“Then I realized: I do fucking know you, Melody. I know the deep, important shit, like the way your eyes light up when you’re dancing in the freezing lake singing God-awful eighties songs, and that you cry when you hear violins play, and that your mom would make you peanut butter and banana sandwiches whenever you were sad, and all the little things that keep you waking up each morning, living and breathing. I know your starting points.”
Tears trickle down my cheeks, pooling at my jaw, and I stare at him, dumbfounded.
Star-struck and bewitched.
Parker continues. “So, I built you this violin. It’s a little shoddy—not my best work because violins are kind of a bitch to hand carve, but… it plays.” Pausing, he reaches for his cell phone lying beside his right knee and scrolls his finger over the screen until a music app opens. His gaze connects with mine before he taps the song. “Dancing in the lake, the song, Unchained Melody, the sound of violins, peanut butter and banana sandwiches, August…” He waves his arm out, as if gesturing to the current month. “Sandwiches are in my bag.”
I don’t even remember moving, but suddenly, I’m kneeling in front of him in the sand, holding a heart-rending sob in the back of my throat. Walden perks up to sniff me, and I trail my fingers through his soft fur before returning my attention to the man who is stealing my heart.
Although… he can’t steal what was already his.
I’m blurry-eyed and sniffling as I watch him in wonderment, realizing how much he truly heard in those meetings. Even on the days I thought he was sleeping, he was silently listening. He was listening to me, noticing me. Absorbing.
Parker etched my words and purest memories inside of him, carrying them around until they outweighed his darkness. I’ve been a part of him for all this time.
My voice quakes as I lick the tears from my lips. “This is the most amazing gift. Parker, I… I’m speechless.”
“You’re about to be deaf in a minute. I’m telling you, this won’t be good. It took hours of YouTube videos to figure out what these damn strings even do.”
Laughter sneaks into the cry that escapes me. “I can’t believe you did all this…”
He taps his phone screen back on, then hovers his index finger over the song selection. A smile of apprehension greets me as he swallows hard. “Fuck, okay… ready?”
I nod eagerly.
Parker presses play, and my favorite song floats through the speaker: Unchained Melody. My heart feels like it’s weeping from only the first note, and then it falls apart, a quivering mess, the moment Parker places the bow along the four strings.
The instrument sings to life, so entirely out of tune and off-key, my tears fall harder. Parker chuckles through his blunders, shaking his head as he misses almost every note, but that only makes it sweeter.
More perfect.
Zephyr’s words flash through my mind as the strings assault me with preciously flawed melodies: Perfection is an illusion.
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Perfection is right now, this very moment, sitting on my favorite beach with Parker Denison as he siphons every last drop of remorse and fear, every lingering shadow, from my wildly beating heart.
The sun rises inside me again.
He only lasts another thirty seconds before a final self-deprecating laugh spills from his lips, and he grits out, “Fuck it.”
In a flash, Parker sets the violin aside and pulls me up by the wrist while the song still echoes from the speaker. Walden watches with a cocked head as I squeak in surprise, finding my footing and skipping through the sand towards the water, Parker leading the way. “What are you doing?” I question through a stretched grin.
Parker kicks his shoes off, one by one, then yanks a white sock from each foot. “Your starting point was dancing in the lake, not sitting in the sand. Come on.”
“You… you’re going in the water?”
“Why do you think I wore shorts?”
Our smiles match as we face each other for a fleeting, poignant moment, causing my lungs to burn with adoration. A new wave of tears flood me. The sun hovers low in the sky, casting an ambient orange glow along the surface of the water, bathing us in half-light, and I’m not sure if I’ve ever felt more ablaze.
With my toes in the sand, our hands entwined, my favorite song serenading us, and a sweet old dog as our witness, Parker tugs me towards the water’s edge. I let out an onslaught of delirious giggles when my bare feet hit the icy lake with a splash.
“Fuck, it’s cold,” Parker bites outs, dragging me through the sludge until I’m flush against his chest. His arms snake around me, holding tight. “But you’re not.”
My nose kisses the front of his t-shirt. “Because I’m the sun, right?”
There’s a lengthy pause, a considerable silence, as Parker digests my question while the water licks our thighs. He breathes a tapered sigh into my hair. “You’re the moon.”
The moon?
I pivot my face until my cheek is pressed up against his heart. The beats are loud and songful, a worthy harmony to the melodies drifting over to us from the beach. My eyes close with contentment. “Why am I the moon?”
“You’re the guiding light in a dark sky,” Parker murmurs, his breath tickling the top of my head. “You shine strong when the rest of the world is asleep… when no one is even looking.”
A strained gasp of impossible emotion is swallowed by his shirt. Muffled by his heartbeats. I almost choke on my own voice as I repeat raggedly, “I’m the moon.”
I’m Charlie’s sun, and I’m Parker’s moon.
I can be both.
I’m an eclipse.
We sway lightly beneath the horizon as Unchained Melody plays on loop across the shore. Parker’s arms wrap tighter around me, holding me like a lover, while we dance quietly in the stillness of the water. I’m transported back to my living room as a little girl, my tiny feet perched atop my father’s shoes as we danced to this song, and it’s a moment that has always stayed with me. I felt so loved in that moment, utterly adored, and those same feelings sweep through me right now as I cling to Parker beneath a sky of orange and gold.
Is this… love?
It feels so profound—so fundamental.
Does Parker love me? Is he capable?
Am I?
His arms unlink from behind my back, then he grazes his fingers up my own arms until he’s pulling me free of the embrace. I’m startled at first, confused, but his touch is gentle and careful. Parker takes one of my hands in his, and I note how much mine is trembling—either from the cold water, or from the flurry of questions funneling through me.
Our eyes lock as he guides my hand to the hem of his t-shirt and inches my fingers underneath the fabric. My breath catches.
His scars.
He’s letting me feel his scars.
Parker goes rigid, his body rejecting the intrusion, but his eyes remain soft and steadfast. His palm curls around my wrist as he maintains control of my exploration, and I hold that same breath when the pads of my fingertips touch the cemetery of old wounds, of grisly trauma, he’s kept hidden from me all this time.
The tissue feels puckered and worn as my fingers dance from one scar to the next. Parker keeps my reach low, level with his abdomen, and I watch his face twist with quandary as his innate need to push me away battles with these new feelings of vulnerability. He’s letting me in. He wants to let me in.