I still think of it as a dream. I still think of it as unreal. I think of his face as I played piece after piece, his face stricken by something close to awe, to wonder. I didn't ask him what it was all about, why he wanted me to play for him. After that, he simply walked me back home, silent and said, "Goodnight, Tracy."
This morning, as I play it all out in my head for the millionth time, I pray that a little caffeine will dissipate the clouds that have cloaked my mind for the past two hours. But instead of the caffeine waking me up, it's my burning flesh. That chases away all sleepiness immediately. The hot dark liquid runs down my hand, burning me as I pour it into the cup. In a rush, I let go of the carafe and run to the sink to relieve the pain.
When I turn around with a finger in my mouth and a grimace twisting my features, Lucy is standing at the entrance of the kitchen. "So dramatic." And with a roll of her eyes, she goes take a seat at the kitchen table.
"You're going over Matt's again today?"
A bright smile spreads across her little face as she screams an enthusiastic yeah! And she launches herself in a story, telling how Matt always gets new ideas of games and makes her days fun.
"And you, what do you do?" She inquires. Oh, I exist now.
I shrug as I prepare her a bowl of cereals. "Not much. I went out with Will yesterday."
"Nice." She smiles. "How's Yann?" When I hesitate to reply, she continues, "I know you don't like him but I thought you could know how he is."
If she only knew. "He's fine." Or maybe not, I still don't understand his behavior from last night.
"You talk to him?" Her small eyes are on me as she looks under her lashes. Her questions are not innocent, I can see it.
"From time to time, yes. Eat."
And she quiets, no more questions asked. And like yesterday, I watch her cross the street to go have some fun with Matt. But today, apparently, they're having a picnic and they're happy to take Lucy out. I politely decline Matt's mom's invitation, pretending to already have a full schedule for the day. I couldn't have given a greater lie. My schedule is awfully empty. I don't even have a schedule at all.
Or maybe I do after all. As I've done a lot the past few days and weeks, I walk to Yann's house. During the walk, with every step I take, a memory emerges from the back of my mind, and a smile settles comfortably onto my lips. What happened last night, I will never forget.
I raise my fist and let my knuckles hit the wood. Once. Twice. He opens the door at last. His sweatpants are his sole piece of clothing and his hair is in a morning mess, revealing either he's just woken up or he hasn't taken a shower, or both.
"What?"
It's funny how I've been expecting this exact greeting and am not surprised at all. I shake my head, chase my stupid smile away and refuse to look at him. "I knew you weren't yourself last night." And I turn around.
"I was fully myself last night."
I turn back around. "Were you really?"
He rakes a hand through his hair and looks at me straight in the eyes. "Yes, Graham. I was."
I walk up to him and fight back the sudden urge to run my fingers through his hair. "Why did you make me play?" I finally ask.
Without any warning, he takes one of my hands in his and, pulling me in, closes the door behind me. I follow him quietly, not offering any resistance to him. I let my hand mold perfectly into his, watching my slim fingers in his large ones. The contrast is shocking: thin feminine fingers in calloused manly ones. His hand is so big that if we were to place our palms one against the other, my fingers would be twice as small as his. I like that.
"Why are you smiling?"
I finally look up from our hands to find Yann staring down at me. My smile turns wider and his frown turns deeper. Then I stop smiling. "What?" I ask him.
He doesn't say anything and gives his back to me, running his hands through his hair. A little worried, I march over him. "Hey, are you okay?"
And he explodes. "No, I'm not okay. I haven't been fucking okay for years now, and even more so since you came here."
I know that he is mercurial but somehow, his sudden outburst still surprises me. I take a step back and sigh involuntarily. "Maybe this town is too small for the two of us."
"It fucking is!"
I watch him, wondering how he can easily go back and forth between seemingly okay and incomprehensibly mad. As I watch him pacing around the living room, I think to myself that I've never felt so frustrated in my whole life. And to my surprise, he utters the exact same words.
"I've never felt so fucking frustrated in my whole life." Except that his sentence has an additional word.
I prepare to leave but his words halt me. "You're one of a kind, you know that, Graham?" He says to me. When I frown, he adds, "And it's a compliment."
And he doesn't leave. He bypasses me and takes a seat on the couch. When I stay up, on my feet, he gestures to the seat next to him, "Sit."
And I do. Not because I am intimidated and feel like I should obey to him, but because in this instant, I see that same look he's given me twice before, the one that says don't give up on me.
He's staring straight ahead, fingers intertwined, face tight. "I don't understand."
And I sit, looking at him, all ears, waiting for him to continue. It takes time for him to. He stays quiet, he bounces his leg on the floor. And he turns his head to me.
"I don't understand you." Those aren't exactly the words I've been expecting, but I have no idea what I've truly been expecting. "You're there, annoying, talkative pestering. More pestering than Will, Ellie and Keven put together. And I don't understand how you do so. I can't understand you." I think he doesn't realize he's just said Keven – someone I don't know – to me so I don't push it, though I do wonder who that is.
"I thought you could easily read me?" I ask, recalling a conversation we had over the past weeks.
He rolls his eyes but I sense that he wants to smile instead. "I do. And I understand what I read, what you say and what you do. But it's the why behind your actions that I don't understand."
I want to move a little closer to him but I remain in my seat. "And what do I do exactly?"
Abruptly, he gets up on his feet, takes half a dozen of steps away and looks at me. Then, unexpectedly, he reaches out to me. "Come."
I feel like I'm going back and forth with him, sometimes it's one step forwards and two back, and other times, it's two steps forward and one backward. He's unpredictable, wild in a way that makes me go crazy but also makes me fall for him a little more.
I place my hand in his and let him pull me up to my feet. And instead of taking my whole hand, he takes my forefinger. He frowns to himself as if wondering why he's holding just one finger instead of my whole hand, looks at me, then looks away, but holds my finger in his hand nonetheless and guides me.
And just like last night, he leads me to the piano. Like last night, he makes me sit. And just like last night, he whispers, "Play."
I want to ask him why he wants me to play so badly, how it makes him feel, but I'm afraid this will get him to retire himself in this cocoon of darkness and solitude he's created, to disappear behind this layer of rudeness.
So I play. Everything that crosses my mind I let it speak through my fingers on the keys. The softly combined notes put into an angelic tune reach my ears and I close my eyes. I think of the rare times I've heard Yann play, I've heard what he is capable of on a piano. I believe everyone has something beautiful within them. And if one day I can't remember that he does, all I have to do is recall those notes his fingers play sometimes and that'll be enough. Just enough to remind me that there is something beautiful in him.
I risk a glance towards Yann. He's watching me as I play, gaze fixated on me as he sits on an armrest nearby, his arms crossed over his chest. He traps me under the power of his gaze and, disoriented, I hit the wrong key and the moment is over, the dissonance like nails on a chalkboard and I stop. I remove my hands from the keyboard and place them in my lap.
"Why am I doing this?"
When he takes a moment to answer, I look up to him. The sardonic expression that meets my eyes is one I've never seen before. His head is hanging low, his legs are now crossed over one another and his eyes are looking at me in a way that almost scares me. He looks like the perfect incarnation of the devil.
"For my own entertainment."
I turn around on my stool and face him, arms folded over my chest. "Then I'm afraid the entertainment is over."
He's so arrogant. I don't recognize the vulnerable Yann from moments ago. I get up on my feet and, stopping before him, I search for something heartless to say, for something that would be much different from my usual kindness. But the words that come out of my mouth are far from mean. "You can't spend the rest of your life like this."
But when I try to walk away, he catches my wrist in his hands, encircling it in a tender yet rough way. He pulls me back so that I am standing right in front of him.
"Like what, Graham?"
I sigh. And in this moment, I feel deprived of all my energy, like I feel most of the times I engage a conversation with him. I shake my head to him and tell him I've got nothing to tell him. All this with Yann sometimes feels like washing my hands and going to play with dirt two minutes after: useless.
"But I want to hear what you've got to say," he insists.
I try to pry my wrist away but he keeps it firmly between his fingers. "Since when does what I have to say matter to you?"
He slowly shakes his head. "I never said it mattered. I still can hear it though."
"If it doesn't matter, it's useless to tell you."
He's playing – purposely or absently, I can't tell – with my wrist in his hand, his eyes in mine. "And why is it useless?"
"For someone who hates questions, you sure ask a lot of them." There's this little glint in his eyes that tells me he knows I'm trying to deviate the conversation. But he seems to let it go.
"It makes the reading all the easier. Remember that."
And he lets go of my wrist. The moment he gets off the couch, his doorbell rings. He looks surprised, but once he's decided to go open, he turns to me, "Leave."
Any bossier in this world, I doubt that exists. As I cross the kitchen to reach the back door, I almost trip over a misplaced stool and to steady myself, reach out for the counter. I hiss in pain and remove my hands like I've been burned. Grabbing my hurting hand in my unharmed one, I look down at my palm to notice shards deeply embedded in my skin. I look back up at the counter to find what seems like a broken glass resting on the surface. Really? Who leaves a broken glass on their counter?
I curse under my breath just as I hear the front door being opened. Muffled voices come through the kitchen but I am too busy looking for a first-aid kit – hoping it's not upstairs in the bathroom – to pay attention. I can't stop cussing Yann for leaving his broken glass there and I try to remember where Mom used to stash another kit in the kitchen as blood oozes out of my wounds.
I finally get my hands on it. Sitting on the floor behind the counter, I proceed to nurse myself just as a Yann's voice says, "Get off my back with that, Will."
So it's Will. "No, I won't get off your back. Not when he keeps calling to get news of you. It's been years. Get over it. Do you ever really take the time to think of how Keven feels?"
Keven. That's the third time I hear that name now. Whoever he is, he must matter to Yann.
"Yann, you're hurt–"
"Wait."
I've been listening but at the same time, I'm still fruitlessly trying to take the shard off. I hear footsteps and I know Yann is in the kitchen. I listen as he walks around, his determined footsteps echoing through the house. When I hear nothing, I look left, and right.
And I jump, startled to find him looking down at me.
"What didn't you understand in 'leave'?"
I don't have time to reply for Will beats me to it. "Who's there? Oh, Tracy," he says affectionately when he sees me. "Hi."
I greet him back with a hey but Yann doesn't seem to be fond of the friendly exchange before him. "Just get out, would you, Graham?"
"Hey, what's up with your hand?" And Will takes two steps towards me, already taking a close look to my wound.
I almost laugh when I realize that Yann who's closer to me hasn't even noticed I was injured whereas Will who was further from me noticed. Some guys are just unbelievable.
"Nothing, just a few shards."
And while Will takes care of my wounded hand, I look to Yann who's leaning against the counter, observing the scene before him. When he feels my gaze on him, his eyes meet mine. As we stare at each other, one waiting for the other to look away, I wonder how it was possible for him to go from vulnerable to terrifying and heartless.
Yann is – much to my surprise – the first one to avert his eyes.
"What were you doing here, anyways?"
I snap my head back to Will who's talking to me. "I was just telling Yann how he couldn't spend the rest of his life like this. Hiding," I say with a pointed glance in his direction.
I may have not said it but that's what I meant earlier when I said he couldn't spend the rest of his life this way. I know he is looking at me but I don't bother to do so at him.
Will looks shocked at my words and turns to Yann. "You told her?"
Yann rolls his eyes at Will, arms folded across his chest. "I didn't tell her shit."
Will looks back at me as if to ask what exactly I know. "I don't know much," I admit, "but I do know that he's hiding." Then for good measure, I add, "From himself mostly."
Will smiles at my words. "You're damn right he's hiding from himself. What he shows isn't what he feels."
Yann graces Will with an insolent eyeroll. "Thanks for being a friend and siding me."
Will shakes his head to Yann, "A real friend wouldn't side you in the wrong. And you know," he says forcefully, "and you know more than anyone that I disapprove of what you're doing. So never count on me take your side in this."
When Yann doesn't get the expected answer, he scowls at Will, raising once more the barriers around him, those barriers that I want to blow past, destroy. "We can continue this conversation later."
Will lets out a bitter and ironic laughter. "That's the problem with you, Yann. When things aren't like you want, when they don't turn out like you want it, you leave. You leave. That's your fucking problem." I flinch at the aggressiveness in his voice.
"Let's not go there, Will." But today, the roles are inverted. Will is the one losing control and Yann is the one trying to placate him. It's the opposite scenario, one I'm not sure I want to witness or be a part of.
"Oh, but I will, Yann. I fucking will. I'm sick and tired of getting the same phone calls, tired of responding to worried messages, tired of hearing the same words, the same despair. Fuck you and your sorrow."
"You don't–"
"Yes, I do. I do all the don'ts you might say. I do know what you're feeling. I do know how it hurts, how you want things to go back to normal. I've wanted the same. But fuck, you're a grownup, get over it. They can't do shit to you now."
"Just stop, Will."
I can see the fire burning behind Yann's eyes and Will is only adding fuel to the fire. I am fearing an inferno so I say, "Will, please stop."
He turns to look at me and for an instant, his features soften. But then, he seems to remind himself why he is here, why he's doing this. "No, I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind."
But Yann cuts him with a thundering bark before he can continue. "I've had many, too many pieces of your mind, Will. I've had it all. So stop," he yells.
"Oh, and what will you do?" Will taunts with the most sardonic expression ever.
Just as I decide to stand in front of him to avoid a strife, Yann pounces on Will.
•••
I don't like ending the chapter there but if I didn't, it would be too long. I hope you all enjoyed it❤️