Page 79 of What He Never Knew
Reese
The minute Sarah opened her mouth and sang the first line of Sampha’s song, every ounce of pent-up frustration I’d been carrying around with me all night melted away.
Her eyes were closed, body moving with her hands in a dramatic bend and flow as she poured her heart out at my piano. The strong, raspy voice that came from that girl nearly knocked me off my feet. It was the last thing I expected — the power, the strength — and yet once I heard her, I wondered how I could have ever imagined anything else.
How could I have ever assumed her voice would be soft, sweet, gentle and tentative when everything about her screamed the opposite?
Sarah was the embodiment of strength, of pain, of healing. And in that moment, in my dark little piano room, I watched the woman I’d always known was inside her all along bloom to life.
She emerged from the shadows like an angel, breaking through the shell of the girl who had imprisoned her. But unlike an angel, she didn’t glow softly or sing lightly — she roared, like a wildfire or a lioness, and she belted out the lyrics of Sampha’s song like she were the creator, herself.
Her fingers moved over that piano like I’d never seen before, her shoulders relaxed, face twisting up with emotion more and more as the song progressed. And when she sang the part of the piece I predicted would hit her hardest, when she sang of the time coming, of the loss of a loved one and how the piano held her close and never let her go, she broke.
Right there, at the same piano Charlie had once sat on top of while she listened to me play, the same piano I’d sat at as I mourned everyone who’d ever left me, and the same piano that had once sat inmymother’s home… Sarah Henderson broke.
Her eyes squeezed shut even tighter, bottom lip trembling as she tripped over the lyrics, the emotion too strong. Her fingers stalled, an unscripted pause somehow making the song even stronger as she succumbed to the tears fighting their way through her closed eyelids. I watched those tears stain her face, running over the same dried treadmarks I’d noticed when she was on my front porch, and my next breath burned with the need to hold her and wipe those tears away.
Just like I knew she would, she felt the song.
She felt it the same way I did.
And though she sang about no one knowing her like the piano, I knew now that it wasn’t true.
Iknew her, too.
And she knew me.
Sarah was still crying as she sang the last few words, and I was already moving toward her, abandoning my spot in the corner of the room. Her eyes blinked open when I took the seat on the bench next to her, and my hands found the keys alongside hers. We finished the song together, playing the end with tears still streaming down Sarah’s face, and when the last note floated between us, my hands hovered over the keys, but Sarah’s flew to her face.
She buried her pain inside those beautiful hands — the hands that had just brought to life the most emotional piece of music I’d ever heard in my home — and softly, quietly, she sobbed. Her small shoulders shook, and every piece of me broke along with her.
I wished I could save her, wished I could go back in time and take away every single shred of impurity that had ever touched her. I wished I could undo the pain, the hurt, and see her as she once was — whole, untouched, unscathed.
But then again, I knew it was her pain that made her so beautiful.
It was her strength, her unyielding drive, her unwillingness to ever give up or give in that I admired most.
And it was everything she’d been through that allowed her to play with the emotion she just did.
Still, I wished it didn’t have to be that way for her.
The silence stretched between us as I pulled my hands from the piano, my heart breaking for the woman crying next to me. And though I knew I shouldn’t, though I tried to fight against the urge, I couldn’t help but reach for her. It was like trying not to watch the stars that peppered a dark sky — absolutely impossible.
And when I surrendered the fight, when my arms surrounded her and pulled her into me, when Sarah sobbed even harder, burying her face in my chest and twisting her tiny fists in my dress shirt, I knew there was no other place in the world I would rather be.
For the longest time, I held her there against me, soothing her as best I could as she fell apart. It was like she was shedding her skin in the most painful way, fully embracing the raw, ragged being beneath the exterior that had been begging to be set free. Her pain was palpable, and it bled into me like ink on paper, spreading over me in a way that would permanently change me forever.
Eventually, her sobs grew softer, her grip on my shirt loosening as she sniffed, but still, I held her. And she held me.
Even though the room was completely silent, I still heard her voice. I could close my eyes and see her moving with the music, changing right before me like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon. And when her sobs had finally quieted altogether, her breathing steady once more, I pulled back, the tips of my fingers gently finding the smooth skin of her jaw. I lifted, reveling in the feel of her warmth against me as her eyes finally met mine.
“Sarah,” I breathed, searching her honey eyes as they glistened in the soft flicker of the candlelight. “What you just did, it was more than anything I ever could have expected. It was otherworldly,” I said, trying to explain, though words seemed to fail me in that moment. “It was more beautiful than I could ever say. And I know it hurt. I know it didn’t come easy.”
Her little face warped then, tears flooding her eyes again as she watched me.
“I’m so proud of you,” I whispered.
That broke the levy, the tears that had washed over her eyes breaking free and streaming down her cheeks. But before they could fall far, my rough hands were there, wiping them away, my eyes still searching hers for some kind of understanding as I tried to erase her pain.