The Song
By Felicia
She had walked through the outdoor marketplace on a Monday and had been rifling through cheap c.d.'s and cassette tapes when she found a tape that had made her giggle out loud. On a strange whim she bought it, the change conversion made it less then two cents American currency.
She had put the tape in her purse and it stayed in there until Thursday evening when she decided her purse was too full and needed to be cleared out. Then she saw the tape and wondered why she had bought it. It had to be the lamest tape ever, "The World's Greatest Love Songs." She flipped it over to look at what the world considered the greatest love songs to be. It was there number 4 on the list. She couldn't believe it! She popped it in the small combination tape player radio that was on the kitchen counter thinking to herself that she would have to play it soon.
On Saturday, Dawn said that the dishwasher was broken and that she wasn't going to be on dish duty until the pile of dishes in the sink would get dangerously high. Buffy sighed and rolled her eyes at her sister and said she would do the dishes Saturday night and call the dishwasher manufacturer to send over a repairman. Saturday night, she was supposed to be doing the dishes, but she had pushed play on the tape player and now was humming and scrubbing.
There was more humming than scrubbing, at this rate it would take her an hour to wash a few dishes and a frying pan. Then familiar strains of a song came out of the tinny radio. It seemed funny a few days ago, now she wanted to turn off the tape, but she couldn't. She could hear Dawn complaining about the song from down the hall in her bedroom. "You are such a loser! This song is so old turn it off!" her reply to her sister's complaints was to turn up the volume, step away from the sink and to sway a bit to the beat. She heard her sister's door shut loudly as she tried to muffle the sound. She turned it up a little more.
Then on a whim she picked up a wooden spoon from the drawer next to her, closed her eyes and belted out the song's chorus. She knew her voice wasn't amazing, she sang in the shower sometimes, the only real time she had sung in public in a solo surrounded by people was during that spell with the dancing demon. But here in the kitchen, with just her and the spoon microphone she sang with all her heart. She listened to the lyrics intently as she sang along. Her voice cracked and wavered a little on a high passionate note. As the song trailed off she sniffled a little, she opened her eyes and they felt a little damp. She quickly whipped her head around to make sure she was still alone. She was and her sister was still cloistered in her room. She gave a little sigh of relief that no one had heard her singing. She walked back to the sing to pick up a dish to resume washing.
Then there was slow dramatic clapping, slow, sarcastic and it gave her a sense of déjà vu. "Stupendo, canta bella," a deep voice said behind her. She whirled around, blonde hair waving out around her to face him.
"You shouldn't sneak up on people," she accused.
"It's what I do," he was leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed in front of his chest. Then he moved towards her and cupped her cheek. His thumb reached up as if to brush away a tear, if one had managed to escape her misted eyes. "Little emotional, are we?"
In another time and place she would have hit him for saying that, but things were different now. Everything was different now. She nodded and he pulled her close to him to hug her. She buried her face into his chest and sniffled. "S'ok, pet, I'm here," he murmured to reassure her.
"But sometimes I don't believe it, I think that it's a dream, like all the other dreams I used to have before and I would wake up and want to go back to sleep because then you would be there, just for a little while," she confessed into his t-shirt.
"Think the same thing too sometimes, but this is real, I'm here, I won't leave you, love you." he moved one arm from around her and pushed the rewind button on the tape player, and then he pushed play again.
As the song started about a quarter of the way through, he held her close and began to sway with her. "Let's have us one corny moment," and he began to softly sing in her ear along with the chorus. "You're my hero, and everything I would like to be," His voice started getting louder and she laughed and sang out along with him.
Then as the song started to end they were whispering the words to each other and before they kissed she said, "You're the wind beneath my wings."
The End