A Different Blue(49)

pulling and pushing, coaxing the mellow music from the moody strings.

I wanted to reveal my presence, to startle him. I wanted to laugh, to mock him, to say something

cutting and sarcastic like I usually did. I wanted to hate him because he was beautiful in a way

I would never be.

But I didn't move. And I didn't speak. I just listened. For how long, I don't know. And as I

continued to listen, my heart began to ache with a feeling I had no name for. My heart felt

swollen in my chest. I lifted my hand to my chest as if I could make it stop.

But with each note Wilson played, the feeling grew. It wasn't grief and it wasn't pain. It

wasn't despair or even remorse. It felt more like . . . gratitude. It felt like love. I

immediately rejected the words that had sprung to my mind. Gratitude for what?! For a life that

had never been kind? For happiness I had rarely known? For pleasure that had been fleeting and

left a desperate aftertaste of guilt and loathing?

I closed my eyes, trying to resist the sensation, but my heart was hungry for it, insatiable.

The feeling spread down my arms and legs, warm and liquid, healing. And the guilt and the

loathing slipped away, pushed out by the overwhelming gratitude that I was alive, that I could

feel, that I could hear the music. I was filled with an indescribable sweetness unlike anything

I had ever felt before.

I slid down against the wall until I was sitting on the cool linoleum floor. I leaned my heavy

head against my knees, letting the strings Wilson played untie the knots in my soul and release

me, even for a moment, from the burdens I dragged along like clanking cans and filthy chains.

What if there was a way to let them go forever? What if I could be different? What if life could

be different? What if I could be somebody? I had little hope. But there was something in the

music that whispered of possibility and breathed life into a very private dream. Wilson played

on, unaware of the spark that had been lit inside of me.

[page]The melody suddenly shifted, and the song Wilson played was one that stirred a memory. I

didn't know the words. But it was something about grace. And then the words came to my mind,

like they'd been whispered in my ear. 'Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch

like me . . . '

I didn't know what grace was, but maybe it sounded like the music. Maybe that was what I was

feeling. How sweet the sound. And it was sweet, impossibly so. How sweet the sound that saved a

wretch like me. Was a wretch the same thing as a bitch? Or a slut? My life was not a testament

to being saved from anything. It was not a testament to love – not anybody's love.

My head firmly rejected the idea. Grace wouldn't save me. But in the tiny, neglected corner of

my heart, freshly awakened by the music, I suddenly believed it might. I believed it could.

“God?” I whispered, saying the name I'd never spoken except in profanity, not even once. But

I'd sung his name once, long ago. The name felt sweet on my tongue, and I tasted it again.

“God?”

I waited. The music prodded me forward.

“God? I'm ugly inside. And it's not my fault. You know it's not. I'll take responsibility for

some of it, but you've gotta own up to your part, too. Nobody saved me. Nobody gave a shit.

Nobody came to my rescue.” I gulped, feeling the sorrow in my throat, making it hurt to

swallow, but it was pain I'd been swallowing for a long time, and I forced it down. “So I'm