I watch you walk across the stage, the spotlight following your movements as if you're the only one who matters. In reality, you are.
You invited me to your recital only yesterday and I could tell it was a major deal for you.
Come by yourself, you told me. No one else knows, Britt. I nodded and smiled at your nervousness.
I had never seen you play the piano before tonight. I had walked by it thousands of times at your house, but you would always brush me off when I asked if you played. If I had asked you to play me something, I'm sure you would have. But I knew it made you uncomfortable, so I never brought it up.
And here we are now. You onstage and me watching you. I'm sitting in row 4, center, in the large Community Center across town. You walk across the stage and sit on the shiny piano bench. I watch as you stretch your fingers in front of you and roll your neck slowly from left to right. I'm sitting in just the right spot in the auditorium, the seat where I can see both your face and your hands.
You stare at the sheet music and I stare at you. There is a crease along your forehead, like the one that appears when you're concentrating on something, like the steps during Cheerios. I watch as you gently place your fingers on the keys in front of you and begin to play.
The song is unfamiliar, but one of beauty. I watch your left hand dance across the left side of the piano, while I hear your right play the upbeat melody. It sounds like something from a grand music hall, like one of those places Rachel wants to perform at someday. I hear the light tapping of your nails against the keys and I'm reminded of rain.
We're in your bedroom, lying on your bed, listening to the rain tapping against the window. Our hands are intertwined. There's something comforting about the way your thumb strokes the top of my hand, making small circles. I close my eyes, the tap, tap, tap putting me to sleep. I sense your face close to mine and open my eyes.
What if I kiss you, Britt? You ask quietly. You're lying on your side, facing me, and I feel your lips only inches away. I nod my head and lean into you, meeting you halfway. Your lips are soft and your touch is light. It's nice, and sweet, and everything I had always imagined. Always imagined with you.
Your melody plays on, rising and falling with only emotion you can fuse into it. Rising in tempo, like the first night we made love, staying up all night, just talking afterward. Rising in pitch, the screams as you dunk me in the pool last summer, your fingers playing with the strings of my bikini. Rising in volume, and I hear you yelling at me at my locker, the tears gleaming in your eyes and the bittersweet I love you in my ear.
The melody slows. And then it's falling, your fingers slowing their motion inside of me. The falling of the beat of your heart as I choose him, instead of you. The falling of your tears, the times I forced something from you that you were afraid of showing. The falling of your eyes and words, as you're unable to look at me, unable to speak.
Suddenly, the music comes to a halt. Not an ending, just a silence. Those days we didn't talk. That time you could barely look at me. I couldn't bear being away from you. The silence confused me, but I know now the silence was killing you.
Then you start again, a tune not upbeat, but not sad either. It gives me a calming feeling, like the waves of the ocean when we went on vacation this summer. It washed over my feet, cool, and your hand was in mine. It was just you and I, our vacation together before senior year.
A new beginning, you had said. We watched the waves wash up on shore until nightfall, then fell asleep, wrapped up in each other, but nothing more. A beginning for two people. Not going back to what we were but starting something completely new. As friends for now; maybe more someday.
Your fingers slow again, dancing lightly across the keys and entangle in my hair. They cup my face gently and you press a light kiss to my lips. Hope. That's the feeling your music creates in me.
Your music stops now, coming full circle in our story. You stand from the bench and bow slightly. Everyone around me is standing, clapping wildly at the music of our life, things they know nothing about.
I lock eyes with you and smile. We could have more someday, Santana. We can make more melodies and harmonies together. It doesn't matter the tempo, volume, or pitch, as long as music is being made.
Our song doesn't have to end there.