Sound

Feeling, Hearing, Hoping

A rainy day might not have been the best day to give the woman you love flowers, but hey, I'm an idiot, so that's absolutely what I did.
When she opened the door to her house, I gave her the biggest smile I could.
She studied me up and down then she said "Aren't I supposed to be the one getting wet?"
Euphemism, I love it.
"Can I come in or should I just you know-?" I gestured at the rainy pathway.
She rolled her eyes. "You're here, why not?"
Her dad was doing the dishes when I arrived, he turned his head towards me and gave me a disapproving look.
"Isn't my daughter supposed to be the one getting wet?" He told me.
"Right?" Ali said in approval.
"Nice to see you to Mr. Petricino." I said, trying not to smirk
He grinned, "You're thinking my name sounds like cappuccino don't you?"
I shook my head, smiling, as Ali lead me upstairs.

A thing about Ali. She's rich. Like, crazy rich, so when I entered her room it felt like entering an airplane hangar. Stuff was everywhere, bean bag chairs, whole bookshelves full of encyclopedias and scattered rich kid stuff like Laptops and the occasional diamond earring.
I let out a slow whistle.
"So, mind learning the piano today, or are you just gonna lie in envy?" She asked me.
I smirked.
I sat on the nearby piano. (Costs more than everything I ever owned)
Another thing about Ali, she loves music. It's her life, and so does her father.
Her dad taught her every instrument he knew since she can barely walk. Good parenting.
Her mother used to play her the most beautiful songs before she died of ovarian cancer. Ali was never the same since.
I asked her to teach me the piano so she could keep her mind of it.
though I already knew how to play the piano, I put on a show just to keep her busy.
I tapped on a key.
I can tell Ali was already pissed when she flinched like she stuck a fork in an electric outlet.
"Uh, wrong note." she said, I can tell I was stretching her patience.
I tapped another key. Again, she flinched.
"This is gonna be a long night." She says, rubbing her temples.

5 hours passed, and the dark of night already settled.
Dinner was a cheap pizza from the nearest parlor, with the worst delivery service. The usual.
Her dad ordered me to change-
"And no fooling around, once the clothes are on, make sure they stay on." He warned.
I  changed to my sleeping attire, fortunately, her dad was kind enough to let me sleep for the night.
I watched her brush her teeth in the bathroom, vigorously scrubbing at her teeth.
I sat on the piano again and played the song she taught me.
I heard her clapping through the open door of the bathroom.
When she finally came out, she immediately collapsed on the bed.
And so I followed her example.
"So, are you okay?" I asked her.
She looked at me with utmost curiosity. "What do you mean, why wouldn't I be?"
"Well, since your mother died a month ago you seem more, I don't know, calm."
She stared at the ceiling smiling. "Well dad is here. He got me through, he played the songs mom used to sing to me, it helps."
She held my hand and pulled me closer.
"I don't know where I would be without you and dad. Teaching you the piano gives me purpose, and dad gives me hope, I don't know where I would be without that."
She pulled me dangerously closer.
"uh, my clothes are supposed to stay on, you're dad made sure I do that." I told her.
She winked "We'll find another way."
I gulped, but thankfully, she rested in my head and started snoring.

I woke up at the middle of the night to Ali shaking me awake.
"You heard that?" she asked me.
"What?" I asked
"That noise, screaming, crying, did you hear it?" she asked me through gritted teeth.
"No, I'm asleep." I replied
"Not anymore, now listen."
I kept silent, but no sound came further.
"You're dreaming." I told her.
she slapped me on the shoulder. "Idiot, I heard it clear as day-"
"On a Type 4 hurricane-"
Another slap.
"I'm gonna check on dad. He's always paranoid about robbers and crap."
She walked off, leaving me alone in the bed.
With nothing better to do, I walk towards the piano, then I stopped.
I listened. What I heard changed my life forever.
The sounds I never wanted to hear
The sound of screaming-
Arguing-
Crashing-
Breaking-
Pleading-
Desperate screaming-
I started to run upstairs when the final sound came.
The sound of gunshot.

The sun rose high as the coffin slid lower on the ground. Ali was nowhere to be seen.
Her father's funeral and she wasn't  even there to witness it.
Aside from the atmosphere of deadly silence the day was perfectly normal.
I couldn't believe her father died to a gunshot.
It would've been fine had it not been caused by his own hand.
He never told us what he felt, he wrote it all down.
In his journal, he wrote-
"These past few days have been hard. Work didn't feel the same anymore. My friends are silent. I missed the warmth of Claire. Our love gave us a beautiful daughter, but without her, it was for nothing. I gave all I could to Ali, but the music we play isn't the same as Claire. The sound was different, and so was my love. I can't live without Claire, she was all I had, but Ali can live without me, I'll leave her everything I own. She may not forgive me now, maybe not even ever, but this pain, this longing, it must stop. Claire I'm sorry."

Ali turned her back on me, on her friends, on the people that believe in her, she had turned her back on the world.

A month after the death of her father, I knocked on her doorstep, soaked in rain, holding a flower by my hand.
When she opened the door, I couldn't help seeing the lines in her arm.
Though she did it to herself, I'm the one getting hurt.
"Hey, mind teaching me a song?" I asked her.
"Give it up Leo, you're not going to help me forget this one. I saw him splatter his brains all over the family picture, that's something that stays."
She sighed. "The pain always stays."
I entered her house through the small gap of open door she left.
I started making tea as she entered her room.
Once I served the tea, I started for the piano.
"Hey, mind picking up that cello, I need a good beat." I told her.
I could tell she wanted to object, but she picked up her cello as I played a slow melody.
She stroked. It scratched, like fingers on a blackboard.
She stroked again, and still, scratch.
She threw the bow of her cello at my direction, missing my back by three feet.
"Damn it, I can't play music like this! Why are you even here?! Leave me alone, I don't want to lose anybody else." she screamed.
I kept on playing.
"Damn you Leo, listen to me! Just leave me alone please-"
She put her palms on her face and sobbed.
The sound of a breaking soul on a dying body.
"Leave me alone." she said softly through her covered face.
I kept playing.
I played and played, and played.
Then I heard footsteps behind me.
Then I heard the most beautiful sound I ever heard. A note of beauty.
She stroked on her cello, tears falling on her face, but she gracefully slid the bow through the strings, with pain, with sadness, with hatred, with passion.
I played the piano, as I increased the tempo and speed, so did she, the house filled with the sound of two souls making music.
When we finally stopped she told me something.
"Mom and dad used to teach me like this. They just played and played and I scratched every note, every single tempo. But through patience they taught me to adjust, to learn, to persevere. The sound of music takes so long to master, and even longer to fade. That's what they told me."
She looked at me through a pained smile.
"Maybe that's how love is too huh? The pain of loving, and losing that love, it never fades. It stays forever. But like songs, you can always play it again, not the same as the first time, but you can."
I took to her side and hugged her as tight as I could.
Somewhere out there, there is a man, looking up at us.
Yearning to hear what he used to make, the songs he played for his daughter.
The sound of music.
The sound of Hope.

Author's Note

Not really good, but I just felt in my heart to make a story. Please leave a review, good and bad appreciated (especially the bad ones, help me improve!)

Reviews

[Mr.Writer]

Great job on your story! It was great! I just have a couple of things to add on and give feedback to :)

1. Try mixing in different words to your story (add new vocab words) for example:
ex) She looked at me through a pained smiled)
it can be changed to "She 'peered" at me through a weak smile or a mustered smile.

2. The characters were really well described!! But maybe instead of telling that a character sobbed or got furious, you can use traits to describe their actions ex.) She stroked on her cello, tears falling from her face.
That can be changed to." She stroked on her cello, her lips trembling as if she were to let out a sob."

I really liked this piece! It was quite different and delicate! :)
Great job