Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124135 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 621(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
“You saw?”
He nodded. “I wouldn’t have missed it.”
When I looked up, I was inside the music building. My student ID was in my hand. I was in a music room, with a large rack of instruments at one end.
My hands itched to touch them. I wanted to blame it on the alcohol. I wanted to blame it on any damn thing else but the fact that I needed to be here. That I needed these instruments.
I wandered to the piano and ran my hands over the closed lid. My gut felt like it was tearing in two. I pulled my hand back, trying to turn away. But I couldn’t. I sat down on the stool and lifted the lid. Ivory and black keys stared up at me. And like always, I could read them. I didn’t see them as mute; I saw them filled with notes and music and color.
My hands trailed along the keys, and my lip hooked up at the corner. I ripped my hand away. “No,” I said, snapping to no one but myself. My voice was lost in the room.
I closed my eyes, trying to stop the ache in my chest that had been there for three years. I could control it. I was good at that now. Pushing it away. But since this morning, I’d had to fight it harder than usual. It had killed me all day.
It was getting hard to fend off.
“Play, son,” a voice whispered in my head. My hands fisted as I heard the echo of my father’s words in my mind. “Play…”
I gasped, releasing all the fight I had bottled up inside.
The room was silent. A blank canvas waiting for color. My hands rested on the keys. I held my breath then pressed down on a single key. The sound rang out like a siren. A burst of green so vivid it bordered on neon. Another came, bringing a faded red. Before I could stop, my hands were dancing over the keys as if I’d never stopped. As if I hadn’t moved on three years ago.
Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor spilled out from my hands, every bar burned into my brain. No sheet music was needed. I just followed the colors. Vibrant red. Pale blue. Ochre. Tan brown. Lemon yellow. One after the other. A tapestry in my mind.
When the piece came to a close, I turned on the stool. I didn’t think this time. I didn’t put myself through the torment. I just crossed the room and picked up whatever I came to first. At the first stroke of the string on the violin, I closed my eyes and went with it.
This time it was my own music that poured from me.
One after the other, I moved through the instruments, the music like a drug being injected into my veins. I was finally getting my fix back. I was unable to stop. Overdosing on the color, the tastes, and the rush of adrenaline it sent sailing in my blood.
I didn’t know how long had passed. But when I had played every instrument, I headed for the door. But my addiction wasn’t done with me yet. I wanted my feet to just cooperate tonight. I wanted to leave this behind and chalk it up to being too drunk.
But I no longer felt plastered. The alcohol wasn’t what was leading me right now. It was me. And I knew it.
Like it was a magnet, I made my way to the piano again. I reached into my pocket and pulled out his dog tags. I couldn’t bring myself to look at his name. Instead I put them on top of the piano and let them just be with me.
Let him be with me.
I breathed in and out five times before my hands landed on the keys. My heart was a bass drum as I let them take control. And when they did, it was a damn dagger to the chest.
I’d only ever played this song once. Exactly three years ago to the day. I’d never written down the score. It didn’t matter. It was committed to memory. Every note. Every color. Every heartbreaking feel.
This piece was all dark colors. Low notes and tones. And as the sounds surrounded me, my face contorted, remembering Mum walking into my bedroom at three in the morning…
“Baby…” she whispered, hands shaking, face pale and wracked with tears. “They’ve found him…he’s gone.”
I’d stared at her, not moving a muscle. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true. He’d been missing, but he was going to be okay. He had to be. After how we had left things. He had to be.
But watching my mum fall apart, I knew it was real. He was gone.
As the sun had started to rise, I’d gone into the room that had my piano—my twelfth birthday present. And I’d played. I’d played, and as I did, the reality started to sink in.