Play my heart

Chapter I

 Unrequited love is one hell of a drug.

To everyone's surprise, that ends up not being the point of the story.

You could say it started like this.

He's seventeen and also, inadvertently, an asshole. It takes another asshole to chew him and his friends out for twenty minutes, looking down at them like no one's ever dared to, for him to realize this bit of information. His accuser is also seventeen, clad in the uniform they ignore because they are apparently above dressing like everyone else, and he looks ready to start a fire.

Beethoven's Pathetique plays in the back of his head as his best friend throws his fist back in a hook. He sees what comes next before it even happens (the punch is followed by two or three more until the poor idiot can't get up from the ground, and then they move on with their day), and barely stops himself from glancing away. It turns out to be for the better when he gets the surprise of the week: the "poor idiot" stops the hook mid-air, twists the offending hand and pushes its owner a few steps away.

As the four of them stare in disbelief that someone won't accept to be walked all over, the accuser yells at them some more. The sonata dies in his mind, replaced by the student's sharp words. For the next few days, no matter what piece he tries to get stuck in his head, all he can hear are the boy's accusations.

You could also say it started like this.

He's eight and his hands shake after winning his third piano competition. He has a violin one next month and, on the way home, his father doesn't stop gushing about where they'll have dinner after he wins that one, too.

The flames consume the car and burn themselves into his mind, no matter how hard he shuts his eyes. His hands shake even worse and, for what feels like centuries, he's sure he's the only person left in the world and there's no one to hear him cry. He's proven wrong when someone runs towards him, yelling nonsense, and then there's an ambulance, and then there's nothing.

He practices for the violin competition without listening to the music, and on the last day decides he's not going.

He's eight and he stops competing after his parents' death.

But, if we're talking about unrequited love, one could say it started with this.

He's sixteen and the cold water nips at his ankles, his toes buried in the sand. She's standing next to him, warm and comfortable like he hasn't felt in such a long time, and all the tears he can't shed are coming out of her eyes.

His first love is getting married to a successful man, something he feels he will never be. It's silly, anyway, he's known for years that they're not meant for each other, that he just looked up to her because she was the only one there, and still.

And still they're at the beach in the middle of the night and his best friend's girlfriend treats him like he's a wounded puppy. He lets her, for a bit; lets himself be treated softly, like he's deserving of love.

He has his first kiss there, with both of them trembling in the cold, both of them teary eyed and confused and a bit lost. Tchaikovsky's Pas de deux plays in his head; her lips are warm, she smells of sea foam.

The piece stops abruptly, cut off by quick steps on the sand towards them. He draws back and sees what's coming before it does.

He's sixteen and it's the first time his best friend hits him like this, though it might not be the last. As the taste of blood rushes to his mouth, he thinks of Tchaikovsky adding actual cannons to his pieces, and then falls to the ground.