Love Is Symphony |✓

e p i l o g u e | pt 3

Cassidy hastily pulled out her phone and slid it across the table towards me. She nodded her head, easily filling in the space left by my stretched silence with a tumble of her words. "This is a video of him taken last week at a fundraising event after his public breakup with Miranda. Please, just try and watch it. I'm not asking you to forgive him that easily but can you please at least try?"

I looked down at the sleek phone and back up at her. Was she serious? She was really asking me to do this?

"Please," she added when I remained quiet. She looked like she was about to cry and it unnerved me how easy it was for her to ask this of me when she knew she had no right at all.

Letting out a breath, I swiped the phone off the wooden table and tapped onto the screen. The video was paused and then I saw you—suspended in time with eyes closed and hands wrapped around a mic stand, surrounded by hundreds upon hundreds of nameless people with gazes glued to your face. I swallowed and played the video.

"—missing you. I do." 

My steady heart jumped as if electrocuted and my ears were reminded of the sweet timbre of your voice. I tried to fight it, tried to keep it to myself, but the suppressed emotions had to escape. And so, a lone tear fell along with a take of a breath. Shit, I missed you.

My grip on the phone tightened as you finished the last verse of the song, ending it with a low hum. The clouds have become darker and small dots of rain were beginning to fall down. The crowd started to pull out their umbrellas, their bodies secured under the bright colors of nylon over their heads. But even as the rain started to evolve from a light patter to a more resistant set of drops that were almost obscuring the camera lens, a smile still broke on your face.

You looked up with squinted eyes as you stretched up your hand to the sky, letting droplets of rain coat your body. Slowly, they traveled the length of your arm; tracing the intricate tattoo etched to you skin. Another tear fell down my cheek.

L' amour est une symphonie

Love is a symphony. It was there, the letters that would forever mark your skin, a message that would haunt me for the rest of my life until I fade into smoke and ashes in the wind. Love is a symphony, Sean, it truly was, but I've forgotten that symphonies weren't just made up of soft, muted melodies. They were as wide and as unpredictable as the oceans. Calm at once, but filled with chaos the next. With highs and lows and crazy beats, yet it still remained to be a song, a melody, a symphony that tickled every bone in me; an orchestra of whispered promises of love that held screams of the unspoken pain. That was I learned when I was with you, what I believed in those selfish days I kept on choosing you. But then, I grew up and realized that love was so much more than chaotic acoustics or melodious notes. Love was so much more than a symphony.

"Is everyone okay back there?" Your voice sounded fainter this time, but I could still perfectly hear the curl of your syllables bouncing through the speakers. The crowd responded with a loud cheer and you laughed. "Okay. So even though it's raining like hell right now and I'm all soaked, I hope I'll still be able to sing this next song. Are you guys ready?"

Another set of cheers erupted, quickly followed by your chuckles. "Okay, okay." You cleared you throat and pulled the mic closer to your lips. The video shook a little until it zoomed closer to your face. Damn it, Sean, there you were again. With your bluish-gray eyes and damped hair. I was suddenly pulled back into time when I first saw you.

It was also raining back then, Sean and you almost ruined the sparkly floors. But rather than be frustrated, I concocted flowery metaphors upon metaphors and similes upon similes to describe your beauty. Angelic in a devilish kind of way. How apt. I wanted to laugh at myself. But it was true, you had wings that made you fly, but instead of calm winds you soared through hurricanes and made me believe that that was alright.