My Musical Flower

Chapter 6 - Ivan

As I see Alice, my first thought is to make her jealous, almost expecting her to break up with Jio and get back together with me.

Almost, just almost.

I stand up beside Harmony, and wrap my arm around her in an attempt to teach her how to play chords. Simple lessons for beginners is almost the smart choice.

Thankfully, Harmony didn't budge.

"Here," I tell her, my voice almost a whisper. "This is how you play the G chord." I take her hand and place her fingers on the correct strings.

"Like this?" she says, strumming down. Her fingers are long, giving her an advantage.

"Yeah, that's exactly how you play it." I say a bit too loud, in hopes that Alice hears what I'm saying.

"Okay! I'll try and play something." Harmony replies, and then she whispers, "She's definitely looking at you." She continues playing the G chord and some messed up sounds that she claims are chords she's learned in the past, and boy, everyone is looking at her. I hate to say it, but she sounds awful.

I begin to smile, and as she continues confidently strumming on my guitar, I can't help the laugh that erupts from me. A genuine laugh.

My god, she sounds terrible. Even though I just taught her, she's trying to play that exact same chord on the wrong string, wrong fret, and barely managing to strum all the strings.

"Hey! Are you laughing at my guitar skills? You're a horrible teacher." she exclaims, making no attempt at hiding her true emotions; a frown on her cute face.

No, she's not cute. Pretty—yeah, she's pretty. It's a thought anyone could have, nothing more.

"Sorry, sorry. I just never thought anyone as bad as you would apply for a guitarist role." I respond, "And not just any guitar role, but to replace me? There's a lot of room for improvement here, you definitely need a lot more of practice." I say, laughing at the deepening of the frown on her face.

Harmony lightly hits me. "Okay, fine. If you're so good, why don't you play me something?" she shoots back.

I take a look at my guitar.

I haven't practiced in a while, and I haven't actually played a song.

Harmony removes the guitar strap and puts it on me. "There you go! Okay, you claim you can play guitar better than me, so go ahead and prove it."

I look at the strings. Flashbacks of playing for Alice, writing songs to add on the album, and practicing with my band fill my head.

The band that used to be my family, that is now on the other side of the room, not bothering to even offer a greeting. Not even a glance.

"I'm sorry . . . I don't think I can do it, Harmony. It reminds me so much of her." I attempt to remove the guitar strap—until Harmony's warm hands grab my arm, stopping me.

"You can do it. I know how talented you are, this is why you are my favourite band, remember?" she encourages. "Just don't think about her, think about something else."

"Like?" I ask, raising a eyebrow.

"I don't know—think about me?"

We exchange a look, realizing what she said. I feel my ears flush red.

I clear my throat, and take a deep breath in.

'It's music,' I tell myself in my head. 'It's just music.'

I begin to play the same song Harmony was blasting in her flower shop yesterday, plucking the guitar strings and pressing my fingers on the frets to create different sounds.

Harmony hums along to the song, and I feel the eyes of other people stare. I take a deep breath again, forgetting about the outside and focusing on this song and this song only. She smiles at me, proud that I could play music again. She gives me a thumbs up, joyful at the live sound of her favourite song.

If I had tried to play this song yesterday, I wouldn't have been able to do it, absolutely not.

But today, it brings back the memories of what playing the guitar gave me. What playing in a band gave me.

I feel what I think is happiness.

And most importantly, the idea of making Alice jealous begins to slip from my mind.