36. flutter
“I don’t get it. There’s something wrong with the strings, they’re not sounding right.”
“It’s because you’re not pressing your fingers on the right fret.”
We sat on the hospital floor, attempting my best to follow Drew’s instruction on where I should place my fingers. It was difficult, harder than what I thought it would be. Just by memorizing the chords had gotten me a headache and a sudden block of memory. It actually impressed me how guitar players could remember every chord on the guitar. I mean, there were a whole chart filled with complicated chords that I couldn’t just do with my weak fingers, which were now trying its best to fulfil every criss-cross action.
I sighed in discomfort, awkwardly resting my arm on top of the guitar as Drew continued talking about which chords were which.
“And that is a C chord,” he lifted my finger with his uninjured hand and placed it on the frets, “Now you strum,” he ordered.
I tried to have a go. I hovered my hand over the strings and strummed back and forth while Drew was still pressing the tips of my fingers on to the strings so that my fingers wouldn’t let go.
“Was that in tune?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he responded.
“Are you sure?”
He let go of my fingers and allowed me to strum by my own, “See? You’re doing it.”
“Yes!” I squealed with excitement. My first chord on a guitar. Ever.
I continued strumming at the same chord over and over. I didn’t care if I wasn’t making any melody out of it. What’s important was that I could finally play an instrument.
“Abby?” Drew interrupted after seconds of playing the same tune with my off beat strum.
“Yeah?”
“That’s not the only chord you’ll be learning though,”
“I know, I know,”
“You’ll be learning a bunch more,”
“Seriously? All of them?”
He nodded and gave me a playful smirk.
It was long before I couldn’t handle the dreadful amount of mixed up chords he taught. At the end of our small ‘guitar lesson’, the tips of my fingers were numb.
“Next time I’ll teach you how to play power chords and how to read tabs and all sort of those things—“
“Drew, I’m still a novice.” I reminded him, in case he forgot that I still had no idea on what he was blabbering about.
“So? You’ll thank me later,”
“I hope so,” I handed the guitar to him and rolled my eyes. Just when I noticed that it was now past three in the afternoon. Time flew fast that I almost forgot that I needed to go back, since I didn’t even ask permission to go out of the house, “Shoot,”
The rain had started pouring again. The room dimmed as the grey skies appeared.
“What’s the matter?” Drew tilted his face to me, “Let me guess.. Curfew?”
YOU ARE READING
He Played Guitar
Teen FictionHe sings to me every night outside my window. I loved the way he strung that guitar, he was flawless. I felt like I was a princess. I swore, he was in love with me that very moment. But according to my strict father, I wasn't allowed to say yes...
