Page 57 of Only You

Washington, D.C.

Occasionally, Dani needed to run away. She never went far, only looking for a place that forced her mind to be quiet for a while.

Today, she kept it simple and went to the cinema, picking a random action film.

She didn’t truly care what would be on the screen; sitting in the dark by herself in a room that wasn’t her own sounded blissful enough.

She picked a seat in the back row, far from a group that had gathered for the showing.

As the lights dimmed and the trailers started to play, she let her mind drift to her research.

After weeks, it seemed that her one and only lead had fizzed out.

While she had learned the role of a griot, understood the importance of West African oral history, she couldn’t quite connect it to her and Jones.

There were griots in C?te d’Ivoire but they were inherited roles and Kwame didn’t seem to be connected to them.

Of course, everything after was long disconnected.

The closest she could get was the role of griots being recordkeepers for tribes.

Maybe her and Jones were supposed to be that, but then it didn’t make sense why they were just now remembering.

They would have had to remember earlier for that to make sense.

And, with that, there was nothing left to explore.

So, another dead end.

She fought back tears as explosions happened on screen, the defeat settling in. She rubbed her eyes, trying to compose herself.

The more she remembered, the harder it was for her to accept what was happening.

Maybe it was watching Alexis celebrate her birthday over the weekend, or Talia and Riley making plans for trips after graduation or Dr Carver helping her with her application to the New York Philharmonic last week, but it hit Dani that Selene would never grow old.

That more than likely, she herself wouldn’t escape her twenties.

She wouldn’t have a future to look forward to.

All her work, everything she did to build a life and a career… it meant nothing.

The anxiety around that thought had been a low hum in the background for days but it kept creeping closer and closer to the surface. She didn’t know what to do or how to escape it. How did someone accept death when they never saw it coming?

Dani grimaced as the sun hit her eyes when walking out of the cinema, feeling even worse than when she went in.

So much for that. She walked a few blocks to her car, pulling out her phone to check the time.

There were multiple notifications waiting for her, social media likes and comments, reminders, emails and texts.

She opened the latter, ignoring the one from Dr Carver, and focused on the one about it from Jones sent ten minutes ago.

Still coming for bass lessons?

She chewed on her bottom lip as she stared at the screen.

She had promised to meet him at two thirty and it was creeping closer to three.

Her first instinct was to ignore him as well, go home and scream into a pillow.

Then, she remembered how Dr Castillo would always push her into therapy to seek help among her friends instead of leaning on her instinct to be painfully independent.

It was annoyingly good advice, especially since Jones would be the only one to understand her fears.

And she would have to break the news eventually.

Heading over now , she typed back before getting in her car.

Jones was standing outside when Dani pulled up, bass strapped across his back.

Her grip on the steering wheel tightened and she had to force herself to let go.

Jones had dealt with everything well so far.

At this point, she wouldn’t be surprised if she was the one breaking down at the end of the conversation.

The least she could do was put on a brave face until then.

‘You know, I can meet you in one of the practice rooms,’ he said.

‘Yeah, but your apartment is too nice and too expensive not to spend more time in,’ she said, keeping her tone light and playful. ‘Shall we go?’

‘We shall.’ He gestured for her to go up the steps to the entrance.

She stepped inside his apartment with a sense of familiarity that she suspected she shouldn’t have after only a few visits, considering that it took her two months to get used to the house she rented now.

But the place was so undeniably cosy, she couldn’t help relaxing as she flopped on his ridiculously soft burnt orange couch.

As he went to the kitchen, Dani flipped through the artbook on the coffee table.

Under it, there was sheet music and she ran her fingers over the notes, playing the song in her head.

He set a glass of water in front of her, as he always did, before going to his room to grab one of his basses.

He had a collection of ten so far, all mounted on a wall in his bedroom, and he planned on getting another around Christmas.

‘A present to myself,’ he had explained when he first showed her.

She closed her eyes for a moment, hoping he would make it to the holiday. She opened them back up as he returned with a blue-grey bass with a police line neck strap.

‘A Fender Aerodyne Jazz Bass.’ He placed the instrument carefully in her lap, easing the strap over her head when she leaned forward.

‘Such a gentleman,’ she commented as she ran her fingers over the metal strings, mapping out the notes of the frets. ‘If only cello were this easy.’

‘You need some help?’

‘I got it,’ she told him as she tuned the strings, listening carefully to the muted notes. He chuckled as he eased onto the floor in front of her. ‘An expert already.’

‘It’s not exactly a hard transition. It’s this,’ she sat the bass up so the neck pointed to the ceiling, ‘to this.’ She turned it sideways, resting the curves against her thighs. ‘And then plucking. Plus, these handy dandy frets make finding the notes much easier.’

‘So, you’re ready to plug it in,’ he suggested.

‘Absolutely not.’ She couldn’t help but smile, her first one of the day, at the sound of his laugh.

She was thankful she could bask in the sound for a little while longer.

She straightened up and walked her fingers along the frets of the bass, focusing on the tiny vibrations the motion caused versus the giddy feeling filling her chest. ‘Let me be delusional for a bit longer.’

‘Fine, but next week we’re plugging it in. No more running for you.’

She nodded but her smile faded, the words making a lump form in her throat. Jones noticed the change immediately, his gaze becoming cautious as he looked her up and down.

‘You okay?’

She opened her mouth to say, ‘Yes’ and continue learning ‘Feel Good Inc’ by Gorillaz, and ignore the world for a little longer. Instead, she asked, ‘You remember all of our lifetimes, right?’

Jones’s brows shot to his hairline as he leaned back against the couch. ‘As far as I know, yeah.’

She plucked the string a couple of times before removing the bass from around her neck, setting it aside. ‘Why do we fail every time?’

Jones bit the inside of his cheek, scratching the back of his neck nervously. ‘We had good reasons at the time,’ he answered politely.

‘All for them to be our downfall,’ she said flatly. ‘Nothing but bad timing and missed opportunities painted as a love story.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ Jones said, his eyes wounded. The look punched her in the gut, and she wished she could take it all back, fall back into their lesson. Yet, reality was knocking on their door, and she couldn’t take it anymore.

‘I failed,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t figure it out, which means…’

Dani’s words clogged her throat, tears that she had been holding back all afternoon escaped her eyes. Something in Jones’s eyes shattered and it was too much to witness. She laid down and stared at the bright, blue sky out the window, the wisps of clouds easing along. She took a stuttering breath.

‘Maybe I can wrap my head around the inevitable but, more than anything, I just wish I knew why,’ she settled on.

The two were quiet, letting the hum of appliances take over the conversation as the air remained tense.

It felt like walking along a cliff edge, each step being monumentally important.

Part of her was tempted to say the wrong thing – whatever it was – and end this friendship, go back to her original solution.

Unfortunately, it hadn’t worked the first time and now that she knew Jones, it wouldn’t be the same.

It was almost unfair how easily he filled a gap in her life that wasn’t even missing.

He walked into her life, changed everything, and now she had to figure out a way to live without him or live with him to an early grave.

She took a deep breath, biting the inside of her cheek to hold back the tears that started to spring up again.

She tensed up at the thought just as Jones settled on the floor near her, still not touching her as if he could tell she needed space. Or maybe it would’ve been too much for him, too.

‘What are you thinking?’

Dani forced her hand to relax from the fist it formed, surrendering to the truth as she spoke.

‘That I can only imagine how great it would be if we were more than friends,’ she said quietly, as if the words would create a cosmic shift if said too loud.

‘We would be by now if we didn’t remember, just like our other lives.

But I can’t get over the mortality of us.

We barely get to start before everything is over and it’s not fair. Why did we have to remember now?’

‘I… honestly can’t tell you,’ he told her. ‘This lifetime has had its ups and downs with me, but I haven’t been this scared of death in a while.’

Dani was tempted to tell him she didn’t know which was worse but kept the thought to herself.

She doubted it would help the hopeless conversation.

They were truly damned no matter what they did.

She scooted a tad bit closer to him to feel a little of the warmth radiating from him to fight the chill settling under her skin.

‘You wanna know something?’

‘What?’

‘Sometimes, I wonder if we truly experience death,’ Jones said quietly.

‘As awful, as the endings are, as soon as we close our eyes for good, we’re in new lives.

Better ones than what we had before. And knowing what’s coming, in a weird way, it makes it easier for me to enjoy my life right now.

The hard part is knowing I keep taking you with me. ’

The lump in her throat seemed to grow and she closed her eyes, forcing it down enough to quip, ‘It’s quite the crappy consolation prize.’ Something that sounded between a snort and Jones choking lifted the tension.

‘Can’t argue with that,’ he said finally before falling into silence.

‘What if…’ Dani’s words faded as she tried to figure out what she wanted to ask. What was it all for? What was the lesson? What if he regretted meeting her?

What if this is our last life, our last chance to get it right?

‘Are you happy?’ he asked suddenly.

‘Yeah,’ she said without hesitation. She turned her head so he could see her sincerity when she said, ‘The happiest I’ve ever been, according to my other lives.’

‘Then I’ll say this much.’ He drummed his fingers on the floor before speaking, his tone sombre as he met her curious stare.

‘As much as we genuinely loved each other before, one thing that happened in every life before this one was that we were always trying to escape the world around us. This time we don’t have to.

So, if nothing else, we at least beat that part of the story already. ’

‘Maybe the universe is throwing us a bone,’ she sighed. ‘One step closer to getting older.’

Though his shoulders slumped in defeat, his smile only looked a little tired. ‘If so, then I guess I’ll meet you at the retirement home.’

‘I’ll be the one playing shuffleboard,’ she said, causing him to chuckle. The sound made her relax, the restlessness she felt all day finally disappearing though nothing had changed. They could still die tomorrow but they couldn’t change that now. She had worried enough for the day.

She leaned over, running her fingers over the guitar, a muted melody playing. She suddenly wanted to tell Jones to get his amp so she could hear herself. It didn’t matter if she was bad or not; she just wanted to know.

‘Maybe it was as simple as a wish,’ she said finally. ‘You wanted to see me again. I wanted to save you. All things are possible through God and magic and whatever else is out there beyond what we understand.’

‘A wish strong enough to bring us back to life… guess we’ll have to wait and see.’ He finally sat up and reached over her to pick up his bass. She bit her bottom lip as his arm brushed her knee, her nerves zeroing in on the sensation as he held the instrument out to her.

‘Shall we?’

She stared at it for a while, eyeing the frets, the colour of the body, all the little knobs and stringers until her eyes landed on the fingers gripping the neck steadily but not too tight, just enough to let it go. She sat up before taking it gently from his hand, placing it back on her lap.

‘We shall,’ she said, stretching out her legs so they were pressed against his. She held back a smirk as she heard him clear his throat, shifting his body, but not moving away. ‘I’m thinking “Seven Nation Army” this time. You know that one?’

‘Yeah, it’s practically bass 101,’ he said as he showed her how to play the first few notes. And for a few hours, she didn’t pretend to be normal or ignore death looming around the corner. She just let the moment be more important and it was more than enough.