I listened to the notes he
played, soaking in their simple intricacy. The possibilities for singing these
lyrics were numerous. “Because you know I love you,” I began singing, slowly, guessing
this would be more of a ballad. “Though you have chosen someone—wait a minute. What?”
Johnathan stopped playing
again. “What?”
“Irial knows she loves him but
he’s with someone else? How does that work?”
He nodded; “Irial is at his
equivalent to a bachelor party, at a tavern, when he meets Collette, who is
also out with friends. They notice each other immediately, but try diverting
their friends to other people—unsuccessfully, I might add. So they end up
dancing together, and quickly fall in love.”
“That’s so cliché.”
“But still plausible. Especially
in literature. So, anyway, here, they’re walking home and he accidently lets
slip that there’s someone else, named Delilah, who he’ll marry the next day.”
“So Collette is pissed?”
“Not quite. She’s angry at
first, but she doesn’t stay angry long because she does love him,” Johnathan
continued. “At this point, she’s more hurt than angry, but you’ll see when
she’s angry again, especially when we put the dialogue with the lyrics.”
“Okay.”
“Ready to begin again?”
“I’ll try.”
After a few measures, I began,
the notes emitting from my lips different from the ones I had first sung;
“Because you know I love you, though you have chosen someone else; and it
tortures me to think you would abandon her for myself….”
I sang through the next verse
and chorus, and when I’d come to the end of my lines, Johnathan said, “Here you
and Irial converse more, and when you tell him to leave, he replies in his own
section.” He then sang Irial’s part. It was more playful than Collette’s. His
voice entranced me, though. There was depth to it that brought the words to
life, as though he could spin the song into moving tapestries. I stared at him
before long, only pulled back to the rehearsal when he said, “Then you insist
on his inanity while he tries to blame you partially for this late development.
At this point, you’re infuriated at the accusation, but still hurt and troubled
because he won’t listen to you.”
With this brief explanation, I
broke into the new section, a little faster, a little more distressed,
volleying the lines with him. Toward the end I found myself staring at him,
again. I hadn’t meant to, but that’s how luck would have it. There was something
that drew me to him and terrified me. My brain screamed that he was dangerous, that
this scenario had already played out tragically before. But Johnathan had helped
reawaken in me this need to sing, and that felt like reuniting with an old
friend. I didn’t want to lose it again.
“...don’t kiss me,” I finished,
his blue-green eyes flying to mine as the final note died away. Something in
those eyes wanted to reach out, touch me, but there was a wariness. Almost as
though he believed I might be an illusion of the light.
“Gorgeous,” he whispered, his
eyes still holding mine.
For the longest time neither of
us said anything. We just sat there staring. My former numbness was overrun
with emotions I couldn’t name and thoughts that flitted away as soon as I
realized they were there. It felt like we could have stayed like that forever,
statues of something that never happened and never could be. But then he moved
to touch me and I snatched up my keys, running out the door before he could
make a sound.
I felt guilty, leaving him so
suddenly. But I didn’t need a relationship, even if I was possibly going to
break my no performing rule. My mind kept thinking that if I hadn’t left, he
would have kissed me.
If he had, I feared history
would have repeated itself.
