Page 77 of The Blood we Crave

It would only break what’s left of her heart. To look at me and see the son she lost. To know that despite her love, the homemade muffins, and summer trips, there was nothing she could’ve done to change me.

Henry had done too much damage. I’d seen too much and accepted my fate a long time ago.

I almost felt guilty for being this way, if only because of May.

Almost.

“I’m aware,” I say, clearing my throat and turning my hand from her touch so that her fingers slip from my chin.

“Sometimes I don’t think you are.”

A defeated breath falls from her lips as she steps back from me, giving me space but not leaving the room just yet. She lingers, walking towards the standard black piano placed near the corner of my room.

Striking one key, I can hear how long it’s been since I’ve played on that piano. More often than not, I’m using the one in the basement. I stand and walk over to the instrument, taking a seat on the bench.

She stands at the opposite end, looking over at me across the slick black surface. Her features reflect on the glossy lid as I glance down at the keys, my fingers brushing across the tops of them with a featherlight touch.

I take my time rolling up my sleeves to my elbows as I look up at her.

“Any requests?” I ask, a lighthearted smirk on my lips.

She is a sucker for my playing. It doesn’t matter how upset or angry she is, she loves to hear me play. And when I know I can’t give her the words she needs or the comfort she deserves, I give her what I can.

“Play me something that tells me how you’ve been, Alexander.”

How I’ve been? How have I been?

Recently? Or in the past few years, because there is a range of expression for what’s happened to me as of late. But there’s only one overwhelming word that comes to me.

As I peer down at the stitched gash across my palm, horizontal in the middle of my skin, the memory of where it came from is quick to present itself.

Tormented. Plagued and put in a place of excruciating agony every time I am in her space. Somehow, I know exactly the piece of music that projects that sort of tortured anguish.

Taking a moment to settle on the piano bench, I make myself comfortable before I play. I allow myself to experience the same torture I felt in the shower, only this time, I have somewhere to put it. The opening of movement two in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23 is haunting.

My fingers begin to dance across the keys, a gothic waltz for the opening piano solo. It is perhaps the rawest expression of longing and grief ever transformed into sound. I can feel the subtle ache in the tune, as if the black and white keys have begun to sigh, their echoes sobbing as the piano sings with a solemn voice.

In my subconscious, I can hear the faint whisper of her name in my ear, urging me to pour every tortuous emotion I’ve felt for her into the song. The noise is a creative representation of how twisted everything inside of me feels.

As the song progresses, my shoulders bear the weight of the isolation it evokes, swaying back and forth in a fluid motion as I imagine the orchestra joining in to weave the beauty of pain and melancholic desire.

Lyra, Lyra, Lyra, Lyra.

Her name hums in sync with each downward stroke. Behind my shut eyes and furrowed brow, I can see her. Last year’s All Hallows Eve ball, dressed in that crimson ball gown that flattered every curve she owns. In my mind, she spins, twirling and twirling to my music while she is wrapped in the arms of a man in black, who cradles her fragile body. His black hood only allows me to see flashes of his ghastly skin.

He carries her, leading their dance with poise, and she follows, elegantly floating with every note. She is waltzing with death, a divinity so grateful that his sickly flesh can behold a human without causing harm.

Centuries of searching the world for the person who could withstand the fatality of his hand, only to find it in her. The girl the world has forgotten. But not him, the reaper of souls and killer of spirits.

She would never be forgotten by him.

I move faster, watching her steps quicken in my mind. Although the three families of instruments are not physically playing, I can still hear them supporting each other, following along with the sweeping gesture of the keys.

Producing the perfect danse macabre.

The whine of a violin and bellow of a trumpet, each one, brass and string alike, coming together to mourn. To feel pain and show what that sounds like for each of them.

Lyra, Lyra, Lyra, Lyra.