Falling Slowly

Chapter Five: Curiosity In Music

Chapter Five-Curiosity In Music

“How is operation “Avoiding Liam” going?” Gemma signed - a conspirator gleam in her brown eyes.

I shut my locker door a little too forcefully and turned to face the wickedly giddy look on her face. She found amusement in my dilemma, and concluded that once the year was over Liam and I would be friends once again. It would be a story that would be told for decades of lost friendships and new found land; full of unlikely compromises. 

Yeah, right.

That was as likely as hell freezing over, which wasn’t ever going to happen.

She was such a hopeless romantic. Her ideology always made me feel better in times where I gave up hope in finding my one true love. Okay, so maybe I was also a hopeless romantic. But who could blame me? I had dreams of finding someone to love me for who I am considering my unique circumstance.

When it came to her hopeful outlook of Liam and me, I couldn’t help but feel annoyed. She had this idea that Liam would turn out to be just like Hayden. That was an unlikely juxtaposition. Hayden and Liam were entirely two different people on the color spectrum. For one, Hayden once held a pretense to be a part of the “in crowd”; while Liam was the embodiment of what Hayden tried to be.

Luckily, Hayden saw the error of his ways – thanks to Gemma’s sweet nature. At the beginning there was a language barrier between them, but when two people loved each other – words were not needed. It was all about body language and the actions that one committed to the other and vice versa.

Hayden’s declaration of love – per se – was when he sat with us one day at lunch a year ago. He blatantly walked up to our table, asked if he could join us, and when we agreed he took a seat next to Gemma – acting as if that moment of perpetual defiance never occurred.

“Anya…earth to Anya…Anya!” I startled, focusing on Hayden’s face hovering a few inches from mine. His hands grasped my shoulders, shaking me out of my thoughts.

“What,” I snapped. “Is. Your. Problem? You’re hurting me.”

His brow creased as a flicker of confusion and recognition flashed across his slate green eyes. “Sorry,” he muttered bashfully. “Gemma has been trying to garner your attention for the last five minutes, but you weren’t even on this planet, let alone here. You alright?”

My eyes settled on Gemma’s worried eyes and back to Hayden’s in a matter of seconds. “Why wouldn’t I be fine? I was just thinking,” I said, shouldering my messenger bag and taking a few steps down the hall. When I heard Gemma and Hayden’s steps gather beside me, we made our way towards the theater for the winter play auditions.

It has been three weeks since school had officially begun with all extracurricular activities undergoing a brand new season. The theater department’s first show of the year was going to be a modern adaption of Beauty And The Beast. Every year I would play the piano music that accompanied the school plays. Dr. Devino (who was the school’s drama and music teacher) believed I was the finest pianist he knew in town and thus, chose me every year as the pianist to play. I begged to differ. I wholeheartedly believed that Mr. Edison had superior and finer piano skills than I would ever have. But Mr. Edison hadn’t played the piano for ten years; ever since he developed chronic arthritis, ailing him to never play the beautiful instrument ever again.

I felt the soft tap of fingers gracing my bare shoulder and turned to see Gemma signing, “We’ll see you later tonight?”

Nodding, I said while signing, “Of course. It’s movie Friday!”