A Song Just For You (GirlxGirl)

9- Are We Dating?

It was Monday, the start of another school week and the first week of November. Another boring day at school, as I walked down the hall to my class I passed by the music room. It was empty- and it felt like the piano was staring right at me when I peeked my head in. I walked up and sat down on the bench that was in front of the piano and started thinking about the first time Nani spoke to me, it was in this room. I was sitting where I was right now when she walked in on me playing the piano. Now, here I am. I starting playing a song that my grandpa taught me back in Russia the summer going into middle school. When I first learned the song, I never liked playing it. It was upbeat and fast and when I was younger I used to not be able to keep up with my grandpa as he played beside me. My fingers would always freeze up when it came to playing fast songs on the piano. But I felt a sense of calmness take over me when I sat down today, in front of the piano. I started playing this song, it reminded me of the summer's I spent in Moscow with my grandparents. I didn't have much friends back in Russia, but there was this one boy who lived in the same building as my grandparents, on the floor below us. Both his parents were from Russia, I remember all the trouble we used to get in together. Every summer, we would run around the city day and at night, sneaking into the bars after stealing his parents cigarettes. But the last summer I went to Russia, was the summer before my first year of high school. I was excited to see him again, but when I asked to see him- he told me he didn't want to see nor talk to me. I had a boring summer that year. I ended up seeing him at a club during the end of summer, I was so excited that I ran up to him and hugged him without even thinking. He pushed me off, then a girl walked up to him and asked if everything was okay. He put his arm around her waist and kissed her, while staring at me. He didn't want to see me because he had a girlfriend. I didn't understand what I did wrong, we never thought of each other as anything more than friends- at least I didn't think of him that way. But later did I find out that he had feelings for me all these years, but I never returned those feelings. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. Looking back, I was blind- when we held hands, when we cuddled together while watching movies, when he picked flowers for me on our picnics. I was blind to think nothing about it. Every other girl liked him; he was athletic, rich, smart, handsome, kind, and nice. But that feeling of love for him- I never felt. I never have felt that way for anyone. I truly thought it was just a friendship, but a boy and a girl can never be friends that way. I learned that the hard way. After that night, I decided to go back to Japan earlier than I usually would. Russia wasn't the same without him being there with me, it felt empty and I felt alone. I felt my heart break, even though it wasn't in a romantic way. That night it felt like he told me with his eyes what he was thinking- that he had someone new, someone better. I was that replaceable, I was replaceable enough to the point where he didn't even care to tell me himself. From what I can remember, I knew him since I was a little kid, before we both even started school. To this day, I still don't understand why we couldn't be friends or why he left me in the dark. I felt abandoned as he walked away with that girl, I watched him disappear into the crowd of people- that was the last time I saw him.

    That's what I was thinking about while playing this song, a song that is suppose to express happiness then towards the middle it expresses anger: as the tempo begins to speed up, the lower the notes on the piano get, the anger the feeling of the song becomes. The only way I could play this song, was by thinking about this. After that night at the club, I went back to my grandparents house and played the same song I am playing now. That night was the first time I hit every key perfectly. I remember after playing looking up the stairs of the house to see my grandpa staring at me as I sat on the piano bench, I couldn't help but cry. Now I don't feel all the sadness and anger as I used to, but I had perfected playing the song after that night back in Moscow.

    After school I took the subway to work, it was a cool day- almost seemed as if it might ran later on. I walked into the shop, no one was there.

    "Hello?"