The Fabric of our Souls

Passion—that’s this week’s theme.

Find your passion.

Well, that’s certainly easier said than done, isn’t it? How many times have I tried to find my calling? What makes me uniquely me? I’m not special. I’m not unique.

Though, once upon a time, I did have a passion. A true gift from the universe that I thought was only for me.

I stare at the piano with empty eyes. Jericho has been trying to get me to play the damn thing since I got here. He knew the moment I arrived that my heart yearned for the music behind these cold white and black keys.

But another soul had already stolen the joy from me. The music of my heart is buried alongside my old self.

I glance up at the group. Liam sits in the back with his arms crossed, but his eyes are on me. I look back down at the keys again. He’s been weird since this weekend. Maybe all we needed to get along better was to have aggressive, angry sex and degrade one another.

That can’t be healthy.

But now I have a hard time looking at him without blushing and he’s been significantly less sarcastic and cruel.

“Well? You think you could play me something today, Coldfox?” Jericho’s legs are crossed as he waits patiently, always tapping his pen on the clipboard. Lanston and Poppie are among the others in this class. I don’t recall the others’ names.

I’ve heard the girl with long black hair play beautifully, structurally, like she was raised to only read the notes as they are on the page. Never to dally or create anything from the heart.

Funny, that’s how I was taught as well.

I wonder why she can play so easily while I remain at a standstill.

Must be the unbalanced chemicals in my brain. I wonder if Dr. Prestin has pills to erase bad memories too. We already have quite the supplemental diet of manufactured little pellets that are supposed to cure us, so let’s add one more to the mix.

My horrendous music teacher’s face looms in my mind. Her frown always hung lower than anyone else I’d ever known. How could someone who teaches something so beautiful and rhythmic be so dead inside? Her and my mother. My mother’s tall, cold figure looms in my mind. I can still feel the chill rolling off her frosted heart.

I’m convinced they are the ones who stole my happiness, my love for the music of my heart. I heard notes echoing from my soul, begging to be played. But they stomped the spark out before I could kindle a flame.

A warm hand presses down on my shoulder. I turn and find Liam standing at my back. A sad smile pulls on his lips as if he understands why I hesitate.

He’s been careful with me since we collided. I’ve been careful with him too.

“Can I try?” he murmurs. “I hope it reaches you.” I quirk a brow but nod and scoot out from the piano bench, walk back to the group, and plop down in the chair next to Lanston in the back. What did he mean by that?

Liam sits there momentarily, staring down at the keys like they’re old friends he’s dearly missed. He’s done so every day.

“Does he play?” I whisper to Lanston.

He scratches his light-brown hair beneath his cap and shrugs. “He never has before.”

Why did he seem so reassuring then?

Liam’s posture straightens and one of his feet takes position over the three pedals at the foot of the baby-grand piano. His fingers glide soundlessly over the keys until they settle on their destined locations.

I watch as a sea of blue, as bright and sunny as a day at the beach, takes over his normally grim eyes.

His fingers expertly press the keys with speed and elegance. My bones pacify. The chill sends goosebumps up my arms and my heart clenches.

I know this song, yes, just from one verse.

“London Calling” by Michael Giacchino.

It’s a difficult one to master due to the fast rhythm, but he plays as though he’s channeling the melancholic demons he locks inside himself. He’s neither looking at any notes nor worried whether he’s playing the right keys.

He plays from his heart.

Tears brim my eyes, but I’m not sure why. I try to blink them away but they stay, wishing to be freed from the cage I’ve locked my emotions away in for so long.

His eyes aren’t even on his hands. He’s looking through the bay windows and out at the gorgeous fall gardens as the drizzling rain falls rhythmically with his song. Moss grows on the dark, drenched stones, and deep orange and yellow mums line the garden’s edges. A flock of birds take to the sky and coast the low clouds before disappearing through them.

As my tears roll down my cheeks, I realize something I’ve not dared think about for years.

I’m still hurting from the frowning, cruel piano teacher who stole music from me. Hurting from the pain of my mother forcing me as a child to play exactly as I was instructed, to be the prodigy she so desperately wished me to be. I’m still holding a grudge as dark and sinister as the clouds outside for the both of them. Because I was never enough, I was never going to be the golden ticket into a life they craved.

That’s when I first realized how cruel life could be. How easy it is to lose the love of my soul’s keepers.

How easy I am to discard as useless.

Liam finishes his song and spins on the bench to face the rest of the group. He avoids my eyes as he stands, taking an exaggerated bow as we all clap for him. Lanston nudges me with his elbow and murmurs, “Fucking drama king.” His voice trails off when he looks at me.

Tears still spill over my cheeks and there’s no stopping them. I haven’t cried in years… Liam playing from the heart so freely was like a bullet to the chest. No chains kept his music away from the world.

It reached me.

And I’m… sad.

It’s a feeling that’s as painful as it is freeing. When I’m emotionally detached, everything is easier, because nothing matters. Even if I were to die, it would not matter. But the second sorrow is able to burrow its way into my bones, I’m more melancholic about the defining moments in my life than I ever thought possible.

Liam lifts his head and his eyes land on me. His brows pull together with concern as he walks up to me, clutching my chin with his hand and lifting it so I look at him. The soft pad of his thumb brushes the tears off my cheek as he mutters, “Did I reach you?”

He touches me delicately. It’s the first ray of warmth he’s shown me.

And that makes me really fucking sad too.

“Yes, you did.”