Fall From Grace(49)

“Shut up,” Shane said.  He glared at me, “Play more.”  Sitting back against one of huge couches that were haphazardly laid out around room, he gestured for me to continue.  His expression looked agonized and I was immediately regretful for showing him this side of me.  This was supposed to be my thank you, something good; not someone that should make him angry with me.

“No,” I said shaking my head.  “You seem really upset with me for some reason right now and that’s not what I had wanted to happen, Shane.”  I slid the strap of my guitar over my head and gently leaned my guitar against the amp.  I grudgingly got my case and started packing up.

“Don’t go, Grace,” Shane said just above a whisper.

My eyes met his.  He looked tense and scared.  “What did you want to happen?”

“I honestly thought you would let me play for Alex and that you wouldn’t be angry.  I don’t understand what it was that I did wrong, but right now, you look like you want to kill me,” I explained.

He ran his hand through his hair and grabbed his guitar.  He paused and watched me for a moment, “I’m just thunderstruck right now, I’m not angry.  That’s like the third time in less than a week you’ve managed to shock me.  What else can you do?  Fly?  Or,” he started laughing at me, “Or, can you also play the piano and sing?  Because then I’d understand Alex, then I’d be in love with you too.”

I froze.  “Well, we definitely wouldn’t want that, would we?  So let’s just say that I can play guitar really well and I can’t do anything else.”  I felt my face blush.

“Ha!  Don’t let her kid you.  She can do it all,” Lea laughed.  Startled, I jumped back a bit. I had forgotten that everyone else was there with us.  Oh, that’s not good.

Shane stopped strumming his guitar and looked at me curiously.

Ethan jumped up and pulled me over to keyboard.  He switched it on and stood close enough to me that I felt uncomfortable.  I looked up at him timidly, but he smiled down at me and brushed the hair off my shoulder.  “Go ahead, Grace, make us fall in love with you,” he chuckled jokingly into my ear.

I blinked.  Screw it; I want to play.  Gabriel said live this life.  This was me living. Hopefully in the interim of me living, I’d find him.

Not thinking any further, I bit my lower lip and closed my eyes, remembering the song that Shane had played for me on his guitar.  That piece needed a piano part.  I thought about the words he sang, the torment and the longing.  I reached for the microphone that Alex used to sing into when he played the keyboard switching it on.

Slow and steamy, I let the lyrics fall from my lips.  My fingers danced like raindrops across the keys.  I tore through the haunting melody as if it was a brilliant light to help them in their darkness.  I bared my soul in each word, note and breath.  My soul had been on mute for thousands of years until this very moment.  Tears threatened to burst from my eyes, so I kept them closed tight.

I let my voice drift to a whisper and stop. My fingers continued their feverish playing, blanketing everyone with the shear depths of the real me.  I saw him behind my closed eyelids, pale blue angels eyes. My angel; my soul mate. The melody swirled around me, washing me in ancient visions. The world has been dull and unkind without him.  I played for him, for how we used to sing together in the gardens, a gentle ethereal ballad.

Ethan’s cool hand on my shoulder startled me into stopping. My fingers clutched at the keys.  My eyes flew open and everyone was standing there gaping at me.  But not Shane, Shane had never gotten up, he was kneeling with both hands, leaning on his guitar; his fingertips white from tension.