Guitar Strings

I knew the studio.

In this small town, there wasn't much you didn't know.

I'd been there before, too – sort of. It was on the edge of the wood, standing lone and firm. I passed by it almost every day on the way to school. I never really thought about it, though, until the day I heard his voice.

You could say I was kind of oblivious in a way.

The thing is, I knew him. Not personally, of course – but I did know that ink black hair that matched those devastatingly dark black eyes. I knew those thick lashes, that soft nose – the soft dip in his upper lip. I knew his skin, soft, light, nearly translucent. I didn't know what grade he was in, but I knew he sat in the corner of the second floor hallway at school. I knew he didn't talk much. I knew he sat there almost every day, eyes always lowered, notebook on the side, hands always plucking the strings of an imaginary guitar.

I knew he didn't have a dad. I knew that because he wasn't like the most of us, and he didn't act the same, no one cared to know more.

I still remember that day. Autumn was everywhere, in the bitter, biting wind that met my face – in the blue, cloudless skies – in the red, golden, brown assortment of leaves. I remember pulling my coat closer to my skin, wishing for the sun, and feeling the vulnerability of twilight.

I had rubbed my hands together to warm them, and watched my breath blow out before me like smoke.

I remember getting to the edge of the wood, and seeing that open window. I had wondered why anyone would leave it open. I remember the bright red jacket hanging over the ledge.

And then I remember when I heard this voice.

It was gentle, clear. There were no words, at least not that I understood. All I knew was that his voice was the most beautiful sound, a stream of feeling that I never knew.

I vaguely remember piano notes being played underneath his singing, a gentle layering underneath.

Before I could even run over to the window to see who it was, he'd stopped singing, and I heard the piano cover being shut. I remember being left wondering whether or not it had actually happened – except for the jacket. It was still there.

I followed the stream home that night, wondering how and why.

Then the days followed – and I went to school, like nothing happened. Life was as it was.

I walked home every day, and the days got colder. Winter was drifting down subtly. I remember the first snow, innocent, and light.

Dinners at home were polite, casual, and routine. My mother would ask me if I'd had a good day at school, and about my friends. My father would ask about homework and my responsibilities.

I stopped thinking about it - didn't stop at the back of the studio, on the path, listening. I just shrugged and pulled my coat closer as the snowflakes fluttered onto my upper lashes.

At school, I listened to the whispers. I saw that imaginary guitar he played. And like all the others, I turned my eyes away.

Snow had become a familiar part of the landscape when I heard his voice again. The grounds had been covered in a fair sheet of snow, ice to my touch, and dirt under my feet. The window had been open.

If it hadn't been for that clarity and emotion he sang with, I wouldn't have been able to tell it was him. The song he had sang with last had been amazing, filled with landscape and unbelievable heights. He sounded different now, older.

I hadn't known what to do. Ignoring the snow that hung onto the bottom of my jeans as I stepped into it, I walked over. I had leaned against cold wall of the studio, beside the open window. I'd committed his voice to memory. I'd taken comfort in it.

And just like the first time – the piano cover was shut loudly. He stopped singing. The door slammed.

I don't know how long I waited beside that window, wondering if he would come back.

It bothered me so much that I didn't know who he was. It bothered me that he could have been different from everything I had grown up to know. It bothered me that this intrigued me.

"Do you know who goes to that studio on Palm street?" I asked that night at dinner. My mother looked up from her food with a surprised, but thoughtful expression.

"I think little Margie goes there for piano classes," She replied.

My father also thought about it. "George, from work – I think he mentioned that his daughter takes vocal lessons there."

I listened with only half a mind to the rest of the dinner conversations.

"Speaking of George, I heard something strange today. Ms. Keran, who lives near the Church, is stirring up some trouble again."

My father shook his head and chuckled in a way that I had never thought of otherwise than casual. "That woman…" he said, a smile on his lips, but a steely blue in his eyes.

"From where she has the decency to raise commotion while being who she is, I don't know. I don't even know her too well, with her raising a child on her own, well, I suppose no one took to her so well – and the way she used to treat people when she went to the store! I suppose it's not surprising." She paused, and laughed to herself. "Harold, can you imagine? How embarrassing it must have been for her, being a single mother…Why, she's just let herself go, hasn't she…?"

These were things I was used to listening to, so I didn't pay any of it much attention. It's almost amusing now, to know I should have realized that something was so off in my little world.

Then he started singing again, when the snow started coming down in blizzards.

I remember when Spring came, and laughing with delight when the snow melted. With it left my inhibitions.

The moment the piano cover slammed shut, something propelled me to run to the front of the studio, on the insane thought that I'd miss him.

I ran up to the secretary behind the counter in that small white lobby, in a room that smelt clean and like a hospital.

"Who used that room?" I asked, pointing blindly in the direction I knew his voice had come from.

"Excuse me?" She asked, alternating between smiles and looking confused.

"I mean," I said, closing my eyes. "Who was singing in that room just now?" I asked again, closing my eyes in frustration.

"Well," She said, bored, and pointing behind me with a pen. "I think the person you're looking for is right behind you."

I whisked around, my heart lodged in my throat. My body grew stiff and rigid.

I'd come face to face with the boy with the imaginary guitar.

And in that one moment that the world seemed to freeze, I discovered that those devastatingly dark eyes I didn't know so well were flecked with cobalt blue.

"Sorry," I remember saying before I ducked my head and hurried out the door. I didn't recognize half of the emotions that flooded me – but the disappointment had fallen on me, heavy and thick. I didn't know what I was disappointed out – that he stared at me with those unknowing eyes, or that I realized how stupid this was.

I was already on the path when I heard him call out.

I turned around, my hands fidgeting. He was still staring at me from the door, waiting for an explanation, probably wondering why this girl wanted to find him, when she'd never cared to know any more about him. I met his hard gaze with my embarrassed one, and his expression instantly changed.

"You're disappointed, right?" He asked with a voice that I had grown so accustomed to, but never heard speaking.

I didn't understand at first, until I realized he had read me completely. "No…" I said, and then squeezed my eyes shut. I opened them again and he was still staring at me with a gaze so strong I was growing hot. Flustered, I looked down. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be. You're supposed to be disappointed, of course, that I'm me." He said softly, like he was only just realizing the truth of it.

"No, that's not it." I said, shaking my eyes. He nodded slowly, and we stood there as the spring breeze blew leaves in our direction. "I heard you singing."

"Oh." He said, with a nod.

I pursed my lips. Was that all he was going to say? I took a step away, ready to turn to go.

"I know." He said finally.

I was already half leaving when I realized he'd said that. I turned back, my eyes wide and my heart beating loudly. "What?"

"I…uh, I mean, I saw you. A few months ago. I finished in there and I came out and…you were there." He said, shoving his hands in his pockets, looking bashful, almost as if he was embarrassed to have caught me spying. "And in the winter, too."

I bit on my lip. "Wow."

"Yeah."

"That's…"

"Do you want to come? Listen, I mean. I want to show you something."

He wrote his own songs. He showed me, when he brought me back into the studio, into the room he'd been working in all along. They were scrawled all over his notebook, in inky black pen. Lines and lines of the world through his eyes, a place I'd never been before.

"I remember you," He said to me, knowledge and amusement in his eyes. "You're the girl that used to pass by me every day on the second floor. You were always surrounded by friends." He smiled at me then, his eyes seeing into my soul. "I wanted to know you."

At school, I never spoke to him. He was still just the guy in the corner with his notebook, and I was still the girl who couldn't care less, just like all the others.

Every day after school, he'd sing these songs to me – and I'd learn more and more about him – about his father who left them – and about why he played his imaginary guitar.

"I'm going to get out of here one day," He had told me softly in my ear as his fingers gently caressed the keys of the piano. "And I'm going to be more than what any of them thought I was going to be."

And I believed him.

"I want to take you out." He said one day, when summer blew through the spring in bright, vibrant colours. "I want to show you my town."

We went to the fanciest restaurant in town, laughed at the snobby waiters. He scrawled something in his napkin, and passed it over. I remember smiling when I saw that he'd written both our initials equal a music note.

We went to the lake, a mile out of town. I'd been there before, but this was different. We climbed the wooden dock and sat there with our feet in the water, watching the sky – a thing that had always existed to me but it was only now that I could realize the immensity of it.

I remember wanting to know everything about him. I remember when he pulled my hands out of the water and kissed me at twilight, the cool wood under my back, and the heat of his skin through our clothes.

I remember coming home late and flustered, dancing around my room with the lights off, and falling on my bed laughing. I remember sighing after it all and realizing that everything that had ever happened to me before I met him was so colourless and dull.

I fell asleep on the phone with him, his voice like a whisper in my ear.

The morning after that, I woke up and I knew that nothing would ever be the same again. I wouldn't walk past him and avert my eyes like everyone else. I couldn't.

I'd fully expected the breakfast conversations to be the same, filled with the latest gossip on everyone.

"-terrible thing." My mother finished saying as I came into the kitchen that morning, practically skipping as I opened the glass door.

"What is?" I asked, barely paying attention as I sat down to breakfast.

There was hesitation before either of my parents spoke next.

"Ms. Keran, the mother of that quiet boy…the ones who live near the Church. She, uh, well…" My father started in a gruff voice. "She was in a car accident." My mother sighed as she leaned against the counter for support, shaking her head.

"What do you mean? She's okay, though, isn't she?" I asked, a knot in my stomach.

"Well, actually, she…" his voice edged with hesitation as he gave his wife a worried look.

All I could think then was him. This boy that changed me so much, who seemed like he was fine and whole on his own…all I could think about was that he needed me, right now.

I found him lying on his driveway, eyes closed. For a moment, my heart skipped a beat at the thought that he might be dead, as well.

"Are you okay?" I whispered as I kneeled beside him.

He turned to look at me, his eyes dry and blank. He shook his head slowly, the hair falling in his eyes. "No." He said softly, his voice pained and breaking. He held out his hand to me.

And I held it-

-through the day, and the next. I held it through the small funeral, until the sky clouded over into night above the trees.

I remember seeing him in school two weeks later. I remember the way he stared up at me, those devastatingly dark eyes blank and dull. I remember ignoring the questions of, "What are you doing?" – and I kneeled down and embraced him.

I remember when I had first looked into those dark eyes and saw something I liked. Looking into his eyes now, I needed to know that he was still in there.

Taking a breath, I put my hands on top of his.

And helped him find the strings of his imaginary guitar.