piano lessons • lrh

two ⇹ vanilla

•*.•*.• || II
• vanilla

Their second lesson was the worst, mostly on Aaliyah's side anyway. His abrupt, reserved manner rubbing her off the wrong way. Aaliyah's long shift the night before already had her in a gloomy mindset so when his mannerism was solely blunt she prayed their lesson would end quickly. At a point she thought it was her who seemed cold, thought she should've asked him something about himself, asked about his day or what he planned, general conversation but nothing about his demeanor seemed inviting enough to make conversation. He was brusque: corrected her when she was wrong; nodded when pleased; wrote notes when he had criticism and suddenly all her anticipation for this precise Sunday morning felt completely useless.

'You seem tense,' he interrupted a minute into her performance. She looked up at him with dull eyes, before trying again this time playing in a slower and softer glissando. He shook his head, walked to her with a frown. 'Relax your hands.' He gently took her hands, pressed her soft palms to his left hand whilst carefully massaging her joints with his right, she melts as his hands lightly work to remove all its tensions. 'You seem a little distracted. Something bothering you?'

'No,' she lied, and he could tell she was fibbing with just one look into her eyes. What was bothering me? She asked herself, unsettled by the fact she couldn't possibly answer that question all because it sounded pathetic in her head. Get a grip of yourself, she thought, he doesn't owe you a conversation, or owe you any of the futile fantasies pestering your reveries. All he truly owed her was what he was getting paid for—an hour long lesson of teaching her how to perfect her piano skills—that was all.

'Are you sure about that?' be raised his eyebrow while she nodded turning to hide her scarlet face, her fingers began to feel clammy and hot underneath his intimidating gaze. 'Sorry sir, I need to use the rest room.' She pulled her hand back, stood up hastily before walking away.

'You don't need to call me sir,' he weakly replied just before she disappeared to the hallway, yet she still heard a line of frustrated curse words.

Returned once she had washed her hands, got rid of all evidence highlighting how much he made her stomach flutter with nerves, splashed her face with cold water to lift its warm temperature, mentally snapped out of that overly sensitive teenage ethos. An apologetic smile once she took her seat in front of the keyboard again. She played again, took a deep breath and let her fingers work at its own natural pace. At times her eyes would leave her music sheet for a second, flicker to Luke who seemed to look as though he had something on his chest. He'd part his mouth to speak, before shutting it all together and shifting his vision to the window.

At their end of the hour Aaliyah thanked him, picked up her sheets and walked out the door crashing into her mother as she did so. 'How did it go?' She asked, curious at her progress.

'All well,' she said, off to the kitchen to get herself a glass of cold water. She could hear their conversation from the kitchen, nothing important or anything that she cared for right up until her mother proposed him with an invitation that almost made her spit back out her water. 'Join us for lunch?' she had said. 'We're having it outside, a couple neighbours could join us with this beautiful weather.'

'Ah, sounds lovely however I don't want to intrude.'

'Of course not, we'd love to have you join us. Please, I insist.'

'Well, if you insist, I suppose it'd be rude of me to not accept.'

'We won't start up for another couple hours, allows you time do as you please, so what're we thinking—one sounds good?'