The Mechanic

-Chapter Three-

Location: Central

I've been tightening wires in this piano for over an hour now, and I'm still no closer to knowing whether or not it sounds right. I'm probably making it worse, but how can I know?

"You're tone deaf. You know that, right?"

I jump just roughly enough to toss my fingers against the wires that make up the entrails of the instrument, loosing a sigh. "I was just starting to wonder."

"You might be partially deaf the other way, too," she says, drumming her fingers on the run of my garage door. She looks like trouble this morning. Her sneakers are untied and spotted with mud, her hair is braided into a rope of flame all the way to the waist of her black jeans.

"Maybe," I concede, bracing myself on the lip of the instrument for a moment.

She smiles a little, her lips crooked in their smiling and chapped a vivid shade of red. I can tell that she still doesn't like me. It fuels the cold that burns in the blue of her eyes. "You're annoying."

"I know," I sigh, setting the little tuner tool down. I lower the lid of the piano until ebony kisses ebony, and the strings are forced to silence. No more sour notes to be poured upon tone deaf ears—for the moment, at least.

"You're agreeing with everything I say," she murmurs, stepping into the room. No longer an outsider, exactly. She's in, now. And she knows it. She smirks, almost, except it's in her eyes and not on her mouth.

"I am," I agree again, and she laughs.

For a moment we stand in the quiet, and I soak it in, waiting for her to speak again. Hoping that she won't—and then hanging on the time when she will.

I study her, and she studies me, until suddenly, she laughs.

"You're not like I thought you were," she chirps. "You're different."

"Different how?" My heart has begun to pound. Maybe it was her tone of voice. Why does she sound like she knows something that I don't? And why does it seem to make her absolutely giddy?

"Like... you're not just a bear. You're not grouchy and rough. No, not entirely. You're more like a wolf."

"How so?" It's all I can manage to say. She has choked my words, my throat, my thoughts. I almost wonder what she's thinking.

"You're not exactly rough. You're not always grouchy. I stepped on your tail, so you reacted. But now, I'm only creeping up, and you're very collected. You think. You don't react. Your mind is full of wonderings."

I almost smile, but I get choked up and swallow, instead. "How do you know?"

She shrugs, and just like that, the moment is broken. So long, thoughtful monologue. She's back, and she's full of thunder, and flowers, and careless words.

"I think you might be even stranger than me," I whisper. "You seem to be too familiar with my mind. No one pins me down."

"I do," she argues. And that is all that she says.

And suddenly, I can't breathe, and I don't know why. She's smiling at me.

"Come on. I'd like to show you something."

I blink, mouth open in a silent gasp. Air is hard for me, at the moment.

"Are you coming?"

I nod, swallowing as hard as I can. I don't know why I'm following her; I'm not under any obligation to even care that she is alive, and yet, I do.