I’m surprised at the collection that he has, but even more impressed by the quality of his collection. I wouldn’t have pegged him for the kind of guy who’s into classical music at all, but there are some really good classics here.
The surround sound system seems like the kind of thing a party-animal like Maverick could use to do some serious damage.
I press play and smile as Bach fills the room.
Resting on the mantle close to his iPad is his tablet and I glance over my shoulder like a thief, before swiping the screen. Needless to say, I’m rendered speechless by what greets me.
I’ve never seen myself like this before.
I remember feeling like a whole different person on the day of our fake wedding, but seeing us here, smiling, polished and dressed to perfection makes me more emotional than I’m sure it should. I swipe through the pictures and a feeling of nostalgia blooms in my chest.
Is it nostalgia if you’ve never had it?
Maverick’s eyes look softer than I remembered them, as he looks at me and for a fleeting moment. I let myself believe that that kind stare is real and actually meant for me. I feel my shoulders sag and my heartbeat picks up slightly the longer I stare at him, so I swipe again to escape these treacherous feelings, but it’s just more of us and more of these feelings.
I place the tablet back on the mantle and head back to the kitchen.
I won’t let starvation give way to madness. This is Maverick we’re talking about.
It’s not like there’s anything there. I mean, why would there be? These are just pictures! Beautiful, heart-tugging, pixie dust and fairytale type pictures that every little girl dreams of having parked by her bedside to greet her in the morning when she wakes up beside the one who put it there. These pictures are a beautiful sham and proof that sometimes the million words a picture tells are all lies.
I bring my focus back to something that matters – the hunger grumbling in the pit of my stomach. Despite Maverick’s obvious underuse of this kitchen, it’s remarkably outfitted and I soon have three of the four burners fired up and working overtime to fill the flat with fragrances I’m almost sure it’s never experienced.
As the music changes, my mood lifts until I find myself prancing around the room to Georges Bizet’s Les Toreadors in Carmen Suite No 1. I haven’t felt this liberated in a long while and prancing gives way to plies and pirouettes. When Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of flowers begins, I politely ask myself for a dance with a bow and graciously accept with a curtsy before waltzing all the way into the living room.
I haven’t had formal lessons in a few months due to all the financial gymnastics happening at home and I suddenly feel guilty about how good a time I’m having here. This isn’t meant to be a celebration of any kind. I walk over to the iPad to turn it off but the song changes and for a moment I am a child again.
This one isn’t a well-known classic; still it’s one of the most beautiful solo piano renditions I’ve ever heard. Something about the technique feels familiar yet incomplete. In my ears, I can hear Eloise playing alongside the keys and the longer I listen, the more the desire to join in burns inside me. I run to the room for my violin and restart the piece before placing her beneath my chin and taking a deep, cleansing breath.
As my fingers wrap around her, I can feel my heart racing and as the bow greets the strings with a melodic hello, tears well up in the back of my throat and my eyes flutter to a close.
I haven’t heard this song in years.
26
My hand hovers over the handle of my door with a tremor running from my fingers all the way up into my arm. I clench my fist and try shaking it off but it’s still there.
I can feel run away trains screaming along the railroads of my ribcages and I can’t breathe.
I try to open the door again, but my heart won’t let me.
The music from inside the flat that is no longer mine is clawing its way out into the hall through the door, paralyzing me.
Of all the songs, Beth, why that one?
I need to get inside. To stop her, but I can’t move.
Leaning my forehead against the wall, I slam my fist into the space beside me and my knuckles sing out in pain.
I roll over and lean my back against the wall, trying to catch my breath, but the darkness is racing towards me and my hands are still shaking.
I need to stop her.
I have to stop her.
There’s a reason I never play that song and this anxiety attack, threatening to take suffocate me is exactly it.
With a deep breath, I bring both hands up to the handle and swipe my card before pushing it open. My brain tells my mouth to say the words, but I’m greeted by everything at once.
There’s an aroma in the air that screams the word “home” trying to tunnel its way through the darkness to comfort me, but the vision before me and the sound in the room overpowers comfort and reaches down my throat, curling long string-like fingers around my thawing heart, squeezing tightly as if trying to take my life and reviving me at the same time.
I can hear a voice that I haven’t heard in almost a decade calling to me with a melodic smile in her tone.
“What’s wrong ,Maverick?” she asks softly, “Can’t sleep?” I can see her smile. I can always see her smile, even though I can’t see the rest of her.
My knees buckle slightly as I walk towards the living room, trying to muster up a show of hardness, but I’m sure my face is just as raw as my heart is with the emotions I’m trying not to embrace. I can feel scales falling away slowly and I’m a child again.
When I enter the room, I’m transfixed by the vision of Bethany. Her hair cascades over her shoulders in a wavy display of beauty that is only accentuated by the warm light in the room.
Her shoulders lead her body as she sways with each note she plays, and I can’t help but feel like this is how this song was always meant to be played. The melodic keys seem more powerful with string accompaniment and her voice returns.
“Let me play you a song.” Her smile brightens the room before disappearing again.
“Turn it off,” I growl at Beth and my voice sounds like sandpaper being dragged against rough wood in my own ears. She doesn’t hear me over the crescendo which she plays beautifully.
It’s too much. I march over to her. What little control I still have is falling apart at the seams. My hands are on Beth in an instant and I grab her shoulder.
She jumps, but when she turns to look up me, her expression mirrors mine. Her cheeks are soaked with tears and for a brief second, it’s not Beth I see. Instead, it’s her. I. See. Her. She’s hidden somewhere in the warm autumn leaf flecks of gold in Beth’s eyes and I take a step back, my breath tripping over itself in my lungs.
“Turn it off,” I say again, this time my voice is barely a whisper.
She apologizes as her clumsy fingers shuffle to turn the iPad off.
I head for my room before she has a chance to see just how broken I really am.
This isn’t how I saw tonight going, but when has anything ever gone as planned with Beth?
Why the fuck would she pick that song? Nobody knows that song. There are so many classics on the damn thing. If she wanted to play along to something, why the hell couldn’t she just choose one of those?
I grab the lamp closest to me and hurl it across the room. It crashes against the wall and shatters into several pieces. Right now, those pieces seem to be the most relatable thing in this room. The vase on the night stand is the next victim and I keep throwing things across the room until I’m all out of glass and the only thing left in the room to completely shatter is my fragile will to remain unbroken.