Page 138 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me

“It’s always been okay, Gabriel,” I said softly.

“Fuck. I’m nervous.” He let out a laugh that sounded like a sigh and rolled out his shoulders, trying to loosen up.

“It’s okay. Just play. I won’t even look at you.” I angled my chair, so my side was to him and slunk low in my seat, legs kicked out, with my eyes on the night sky. It got so much darker out here without all the city lights and pollution.

The stars reeled above as he sang “Tell Me Why” and then launched straight into “After the Gold Rush,” making them his own, his voice dipping into a warm vibrato and effortlessly soaring to a falsetto fraught with emotional intensity and fragility.

Thirty seconds in, all my worries disappeared.

His voice was still ethereal and haunting, and it still sent shivers down my spine. I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me and seep into the cracks of my heart and my soul.

I could listen to his voice forever.

He held the notes for so long that his jaw quivered, and his eyes were closed when I snuck looks from the corner of my eye.

His music transported me to another stratosphere. A concert for one with his voice soaring into the night sky as he serenadedme with everything from Muddy Waters and Ray Charles to U2’s “One” and Edith Piaf’s “La vie en rose.”

An eclectic taste in music. An old soul with the voice of a fallen angel. And from what I could tell, his guitar skills were just as good as ever.

Gabriel was back.

After lulling me into a false sense of security with cover songs, he stopped playing and said, “I wrote this song two weeks ago.”

Then, without a proper trigger warning for the emotional damage he was about to inflict, he launched right into a song about the dark summer’s day when his lover dragged him off the ledge and saved him from himself…while the funeral procession marched up memory lane…and the mourners gathered around the grave…every precious moment dead and forgotten…

I wasn’t a musician but even to my untrained ear, that sounded a lot like a ballad in E Minor.

A scene from our life set to notes and lyrics, from his perspective.

When he finished, our eyes met briefly before he averted his head like he couldn’t bear to look me in the eye. He bent his head over his guitar and plucked a few strings. “It still needs work.”

It didn’t need work. It was very nearly perfect just as it was.

Soul-shattering, yes, but perfect all the same.

When would he ever believe that he was good enough? Better than good enough. “You don’t have to change a thing. It’s really beautiful,” I said, my voice hushed.

“Yeah?”

I smiled. “Yeah.”

It was beautiful in the way that good art was. Not because it was pretty but because it made you feel something deep down in your soul.

And wasn’t that what all art and music should do?

“I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it,” he said. “Since it’s so personal.”

I almost laughed. “Your music has always been personal,” I said. “You’re a confessional lyricist. You write from your life experiences and your dreams and you write about the causes that matter to you.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Makes sense. I wanted to write a song about Chuck. Or not Chuck, specifically, but the lost and forgotten population. The homeless, the war vets struggling with mental health issues, and the way people are so quick to turn a blind eye and walk right past them like they don’t exist.” His jaw clenched. “Like they’re not human.”

Oh, Gabriel.

“You, um…” I wasn’t sure how to tell him this, so I came right out with it. “You already wrote that song. It’s called ‘On Your Knees.’ It’s the last song on your second album. It was partly inspired by the ’88 riots in Tompkins Square Park and by Chuck…”

I could see it on his face that he had no idea he’d written that song. When I used to play his music for him, he must have blocked it all out.

“The title came from the people in church who kneel and pray and preach the word of Jesus but don’t live by it.”