Captivation

37: Redemption

Redemption (noun): the action of saving or being saved from sin, error, or evil.

It’s crowded and loud and I can hardly get through the crowd of people that are chatting around the entrance to the party. I push my way through them and into the ballroom, where most people are standing and talking. Few are dancing this early.

I search around for Henry, and I try to be discreet. I see him standing with a couple girls around him. Each wearing the same flirty smiles and flushed cheeks. Henry looks uninterested, but he nods to what they’re saying and feigns interest, but he’s not flirting back, and he doesn’t even look like he wants to.

I don’t know how to get his attention without embarrassing myself. Maybe I have to embarrass myself.

I really don’t want to go over and talk to him with all those girls surrounding him. I grab a glass of wine and wait to see if they’ll leave him alone at all, if I’ll have an opening to talk to him, or at least if he’ll look my way, and I can get his attention that way.

None of these things happen, and I wait for about a half an hour. I feel butterflies in my stomach, I’m nervous, but I need to do something. I need to prove myself. I need to be apologetic. I need to be ardent. I need Henry’s redemption.

It’s not until I see a piano in the corner of the room that I know what I should do. At least to accomplish my first goal of getting his attention. I set down my wine glass and I square my shoulders, walking over to my weapon of choice.

I sit down at the piano and play a melody that I know will catch Henry’s attention in the least.

“I’m holding on to the hope that one day this could be made right…” I sing, playing the melodies I remember. I was taught this song by a young girl who had yet to experience this kind of pain. “Everyone I’ve love seems like a stranger in the night…”

I go through half the song on my own and then I feel someone sit next to me on the piano bench, and then a new set of notes are being played, and I realize it’s the same melody, just a couple octaves lower. “Trouble has beset my ways and wicked winds have blown,” I sing, and I hear someone else’s voice meshing in with mine, and I turn my head, surprised that it’s Henry.

I wonder who taught him how to play, who taught him this song. I wonder who he was before me. I wonder how he knew that these two melodies would fit together and not sound cluttered.

“By the light of moon, I will press on,” We sing together and he never once looks at me. I try not to miss notes or lyrics, because now, suddenly I am nervous, because now I’m not singing alone, I’m with Henry.

“I want to hold him in, my arms.” I sing.

“I want to hold her in, my arms.” Henry sings the same time as I do, and our words contrast barely enough to be noticeable, but it’s then that he looks up at me.

“He would never know.” Henry says, he looks a little angry.

“She wants him to.” I say.

“I’m sure she does.” He says, “But maybe she should have shown it the countless time that he asked her to.”

Henry almost gets up, but I put my hand on his arm, nothing restricting, just pleading. He gets up, but he stands, looking at me, waiting.

“You are like fire in my blood.” I tell him, standing. “You scare me. I’m not good enough for you. I want you. And that scares me.”

“Prove it.” He says, and there is nothing daring in his tone, it’s almost pleading, and it breaks me to a million little pieces.

“I don’t know how.” I admit to him. “I don’t know what I can do to make you believe me.”