Silent Song

by Ron C. Nieto

  So, in spite of my instincts, I pulled on my Bitch Princess mask, lay back in the chair, and waited obnoxiously for her to answer my question.

  She held the staring contest for a few long heartbeats and then scoffed.

  “Aren’t you pathetic?”

  I smiled. No teeth showing, just the curve of my lips. As if I had a secret, an amusing secret, and I couldn’t be bothered to enlighten her.

  And I kept silent.

  She turned her gaze on Keith, eyes narrowed, and her pinched lips twisted in a vicious smirk.

  “And you’re even sadder. So desperate for attention that you’re even willing to be her plaything? I hope she’s making it worth your time.”

  “Not your business,” he replied in cool tones. Too cool. I knew that the barbs had stung him, and Lena latched onto his reaction like a leech to an open wound.

  “Oh, it’ll be my business when she comes back to center table, as she always does. If we’re going to laugh at you, you could at least make an effort to give us some good material.”

  As she spat her words, a bull’s eye for Keith’s fears and insecurities, realization hit me like a freight train. My stomach sunk and my heart skipped a beat as it contemplated the truth.

  Lena had never targeted Keith. She had targeted me, through him. He was just a casual bystander falling to her crossed fire, a convenient mark. Currently, a wounded mark.

  “Lena,” I cut in, a bit more harshly than I intended. “You’re getting the facts wrong. The one who collects football players is you, not me.”

  “Yes, of course. I always had more class. That’s why you had to resort to weirdoes like him, right?”

  Her flippant acceptance of my accusation and the way she turned it into an insult both for me and for Keith left me gaping. I took precious seconds to form a response, and I knew from her triumphant smile that she was sure she had won.

  I was furious for all the wrong reasons.

  Or perhaps they were the right reasons; I wasn’t so sure anymore. Before, I’d have been livid at her ease, at the way she’d ridiculed me, at how she was trying to bring me down in Keith’s eyes—or in anyone’s eyes, for that matter. Now, though, my anger was focused on her words toward him. She could try to beat my ego, but Keith was the most wonderful person I’d ever known, and she had no right to make him think that he wasn’t worthy.

  “Perhaps she’s choosing and not resorting, Lena,” Keith said when my silence stretched a fraction too long.

  She snorted. “Choosing you? Like, what for? To experience what it’s like to be with the school’s laughingstock? Please! Do you really think you have any other value?”

  I pondered detention in my mind. I’d get expelled for three days at the very least for pounding Lena senseless, but the idea became more and more appealing with every cutting, derisive word she said.

  I think I’d have done it. Except, Keith smirked, leaning back in his chair languidly, and he stared at her with a confidence I didn’t know he had.

  This new Keith stopped my murderous impulse. It gave birth to some other impulses, but I shoved them to the back of my head. Not good timing for that.

  “Well,” he drawled. “You do know what they say about guitarists. I think nimbleness beats ball grabbing and body tackling any day of the week.” And then he flexed his long, slender fingers, and the implications sent my brain into overdrive.

  Lena’s eyes bulged. She had not expected this turn of events. I hadn’t expected it, for that matter, and I prided myself in knowing Keith better than she did. But she had heard and seen him playing, she had seen the skill and sheer speed of those fingers, and I saw a curious pink tone rising over her neck.

  “Keep telling yourself that,” she said, after opening and closing her mouth once. “You’ll just fall harder when you realize the truth, and I’ll find it funnier.”

  “Let a guy enjoy while he can, then,” he replied, unfazed.

  Keith had just dismissed her, in no uncertain terms. It must have fallen outside of any possible scenario she’d pictured for this encounter. She looked like she wanted to send a parting shot our way, but she just turned on her heel and stalked out of the auditorium, not looking back once.

  When the door clicked behind her, I grinned and turned to Keith.

  “That was amazing! You shut her up!”

  He groaned and buried his head in his hands. “I can’t believe I said that,” he said, his voice muffled.

  “I couldn’t believe it either.” I scooted over to his side and tried to pry his hands away from his face.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled. All the coolness had disappeared and in its place, a relatively shy and insecure guy blushed furiously. “I shouldn’t have implied…”

  “Did you see her face? Priceless, Keith. You were great.”

  “Yeah. But now, the rumors will start full tilt.”

  They probably would. Our situation still hadn’t blown up in our face, at least not completely, because people were too busy with Anna and Ray. After today? It’d get distorted by the mill to the point where we’d been caught having kinky sex in public, in a threesome involving his guitar, and I’d probably gotten pregnant in Mr. Hedford’s director chair.

  Still.

  “They’d have started anyway.” I shrugged. “She’s that kind of person.”

  “It doesn’t sit right with me to give her extra firepower anyway.”

  I took a deep breath. “Look, it’s not really extra firepower. You didn’t even lie, and you didn’t give her anything she couldn’t have figured out—or come up with—on her own.”

  He turned to look at me sharply, his eyes wide open. “Not… a lie? You really wanted to…?”

  His face had gone all the way to mortified and I felt the blood rushing to my cheeks as I realized the meaning of what I’d just said.

  “Not that! I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to, because I do, I mean, not now, at some point, but I wasn’t thinking about…” I was only digging my own grave deeper, so I stopped myself and tried to rephrase. “I did choose you over everyone else. You are special and better than the jocks she plays around with. And that’s what you said, isn’t it? If she wants to take it some other way, that’s her problem.”

  He let out a throaty laugh that did very little to take my mind off the current topic and rubbed the back of his neck. “Okay.”

  I nodded. “I was worried, you know?”

  “It’s not like she could have done anything dangerous to us.”

  “I know she’d not have tried to kill us or anything!”

  “It’s not her style. Too direct.” Keith smirked.

  “Ditto.”

  “So? What were you worried about?”

  “You.” I took a deep breath. “What she said, it was so similar to what you told me that day at the park. It scared me.”

  “That I might believe her.”

  I nodded. Keith left his chair and knelt in front of me, his hands framing my face and making me look him in the eye.

  “I don’t. I know what kind of person she is. And while I still don’t understand what I’ve done to deserve you, I also know you. It might sound groundless, but I know you’re not like her. I know you’re not faking it when you’re with me. And that’s enough for me, for as long as it lasts.”

  I let him tilt my head down and kiss me softly as if I could break at any moment and he had to show me how precious I was before it was too late. He was so tender that it hurt. A deep pang ran inside me, and I felt overwhelmed by his presence, his caring, his acceptance.

  “Always,” I whispered against his lips when he broke the kiss, leaning his forehead against mine.

  He didn’t know how long we’d last, but I knew I could not go back to a life without him, ever.

  CHAPTER 19

  The next time Keith had to come to theater practice, I sneaked a surreptitious glance over at the pit as soon as we entered. He gave me a small smile before heading over there to set up his stuff, as if he could
read my thoughts and see my permanent worry.

  He looked better since the incident I privately referred to as The Scare. Still a bit too pale, and I thought he might be slightly thinner, but no more freak-outs had occurred.

  Then again, he’d not played again.

  This rehearsal, a bit like a grand general where we’d go over the whole play before going live in a couple of weeks, would be like an experiment. Both Keith and I hoped that the results said that playing guitar was not a health hazard, and I prayed to whoever was willing to listen that he’d not have a seizure while performing. Rationally, of course, we had nothing to fear, but… Things hadn’t been very rational that Monday night at his place.

  Besides, theater class was a microclimate, like a small family. Everyone cared about the recent rift affecting us seniors. While the school was split between people who listened and people who didn’t give a rat’s ass, theater definitely fell in the first category. Not because it was gossip, or it affected our reputations, but because it affected our performance. They kept glancing at me and then to Keith, as if expecting us to explode in epic Romeo and Juliet proportions to Lena’s Machiavellian laughter.

  Go figure. All my life worrying about what the rest of the students thought, worried about the façade I’d present in school… and the masses can’t be bothered to care.

  On the bright side, since my fall from grace with the golden crowd didn’t concern them, they didn’t feel the need to go out of their way to make me miserable.

  However, they all walked on eggshells, aware of the hostility and scared that they might be caught in the crossfire. They acted skittish, picking up on my distress and believing that I was worried, not because of Keith’s issues, but because I was to face off against my nemesis during the play.

  She seemed to be as oblivious to my real concerns as everyone else. She acted aloof and was clearly ecstatic. The only fraction of normalcy resided within my own team, Anna and Dave. Both of them were nonchalant enough to keep her at bay, to calm the class, and to keep Mr. Hedford blissfully ignorant of the whole drama going on in the sidelines.

  Bless them.

  “Well, class,” Professor Hedford clapped his hands, breaking my train of thought. “Let’s begin. All the way from Act I till break. No comments, no prompts. Act as if it was the real thing. Is everyone in place?”

  Dave and I opened the play with our dramatic scene, so we hurried to the stage turned into a drawing room. Keith flipped a couple of switches and gave a thumbs up, signaling that the mics were ready. The seats were slowly immersed in darkness, and the spotlights turned the stage into its own secluded world.

  There was no music for this part, but I could remember every note Keith had played during the early stages of the rehearsal. I could bring forth every single emotion, and suddenly Lady Windermere’s Fan was going full blast, a roller coaster of twists and mistrust and love amidst the fake pleasantries of the upper class of nineteenth century England. We glided into Act II without a hitch. The curtain fell and rose, this time with Keith’s plaintive guitar building up in the background and blasting us all the way back to a Season ball. The theme was the right one, the nocturne he had composed, and I allowed myself to breathe in relief when the piece kept falling from his fingers with its usual grace. I thought there was more technique than soul this time, but if I was right, I was the only one who noticed.

  Stealing a glance to the pit when Act II was coming to an end, though, I almost faltered. He was frowning in concentration, shoulders tense, and sweat pearled upon his brow, as if it took a physical effort to move his fingers in the right pattern.

  As if it hurt.

  I concealed my moment of weakness with the entrance of my rival, though, and the curtain fell again. The last few notes wailed out and then it was break time.

  The professor clapped. The support cast, the group members who didn’t have an active role but were still vital to the production, erupted in an uproar. The mics went dead, while we rushed around changing a few items, and then live again as the curtain rose once more for the conflict to truly explode in Act III. Practice made the process fast and smooth, perfect.

  So why did it feel so very wrong?

  I wanted to jump off the stage and into the pit, to cling to Keith until he stopped shaking, to take the fear away from his eyes when he looked at his guitar, now harmless and disconnected.

  I couldn’t. I had to keep up with the play. The show must go on, as they say, and Lady Windermere kept reciting her lines, sharing her desperation and her pain and her last-resort resolution with the audience, however reduced it might be.

  It was the worst hour and a half of my life, and, for the first time since I joined the theatre group, I wanted it to just end.

  Somehow, though, it worked. The play was, essentially, ready.

  When it was over and people left the auditorium, I took the side exit from the stage and jumped the two steps that led into the pit. Keith was bent over, elbows resting on his knees, and he heaved ragged breaths.

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Liar.”

  “Yeah.” He tried to smile and I sat down with him, looking around to make sure we were alone.

  “So, what happened?”

  “You know the feeling you get when you’re dragging your nails down a blackboard and it’s the worst screech possible and you just need to stop?” I nodded and he went on. “That’s what it felt like. Every note grated on my nerves, not just out of place, but wrong in every possible way.”

  “But it sounded just fine. A bit less passion than usual, but as beautiful as always.”

  He gave a mirthless laugh. “I know. Theory said that the melody was perfectly harmonic, so I played with my theory. It just didn’t keep my guts from twisting worse and worse with every bar.”

  “You did wonderfully,” I said, feeling a bit stupid, because I didn’t know what else to say. “You don’t have to worry about the opening.”

  “That’s not it at all, Alice,” he sighed.

  “Are you nervous?”

  “Frankly? No.” Confusion must have shown in my face, because he straightened up and went on with his explanation. “I know you love theater, that it’s important for you to stand in front of people and do a good job, taking them back to Lady Windermere’s Fan. But you’ve done a dozen openings since you joined the group. Besides, would you be worried about it if you knew that no matter what happens, you won’t be on stage again?”

  I sat back, perplexed. “It’s our last year, but there’s always associations and stuff, even if I go to college and then start working in something else entirely. This won’t be my last play.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “This could be my last song. Who cares about doing it right?”

  “You can’t live without music. I know that much about you; it’s your whole life!”

  “Yes. That’s my point,” he said, with a tired sigh. Reaching out to his discarded guitar, he balanced it on his thigh and started absently plucking the strings, tuning them once again, even though he’d surely done it before the rehearsal.

  “So don’t stop. You don’t have to.” I forced myself to be obtuse. I didn’t want to contemplate the other options.

  “Playing anything but that song is physically painful, Alice. It’s worse than it was the first time. In the beginning, I just wanted to experiment with it. Now, I feel nauseated after a ten-minute long performance, because my head was screaming with the need to get the minuet right. And if I give in and try, then I can’t stop repeating it again and again, to the point that nothing but the music exists.” He twiddled the cable in the guitar’s jack, twisted the volume knob, and started dancing his fingers to the dreadfully familiar notes of the minuet. “See?” he asked, with a half-smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “There I go again.”

  “Perhaps it’s just stress. Perhaps it’ll pass when the opening, or the school year, or
whatever is over.”

  “Maybe.”

  “But you don’t believe it.”

  He shook his head. We sunk into silence, one that was sad and yet comforting at the same time, and he wove the melody around us like a cocoon keeping the rest of the world at bay. If only it had been another tune, I might have counted myself in Heaven.

  “It’s easier here,” he said at length, when he was well into the building up of tension and speed.

  “In the auditorium?”

  “Yeah. This is where I got the inspiration, if you can call it that.”

  I tilted my head to the side and listened. He was right. The melody came more fluid, with new layers of depth added to its line. I didn’t like it. There was something about its richness that didn’t sit well with me.

  Probably the fact that it was upsetting my boyfriend, to put it mildly.

  “Keith, shouldn’t you stop?”

  His left hand jerked away from the neck of the guitar and the right one hit a few discordant, open strings before he disconnected the sound again. I smiled while he started to pack his stuff.

  “You didn’t get glued to it this time.”

  “I’ve been thinking about it.” He hung his head, his back to me, as if he were ashamed or embarrassed. “I think it’s because of you.”

  “What?” I froze. “You mean that this is my fault?”

  He was by my side so fast that I started at his closeness. “Never say that. Whatever’s wrong with me, it’s not you. You’re the only good thing I have.”

  I tried to swallow past his intense gaze. “Not true. You have your father and…” I was about to say, and your music, but bit my tongue in time. He was convinced that he had lost it, so rubbing salt in the wound was not the best thing.

  “I love my father. He’s great; he’s always supported me as best as he’s been able to, and he understands me for the most part. But it’s you who can pull me back from the brink every time.”

  “I didn’t…” I started to argue, but then I thought of the times he’d zoned off. His father had called me, and while I had removed his hand forcibly from the guitar, it suddenly occurred to me that Mr. Brannagh must have attempted something similar. Only, it had not worked then. He’d had to call me, terrified because his only family was unresponsive and…