"my broken drum; you have beaten my heart. – hoax"
the sound of the piano filled his senses and echoed around the empty room. he hadn't played in what felt like years ago. perhaps it had been – he was just too tired to notice.
the keys were wiped off the dust where his hands were. like himself, it had been deserted for some time.
his heart beat an uncomfortable rhythm against his chest as the melody from his own fingers continued. it was one of the pieces he had studied when he was a boy, a series of notes that he knew with his eyes closed, but he was always too scared to play. his home was almost always filled with unwanted, dark company that did not value him except for his merciless obedience to them. it had been more than five years since the shadows of his life were gone, and still, he was too scared to feel judged, with a deeply rooted inadequacy despite the eerie quiet.
she never heard this, he thought. she would never get to. she always asked him to play back when the manor was nothing more than a hallowed hall, a home of his past ghosts and his present ones.
silence ensued.
the house, now, would be a foreign sight to her. he'd always imagined her stepping on the front porch and placing her slender hands on the newly painted wooden door for the first time. two years, and it never happens.
he presses a note wrong, and it makes an invasive mix to the ensemble of keys he had been gently caressing with weakened hands. this always happens when a memory comes back. a soft touch, a warm smile, a tight hug – all gone.
a deep sigh was heard; it was like a year old. he was reminded that it was, that it has been a few years but somehow, everything remained the same; only buried in layers of pretense.
empty. cold.
what went wrong?
he will never get to drive her around town like he promised, once his pale, slender fingers learn how to do so. he promised, when she was sad, that he would do it – she had a memory of herself and her own parents, and what they used to do when she was home for the summer. they would get in a car and drive; she liked the city lights, and the waves of trees. it gives her calm that she never had after so long.
this, too, never happens.
he will never get to touch her soft hands again. will never get to wrap his scarf around her neck, under all her curls, when she was cold.
the deep silence was interrupted by his soft sob, silver eyes blurring. too many regrets. too many wishes not done. promises left to wilt, as the autumn leaves did. sins that were overlooked, that were never forgiven, as the biting frost once he stepped outside on the blanket of snow.
perhaps, he mused, the isolation stung more. he had lost his great love, his muse.
she, too, will never forget this.