those keys. Kicking my heels off to the side and dropping the ice pack beside them, I slid the bench back and sat gently down.
Staring at the ivory planks, my fingers trembled in my lap, hesitating. Maybe something I knew would be a good place to start. But as I settled my fingers against the first note for Clair De Lune by Claude Debussy, I couldn’t press the key. My heart was screaming at me to do something else. To play something that had not yet been created.
My foot rested upon the cold, metal pedal, and I closed my eyes.
One note was all that was needed to start this, and I let my hand go where it wanted. (9) A second note and then a third played after, and then I was dancing across those keys. Tears streamed down my face as every aching emotion crashed from me. Anger, exhaustion, and agony mixed in with a tired and melodic sadness. Overwhelming sadness directed at no one but myself.
My eyes were wide open, but I was not in this room. Those keys played on their own as strings entered in, notes being pulled across by their ghostly bows. (10) Wind instruments eventually joined, and the music settled into a beautiful stream flowing through the mountains. Cascading down hills and then gently brushing past billowing leaves that dipped a little too closely to the surface of the water.
Everything was in perfect harmony despite the raging storm that was carrying on outside. Despite the anguish that was all-consuming, it continued forward, in its own beautiful tragedy.
I knew there was so much uncertainty awaiting me outside this room. Sydney must have thousands of questions. Asher had punched Danny,who was not likely to give up just from that. Also, why had Asher still come to my birthday, and what had it all meant? Then my parents. Oh, how confused they must feel, though growing up, I often wondered who was taking care of whom. That burden had weighed so heavy for so long that for once, I wanted to be the child and only the child.
For once, I wanted nothing more than to simply be. To sit in this music and let it pour from me. To have nothing else going on but this. But then, without the rocks and hills that sat in the path of a river, it would never twist and turn, becoming its exquisite final self. Reaching a destination far grander than could’ve been imagined.
It had been so long since music felt like this. So long since I felt transported to a different realm, hearing notes that weren’t being played. A full orchestra in my own head, sounding as clearly as if it were right there in front of me. Filling the hollowness I’d once had. All around me, sharpening each note. Building louder and louder, thicker, denser, more powerful before finally releasing into that satisfying ending once more.
I needed to write these notes down before they left my head.
Immediately, I stood from the piano and raced to Doctor Davenport’s desk. In the bottom drawer, beneath all his doctor notes, I used to hide blank sheet music. Smiling to myself, I found my old stash and pulled some out. Grabbing a pencil from his desk, I raced back to the piano and began writing down everything I’d been hearing.
Layering each instrument and note where necessary. Lead smudged across the side of my hand, leaving a graying stain on the page, but it didn’t bother me. Not as I continued to plunk out notes and write them down.
Humming to myself, I tapped my foot, hearing the music as I went over the first portion of my composition.
“I wondered what it would look like to see you doing this,” a voice said, piercing through my world.
I shrieked and threw my pencil at the figure in the doorway.
Asher.
Chapter 22
He ducked out of the way, and the pencil fell to the ground. Asher chuckled.
“What are you doing here?” I gasped, placing my hand over my heart.
“Coming to see you.” He pushed off the wall he’d been leaning against.
“How long have you been standing there?” I sheepishly asked as he slowly walked my way.
