Better Than Words

Spaces

"That is weird," I tell her, shrugging.

"What are you playing?" She sticks the last few crayons in her box and flips through the coloring books with one hand, digging into her snacks with the other.

"Just a couple songs I wrote. Nothing special."

"Can I hear them?" She looks at me with wide eyes, the eyes I can never say no to; she does it without even thinking about it.

"Sure," I say, and start to sing and play the first song.

"Who's gonna be the first one to start the fight?
Who's gonna be the first one to fall asleep at night?
Who's gonna be the last one to drive away?
Who's gonna be the last one to forget this place...
The spaces between us
keep getting deeper
It's harder to reach you
even though I try
The spaces between us
hold all our secrets
and I don't know why...
Who's gonna be the first one to say goodbye?"

As I finish the last of what I have so far, I notice she has a sad look on her face. "What's the matter?" I ask her.

"That song... When did you write it?" Ali gulps. She looks down and picks at a stray thread on her blanket.

"Uh... Hmm. I don't really remember," I lie, but I can tell she sees through it.

She perks up a little too much suddenly. "Do you have any other ones?"

I do, but her reaction to that song makes me say otherwise. "Just a few covers, that's all."

"Can you teach me some?"

"Really?" I feel a smile tug at my mouth.

"Yeah. I only know a couple songs, and I figure you'd be a pretty good teacher," she says. My ears heat up.

For the next hour or so I teach her the songs I know, patiently talking her through techniques when her fingers fumble and teaching her cheats for when her fingers don't quite reach. Seeing the way she laughs at herself, how beautiful she is even in a hospital gown and not even able to take a proper shower yet... then thinking about where we stand now, it makes my heart ache. I suddenly feel like I should leave.

"Oh. Yeah, that's okay. You probably have schoolwork to do, I know. I'll see you later, then?" She looks up at me with what I think is hope.

"Yeah, 'course. I'll be back tomorrow, I don't have class. And I'll leave my guitar for you, if you like, so you can keep practicing," I tell her. She smiles at me brightly.

"Really? Thank you! And thanks for the snacks and everything, I appreciate it. I'll see you tomorrow then," she says, and smiles again before I walk down the hall.

I pass Marina coming in and she gives me a curt nod. Guess we're back to her hating me.

---------------------------------------------

Ali's perspective

Marina and Sam walk in shortly after Niall leaves. When Sam sees the guitar on my lap she looks at me curiously.

"That Niall's?" Marina asks, setting her bag down.

"Mhmm," I mumble without meeting her eyes. I pluck absentmindedly at the strings.

"What's going on with that?" God, she sounds like my father.

"Nothing," I say shortly. It's true; we're just friends for now.

"Uh-huh. How long was he here?" Sam asks me.

"I dunno, a couple hours maybe. Not too long. He brought me some stuff and left his guitar with me so I could practice." I shuffle through the chord progressions he wrote down neatly on a sheet of notebook paper.