Red Hair, Black Soul (Red & Black #1)

37 | Black and white

Complement #58

Said to: Mum

You look great in green.

***

I stare at the keys in front of me, grinning up at me like the Cheshire Cat. I've been sitting on the stool for the past fifteen or so minutes, just glaring at the keyboard. I haven't really been thinking - I just sat there, biting my lip and slouching. I'm not even sure I blinked. That's how occupied I was. 

Tentatively, I reach out and press one key. It vibrates in the silence, carrying an echo in the empty room. I haven't touched the ivory surface for nearly a year and yet, I still remember the names of the sounds. 

  G. F. D. E. F. C. G. A. B. D. 

I press the keys haphazardly, like a four-year-old child on its first piano lesson. I move slowly at first, letting one sound end before I bring to life another. I increase my tempo then, letting the sounds mix, creating new rhythms. The feeling is foreign, yet completely familiar all at once, filling my body with that hum of anticipation I haven't felt for so long. It's as if my soul itself felt restless and fought for freedom, needing to lose itself in that forgetful bliss. It's not the full rush that used to accommodate me every time I touched the keys in my previous life, but it's a nice feeling all the same. One I haven't experienced in so long. One I haven't even realized how much I missed.

Everett once asked me how I manage not to tangle my fingers and hit the right keys. He finds it impossible to remember which note belongs to what key, or where one octave ends and the other begins. Another thing that my brother can't comprehend is how I can possibly play one tune with one hand and a different one with the other. The notes are Chinese to him, and the two staffs containing two melody lines confuse him more than algebra confuses me. And even though I've tried, I can't find a way of explaining it to him. It seems too... natural. Expounding playing would be like describing the process of breathing. Breathe in. Breathe out. Peace out. Lay your fingers on the keys. Take a deep breath. Close your eyes. Let your hands move. Empty your head.

Before you know it, your fingers are flying over the keyboard, voicing the thoughts you never knew existed within you and expressing your very core to those who are willing to listen. 

Your fingers, they radiate talent, Jed had said that day at his house. You should do it more often if you miss it...

I do miss it. God, how much I miss it. 

I lower the tone by an octave. I haven't realized... 

My hands move to the right side of the keyboard, hitting higher sounds. I haven't even known... 

I use the very pads of my fingers to plant featherlight kisses on the black and white keys, bringing the sound into a soft piano. I never experienced the yearning as strongly as I do now that I feel the smooth surface of the ivory keys under my fingers, feel my foot moving up and down with the motion of the pedal, feel the vibration of the strings hidden underneath the wooden lid. 

My hair falls into my eyes, having fallen loose from the messy knot I've tied it into and tickling my nose and face. I do not care as I apply more pressure, forcing a loud forte out of the instrument. Truth be told, it is a little out of tune, which can be heard now, when I hit the keys more forcefully. I keep playing regardless, afraid that if I stop now, I'll never look at the piano again. Completely gone now, I go on with my own, personal tune, not connected with any of the dozens of note sheets I have stuck in my head, but one that is a premiere, something that was never played before, a melody that belongs solely to me, expressing who I am, who I was always meant to be -