Strings Attached

~Chapter 10~

I realized that day that Richard was rich. With a mother to love him and a father to fight for him, he had all that I could never have. Not anymore. And it changed me, not for the better, but for worse.

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I am in a bad mood and I seriously feel like I wanna go to someone to console me right now. And an idea hits me! I find a free period before lunch and head to the music room in the hope of meeting Mrs. Judy, my second most favorite person in the world... after mum, of course. 

It's been more than a month since I saw her and I really missed her lavender smell and her motherly voice. It calms me in this stormy sea. It tethers me to this place, and she brings the best in me. There is no one whom I love to sing my songs to, more.

I knock on the door of the small music room on the far side of the school, near the library, but not too near to disturb the bookworms. A sing-song voice saying 'come in' grants me permission to enter, and an involuntary smile comes onto my lips, wiping my scowl for a while.

I kick the door lightly with my foot and find the old music teacher perched in her usual easy chair, supervising a bunch of kids with their first lessons. She came in just this morning, after spending a long and comforting holiday in London, with her sister. Yup, she told me that.

Aunt Judy is a widow in her late sixties, her husband died from Parkinson's some years ago. They had twelve years between them. I've asked her how it was possible for them to connect with each other with such a large gap in their ages, but she says it felt nothing. She doesn't mind me asking such questions.

Sometimes, when I think about my future, I feel that if I ever took a wife, and that's a big if, I wouldn't want her to be any more than two years younger than me. Else I'd feel I married a child. God! How embarrassing that would be.

"If you understand each other Daniyal, the age gap doesn't need to be felt at all. You have to respect your soulmate and not treat them based on if they're eighteen or twenty-two." She'd lightly stroked my hair, telling me all that. I knew why she'd stressed on carrying on to talk about the topic; my mother was the same age as my dad. Even then... it didn't work.

"In fact, it's better that the boy be older, they attain maturity late, you know." I don't know why but I suddenly think of that veiled girl, but before I can realize why I thought of her, I dismiss her from my mind. I'm determined not to marry anyway.

My face falls and my scowl returns when I see her surrounded by her students. I beat myself up, in my mind, for wasting my time coming here, and am thinking of going back. But when she sees me, her eyes light up and she beckons me to sit near her. I pass her a quick wink as others watch our exchange, and grab a chair to sit near her. There are a few girls in here who watch my every step with penetrating gazes, but I'm not really bothered with them. They can watch me all they want. What's with girls and acting like a bunch of wh**es?!

"We'll talk in a few minutes," Mrs. Judy mouths and I assure her that I'm not going anywhere. She is training a small girl on how to keep her fingers over the piano keys. I break into a grin, seeing her straightening her fingers ever so often like an electric shock passed through them, as Aunt Jude gives them a stern pat from time to time. She looks at me and shakes her head, sighing.