“I said I would,” I stood up nervously before her. I was wearing a similar outfit from our last time out. Oversized black sunglasses, a plain high-waisted skirt, and a buttoned up satin white dress shirt tucked in with the sleeves rolled up and my collar semi-flared. I briefly wished I had tried something new. No point looking like a wealthy 1950’s housewife as a teenage girl on a campus of a mere dressed-down few. Right now, where Avery was a rock concert, I was a sock-hop. She could be Gaga, loose and open, a chameleon in every way, but I would always be Grace of Monaco / Grace Kelly, royal subdued and pressured to float upon some cloud. There was no misunderstanding there. We were different in many odd ways and we both knew.
Avery had such style. I felt plain next to her.
When I didn’t move first she held my hand in my skirt pocket, taking it out and leading me away.
“Come on, it’s this way.” I hadn’t planned on that. Not at all.
I knew where the stage was. I just wanted her to keep touching me so I pretended not to know.
We moved around the music room and took the back entrance inside. Avoiding others was the key. They were gathered in groups and most likely going to be stuck that way for the duration of the class. We made our way to the side entrance of the stage, side-stepping any potential drama. Avery let go of me to open up the door. She waited as I entered, holding the door. Then she followed me in.
The door shut and the room was so silent.
My heels clicked on the stage and the sound echoed through the large space because the curtains were closed.
Avery slowly passed me. There was an upright piano in the middle of the stage and I wondered why it was there.
“So,” I said. She’d been standing before me and just staring with her hands behind her back, using the piano as a wall on which to lean. “What do you do?” I asked nervously.
I didn’t know people reserved the stage. Was this an exercise? Or was this just an Avery thing?
“Different things,” she said, dipping her head in a cute way and thinking about class probably.
“Come on,” she said, moving around to the other side of the piano. I heard the familiar noise of old wooden bench legs being dragged out to accommodate a piano player.
I followed her nervously. I never mentioned that I played.
“Sit down,” she said, “I don’t bite.”
As soon as I sat, she scooted herself closer to me until there was no empty space. We’d never been this close before. It hurt but it was all I could notice.
I wanted to ask her if she played but I was so close to her it overwhelmed me and I got scared. I think she sensed that.
“Here,” she whispered. “Like this.”
With me, she was taking care.
I felt like a kid again. A small helpless child.
She took my hands up in her own and led them gently up to the keys, placing my fingers down where she wanted them. She treated me so delicately I felt her pulling at me deep inside. It was almost like I knew I was lost down a well but I’d forgotten all this time and now she was here hovering over me with a bucket and a rope, urging me to come on and get inside so she could pull me out. I felt these things as I looked in her eyes.
I can’t explain it any other way. She was trying to bring the real me out, the scared me, the terrified me.
Her hands on mine were so careful. I felt myself smile. I realized I was breathing louder with nervousness and I tried to make myself stop.
I stared down at our hands just there. She was pressing my fingers down one at a time with her own, playing something simple, something a three year old could play.
“You’re really good,” she teased sweetly. I looked up at her to tease her back but her smile was so beautiful I felt my eyelids flutter again and I had to look away.
She made me dizzy. She stole my breath.
There was something about her that made me so so happy and so so weak.
“What’s wrong?” She asked.
“Nothing,” I lied, my eyes glued again up to hers. I felt they might just cry from the view.
“Vi? Come on, what is it?” She nudged me with her shoulder. She was trying to get me to laugh.
I took a huge breath in and let my head fall down to stare at the keys.
“I know how to play piano,” I said.
I sounded like a child though, a weak thing again, never brave. That girl in the well who’d rather stay in one uncomfortable boat with nothing but water all around than risk the chance of any worse danger coming to pass on her up on land.
It was her touch. It was her smile.
I craved them both.
I craved her everywhere.
She completely had me.
I was doomed, so very doomed.
“You seem sad,” she said, pulling my hair back on my right side so that she could see me. The tips on her fingers brushed my neck and I felt myself sit up straighter at the small taste of her touch right there. I so longed for her to touch me.
“This week’s been…” I couldn’t finish it. My mouth felt dry. I wet my tongue and sucked on my lip just to satiate myself.
This week had been too much.
I could almost taste her. She was too close.
I felt so shaky. I was falling apart but trying to stop it.
“I’ve been confused,” I said. I couldn’t look at her.
I started to tinker with the keys just a little at first but then her song came back to me and I just let myself play.
For a while I got lost in it. I let myself forget she was really physically there. I just felt her inside. The sound of the piano on the stage, it was a lot different than my piano at home and I sort of liked how loud and disturbing it was when compared to the smooth. I was so used to cleanliness and precision. The not-so-accurately tuned wooden upright sort of fulfilled something in me I never knew I was missing.
The echo of the notes shook my body and brought me to life. It was like we weren’t at school anymore. We were somewhere else; together.
But then I remembered the moment was real and my fingers slowed to a stop and I let my hands fall, one of mine falling right onto hers and tightening just tight enough until I was holding it in a soft tender way.
“That was beautiful,” she said. “What is it?”
“It’s not a name, just a feeling.”
Avery…
The piece was called Avery.
But I couldn’t say that. Not to her.
I couldn’t even allow myself to breathe.
“What’s the feeling?” She asked. She was holding my hand now loosely with both of hers. She was holding my hand the way someone does when they’re not noticing the intimacy because it’s underlying and beneath the words, beneath the mysteries, beneath everything else that’s more important to them.
That made me feel strange. To me, her touch was a deafening thing. When she touched me I couldn’t think about anything other than the sensation of her hands and her body and the way she breathed and how real she was; not a dream.
She’d asked me what the song was about. I had to remind myself of her question.
“Love I think.” I squinted to peak at her. I was trying to hold back the tears. I wanted to talk about it, I really did, but it was hard and it was risky. Apparently I’d missed her so much that now that she was near I was completely overwhelmed.
To try and survive her, I found a way to talk without really telling her.
“Did you write it?” She asked.
“I did,” I swallowed hard, too nervous that she might ask the right thing.
“Did I- Did I do something wrong? Did I say something before? Something that hurt you?” I was weeping now, just a little bit. Stupidly. Silently. Making her uncomfortable. Making her feel strange. I wanted to laugh but the feelings cut me inside.
And I’d worried her. That was clear.
“It’s not you,” I lied, shaking my head and feeling again how tragically bad I was at these things.
�
�You have to tell me then. I know I haven’t really known you that long but you don’t really strike me as a crier.” She seemed worried about me.
“I’m scared,” I said. Taking my hand back and finding the keys to distract myself again. I suddenly noticed I was reeally shaking, like, visibly so.
To try and fix myself I began pounding out Schubert’s Erlkonig. It really was one of the most intensely suspenseful songs. On the old wooden stand-up it just sounded like angry noise.
Avery laughed sweetly at the disturbance and pulled my hands off of the keys, holding them again to still me and get me to talk. She seemed breathless, exasperated, and amused all at once.
We’d never touched this much. It was almost like she knew I wanted it, like she knew I’d been craving it.
“Sing,” I said, seeing her. For once my eyes were so open. “For me,” I added, softly, turning away.
“What?” She laughed.
“I want to hear your voice again. I’ll play anything.”
Maybe if she sung something it would calm me down.
“Okay,” she shrugged, still amused by me.
I realized at this point that she probably thought I was crazy.
To my surprise, she didn’t even make me wait long. She wasn’t shy.
Her words were so precious. Something about someone making a space in their heart for her to move in. I dazed at the idea that she was thinking about me. My space in my heart where I would and did allow her to stay.
I didn’t know the song but I knew I loved it.
As if invented just to ruin me, her voice was far better this way than when she was just simply speaking words.
Her song was about putting someone in a secret place, about keeping them, stealing them away. About hiding in their heart, stowing herself away.
As she sang I felt the want. I wanted to keep her.
Then a line touched too close to home, something about leaving a man just to live in my heart.
I raised my eyebrows and let out a small scoff. It could be about someone else.
Or it could be a message...
I was in such a position that I may never ever know.
I felt stuck. Really stuck.
Her song was done. I hadn’t played one thing. My fingers stilled over the keys, perched and prepared but insistent on remaining frozen.
I lied about playing, I wasn’t going to accompany her. I just needed the strength. Or maybe she froze me. I needed to do what I’d been dying to do. And now it was still and quiet. The perfect time. The perfect time to try.
It was too much though. I wanted her too much. I couldn’t do it.
I didn’t really want to know if the answer was: no.
“I-I have to go,” I said, trying to wiggle away but she pulled me to stay. I felt her fingers wrap around my wrist and tug as her other hand held mine, keeping me, making me stay. “Avery, I mean it. I can’t.”
“You can’t what? I’m not letting you leave like this you’re obviously upset. What happened? Talk to me.”
I sat next to her and felt myself cry out a sad exhausted laugh.
“Olivia…” Her voice was so soft. My heart ached. My name on her tongue...
I wiped the tears off my face and knew it was now or never.
“Fine, okay. Avery look at me,” I said shaking. For whatever reason she had been turned away, staring at the place where the music usually sat. There were no instructions for today. Not for her or me. There was no cheat-sheet. No guide.
As soon as she turned inward and faced me I followed her lead, swiveling my knees in as well until they touched on hers. I was going to do this and I didn’t have time to think of the right way or the perfect way. I just needed to act.
I let out a deep long breath before I let my hands touch clumsily at her shoulders and make their way up to hold adoringly at her neck and her face and touch her skin.
Avery stared back and I had to tell myself: this is real. You have to do this. You have to try.
“You’re shaking,” she said, still staring at me but mostly consumed by my eyes.
My eyelids fluttered again just like they kept doing every time we were close and she stared. She was too much for me, too talented, too beautiful. When I looked at her I just knew it couldn’t be, I just knew.
“Please don’t hate me,” I said, my eyes searching hers one last time as I lost all patience with pacing myself and my eyes locked on her lips and I felt myself wanting them.
I wet my lips, took a shaky breath in through my nose. After our lips touched, my mouth opened slightly and I felt her tongue meeting mine. She was catching me, accepting me. As my hands lightly pulled her in and begged her to stay, if only once, if only for right now, for today, I tasted her sweetly and felt so soft it was almost inhuman. My grief puddled in with my strength and she shun on me unmercifully, blinding me with every little touch. Sensation took me over.
I felt drown in my well and she was there. I was underwater but I no longer needed air. She gave me life.
I thought for sure I’d never get this far but here we were.
One day we were strangers and the next thing I knew I was kissing her.
And it wasn’t a sweet kiss, it was an everything kiss. It was the kind of kiss that could cause a war. As soon as our lips touched, I felt my breath hitch ‘cause I’d done it. I pushed forward knowing I had to do this now because I may never ever get to touch her again. The fear of that pushed me to be greedy for her and never stop.
My hand moved up in her hair and I gently twisted her soft blonde locks around my fingers. Greedily, my mouth fought to keep hers as my heart pounded fast in my chest and we shared something amazing and new.
The feeling of kissing her was far better than anything I could ever dream. It wasn’t like Natalie or like something I thought I could feel, the kiss was new, its own entity. It overtook me and swallowed me up until I became listless, addicted, and drained.
I could kiss her forever. I could stay here like this.
For a moment we were perfect. For a moment I was really hers.
Since she tasted like happiness and made me so excited my body longed to be touched in a new way, a nice way, I let myself slow down and just savor her. As a result, I couldn’t take it, I lowly hummed inside her mouth and accidentally warned her of how good I obviously felt up against her like this. Then I felt her moan right back and I knew that I was probably about to lose the only friend I ever really wanted to have. I mean, how often do dreams come true? The kiss and the thought made me too slow, too pathetically weak. I wanted her to take me, take over. I couldn’t be brave much more, I needed to know if this was okay or if it was just me having my own brief and wondrous touch at greatness while Avery just took it like she took so many other things like being effortlessly good or having Mr. Bradford want her and take her away in his way.
It burned to think I might be using her like him. It burned too much. No matter how good she felt, I made myself stop. Out of fear, I pulled back to let her lead.
Chapter Fourteen
Avery
Expectations come in shades and the entire time we sat at the piano I felt the world growing smaller and smaller. Yet, it started to look different, brighter. I noticed more colors. The spectrum that made up Olivia started to become visible as separate hues.
I sang for her. I didn’t do that for anyone. She wanted to hear my voice and I let it out, singing the first song I could think of that seemed right; Ingrid Michaelson’s- Corner of Your Heart. It was hard for me to meet her eyes while I was letting lyrics flow out. I felt shy. She didn’t play but it didn’t bother me.
It wasn’t a long song so I was surprised how her demeanor changed even as I sang. Before we were being playful, even flirtatious. Now, she was withdrawing, pulling her hands away, but I wouldn’t let her go. Not without telling me what was wrong.
Her face, with all its beautiful angles, was now rounded out by lines of fear. Her brow scrunched like she was holding back tears. “I-I ha
ve to go. Avery, I mean it. I can’t.”
But as much as she couldn’t, neither could I. Acting without thought, I kept her there with me. I was confused and afraid. If she knew how much more I let her see of me than anyone else she might laugh. It was kind of pathetic but I couldn’t bear for her to see me and turn away.
“You can’t what? I’m not letting you leave like this you’re obviously upset. What happened? Talk to me.”
She sat with me, letting out a laugh that made me look away. I let go of one of her hands and tried to get myself together. I didn’t know what this was but it was unlike anything else. Like taking two drugs at once that had opposite effects. Breathing became hard. I didn’t know why I was feeling like this.
“Olivia…”
Her name was my question as to what had rendered a perfectly capable person unable to be in my presence. I waited. Maybe the moment of silence would go on forever or she would just slip away and I would never know.
“Fine. Okay. Avery look at me,” she said.
I did and I saw tear tracks on her cheeks. Her makeup was still mostly intact. But I noticed something that frightened me and I said it out loud.
“You’re shaking.”
“Please don’t hate me,” she whispered, pained.
My mouth opened to ask why but she kissed me. My eyelids fluttered closed and I opened to her like it was in my nature to do so. To her credit, she took me in, let me come into her. Our tongues grazed and I was aware of nothing but the lapse in my lack of feelings.
A buzzing came through, currents of sound vibrating from her into me. I was an old boarded up house and she flung open my windows and doors, letting in the air and sunlight. Her hand tangled in my hair and I heard a moan escape me.
I slid closer, changing the angle and pressing into her body. We slowed to a sweet drift back and forth. She gave and I took. In turn I tried to show her that I wanted this but I was unwilling to take it past the sweetness and into something more fervent. How could I hate her when she had given me new life?
As suddenly as she had given it, she took it away, pulling back and with her went the light. Confusion rushed in, my need for her having been previously unknown, at once superseded all. I’d never had a kiss like that. I clamped my eyes shut and closed my mouth, shoulders slumping. To want her was to need her and I couldn’t let myself. There was a reason I was always alone.
Paper Dolls, Book One Page 10
