A World Alone

Chapter 11: You oughta now

Matt doesn't really need an introduction when he gets on stage. The audience already knows he'll be there, so the least they can do is to scream. They yell, shout, and wave their arms high, as if for some reason that could be enough to reach him. I can see the looks on their faces, their smiles, even their tears, as I can hear their screams. There shouldn't be more than, I don't know, fifty people here, but they're all here for him and that's a beautiful thing to experience.

I love music. My mom used to shoot videoclips and she's shot for incredibly famous bands, and people, and she's friends with some so I basically grew up surrounded by music, immersed in it. She took me to piano lessons when we moved to Argentina, and I learned for five years there, and for another two here in LA. I also play the guitar and I took four years of singing lessons, and even if it embarrasses me a great deal, I can even do that. Yet, every time I've experience music, I've done it from the other side, the side that's looking at the stage, at the artists, waiting for them, screaming for them, crying for them. I've done that over and over again, and I'd do it a million other times, too.

And yet now, as Matt's about to get on the stage and begin to play the songs he hasn't played in years... now I get to be on the other side of the stage, and I get to stare at all of them, their eyes wide opened and their arms waving in the air.

I'm just here to play the piano, I gotta admit. It's not as if I'm important, it's just that Matt offered me to do it for a song and I accepted. I practiced for two days before doing this, and it's not like I had forgotten it, it's just that I really needed to get back on track. And besides, I wanted it to work out as good as I could. It's not everyday that you've got this famous musician-friend who asks you to play the piano in his come-back gig, you know?

It isn't a come-back gig, honestly. It's not as if Matt's coming back, and it's not as if he's making music again... but he's jumping on the stage for the first time in years, so I guess that deserves to be celebrated, at least somehow.

I meet the people from the band, his other band, afterwards. They're cool people, lovely people. Matt seems happier than ever when he's around them, and I can't help but to wonder if I've ever seen him happier than that —the answer is, of course, no.

Since his performance wasn't scheduled for too late that afternoon and, since he won't stay longer than that, he drives me home. He came for lunch the past week, by the way, and everyone here behaved almost like normal, which was a first. My dad asked him a million questions about his life, the type of questions that don't deserve digging too much in the past, but feel like personal questions anyway, and Matt seemed relieved to answer some of them, and a bit more protective other the answers of the others. The twins played with him for a while, behaving actually good, tried to braid his hair and even painted his nails —you know, how kids do. Jane behaved almost normal as well, and even made a dessert, which is something she never really does. So now Matt's basically invited to come back to my house every time he wants, which I admit, is a bit strange, but it's also really good.

That night, after he plays and drives me home, I can't even make it to the shower before my phone rings, and the first thing I think of is that I've forgotten something inside Matt's car. A jacket, perhaps? My charger? Purse? And yet, when I pick up, I find out it's not Matt at all.

"Yes?"

"Tay, how are you!?"

It's Lily, on the other side of the line. It's past eight here, so there it must be... I don't know, but really late. Dawn, almost? She never calls, by the way, she used to, but she stopped doing so ages ago.