The Bucket List (A Niall Horan Fanfic)

Chapter 30: Desperation, Deliberation, Dresses

"I played," Uncle Sam sighed, pushing his face into his hands. I sat, staring at him in shock. I thought he had never played a note of music in his life. I thought he hated music. After his head resurrected from his hands, he gave me the first apologetic look from him that I had seen from me in my life. His eyes were tender. This was completely new to me. "I played alongside your father growing up and actually taught him the basics of playing. I applied for the music school that him and your mother met at, but didn't get in. I was crushed. So I went to university and became a doctor and vowed that I would never play another note. But when your father applied to the same school and got in, I was even more heart broken. I didn't speak to him for months. I thought he was living my dream. Then when you were born, I knew he was." I looked down at my twisted hands in guilt. I knew that Auntie Cara wanted to have kids more than anything, but could never get pregnant. "So I shut him out and I shut you out," Uncle Sam said painfully.

"I stopped playing too," I confessed, still looking down. There was a short silence. "When mom and dad died, I thought that I wouldn't be able to play another note again. The only reason I did was because of this tour," I said looking up at Niall. I saw compassion in his little smile of comfort. "But giving up because you failed is..." I trailed off.

"What weak people do," Uncle Sam finished my sentence.

"But I don't think that really matters. Music is well... it's music. But family is everything. You pushed him away not even realizing how little time you still had with him," I said as tears threatened in my eyes.

He looked down at his lap, "I know and wish I hadn't."  

But I didn't feel like that was good enough, "Do you know how it made me feel?" I blurted out. "I would always ask dad to invite you and Auntie Cara to come to my recitals and only Auntie Cara would come. I would ask if I could play for you at family reunions and you would say 'no.' I thought you hated me," I said, hearing my voice crack from trying to hold back the anger, sadness and disapproval.

"I'm sorry," He said, quietly, "I never wanted to make you feel like that." I had nothing left to say. I was done.

So we sat in silence until Niall piped up, "Well then you should hear her. She's incredible."

"That's a good idea," Auntie Bell said, nodding as she got up as if to announce that we were all to get up too and follow her to the basement. When we got down to the basement and walked over to my piano I smiled. The keys were painted all different colors because when I was five I decided I would rather color my piano in sharpie than play it. Soon after my dad got my  mom a grand piano which I was not allowed to touch. By the time I was twelve I got embarrassed of my scribbled piano and painted it. I only got to play the grand piano once when I wrote a song for mother's day. When the house was sold, so was the grand piano. I sat down and looked back at the three expecting people eyeing me. I felt the heaviness of their gaze. I squeezed my eyes shut as I let my hands rest on the keys, remembering the song that my parents had claimed as 'their song.' I never knew what it was called, but I would always hear my mom playing it on the piano and picked it up by ear. The soft notes painted a story of their friendship and their love and I think they do even more so now. I quickly forgot that there were people behind me and I smiled to myself. Playing the song made me feel like mom and dad weren't actually gone, but upstairs, cleaning the dishes and singing away like they always did. But when the notes ended and my trembling fingers left the keys, I remembered that they were gone and that they weren't actually upstairs listening to me play. I turned around and was shocked to see my uncle with tears falling down his cheeks. For the first time in a very long time I got up and wrapped my arms around his tall stiff body.

"Why did you ask me to come?" Niall asked as we walked down to the end of the street. We had told my aunt and uncle that the taxi had come when it really hadn't because I just wanted to get out. I wasn't sure how much more emotion I could handle.