Domine Corda (Falling Hearts)

I Let It Fall, My Heart

I wake up in a cold sweat; my hair sticks to my face. My labored breathing fills the thick silence. I can hear the blooding pounding in my ears. My fists grip the duvet around me, my knuckles white. It's just a dream, it's just a dream. I repeat the mantra over and over again in my head until  my composure returns. As I get up to wash my face the room starts to spin around me and my body goes numb. I sit on the side of the bed until everything goes back to normal. I walk to the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. My eyes shift to the mirror in front of me and I don't recognize the girl staring back at me.

"Who are you?" I say, not even recognizing my own voice, but the stranger mouths it back simultaneously. "Who am I?" I rephrase.

My phone vibrates on the night stand next to my bed. Who can be texting me at, I look at my clock, 2:35 in the morning? I switch it on and it reads:

Luke: Hey babe, you up? Can't sleep :(

I respond saying:

Yeah, im wide awake. I don't think i'll be getting anymore sleep.

I hit the send button and wait for Luke to reply.

Outside the rain hits the window in a steady beat.

"I let it fall, my heart,

And as it fell you rose to claim it

It was dark and I was over

Until you kissed my lips and you saved me"

Adele's raspy voice pours from the car stereo, each note sending a chill down my spine. Adele's voice will do that to you. Or maybe its just that I hate driving in bad weather. My hands grip the steering wheel tightly, the skin on my knuckles is white. Outside the road ahead becomes harder and harder to differentiate from  the thick blur of woods that borders it on both sides. Rain hits the windshield like rapid gunfire.

"My hands, they're strong

But my knees were far too weak,

To stand in your arms

Without falling to your feet"

 I can almost imagine my mother's face as she scolds me for driving in the rain. "Driving in a rainstorm is just asking for trouble." In the background, I imagine my father chuckling from his armchair by the fireplace,  pretending the whole time that he had been innocently reading his sports column. "Especially with that hunk of rust you call a car." Just the thought of my parents causes some of the tension to ease out of my shoulders.

"But there's a side to you

That I never knew, never knew.

All the things you'd say

They were never true, never true,

And the games you play

You would always win, always win."

I take a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. I roll my shoulders and shift on the leather seat. Relax, I chide myself. I breath in again. In and out. My grip on the steering wheel seems to tighten, somethings the mind simply can't control. Outside the storm picks up speed. I hate the rain, it brings up to many unhappy feelings, memories.  Not only is it raining but I know from the gnawing feeling at the pit of my stomach that I'm lost. That fact alone is enough to keep me on edge. At fifteen miles an hour I feel almost as if I am going at a snail's pace. I'm moving too slow in a direction I can't even identify. In the back ground Adele belts out her heartbreaking notes.

"But I set fire to the rain,

Watched it pour as I touched your face,

Well, it burned while I cried

'Cause I heard it screaming out your name, your name!"

Her voice isn't filled with agony and despair for a love lost, but with triumph for a love won, a love for one's self.

"When I lay with you

I could stay there

Close my eyes

Feel you here forever

You and me together

Nothing gets better"

The lyrics cause my eyes to sting and tears threaten to flow. In an instant Zane's pale face clouds my vision. I don't have time to decipher whether it's imaginary or not. My senses take over, the sound of screeching tires, the smell of burning rubber. Time seems to stop and stand still. Suddenly I'm no longer in the drivers seat but out of my body all together.