A Penny and a Song

It had been her first day at Baltimore University when she had laid eyes on the illuminating Professor and Musician, Harvey Sulloway.

Not even the shadows cast by the breadth of the music conservatory building could have eradicated his memory.

Just the thought of his voice had been something that always tempted the corners of her mind. Even during her failing marriage.

Even in the ten years she had been away.

There was something about the soft baritones that tiptoed out in soothing vibrations that managed to sew the memory of his voice deep within her mind.

His hair was a tuft of dark brown mess – neat, but there were usually a few pieces haphazardly trying to escape. His nose encompassed the saying, ‘as cute as a button’, and was juxtaposed by his incredibly square and stubbled jaw. He was tall enough that he sometimes felt like he towered over Amelia’s meek form.

He was the kind of man whose handsomeness snuck up on you.

It snuck up on Amelia anyway.

At first she hadn’t realised the connection that they shared. It was subtle. Surreptitious. It crawled across her skin, day by day until it eventually melded into her.

Until she was lost in his eyes.

Breathing him in.

Outside you could hear the light patter as water splashed against the footpath. The grand piano cushioned just by the window, as she listened to the rain.

It comforted her.

It always did.

Especially on days like this.

As she attempted to play her music for Harvey as he leaned casually against the side of the piano; emerald eyes sharp as they watched her fingers expertly.

And then…there it was.

That moment.

She didn’t understand what was happening.

She didn’t know she was wrapping him into everything that she was as she mindlessly let her hands play an unpractised melody.

Something that cracked the corner of his heart.

As she finished what she thought was a mindless stumble across notes, she looked up and was startled from her breath.

Her eyes became trapped in emerald depths – so completely raw she couldn’t bring herself to look away.

They shared a silence. Intricate. Personal.

Something incomprehensible floating between them and trapping them with electricity.

She wondered why it didn’t feel strange to stare into someone’s eyes for so long.

But it didn’t.

“Why don’t you play like that all the time? What were you thinking about?”

His voice echoed off the auditorium walls and settled in the hollow of her chest.

She tilted her head and brushed her auburn hair over her shoulder, “I didn’t think. I just felt.”

“You just felt?” He said softly, the tremors in his voice causing goose bumps on her skin.

She nodded, “I suppose I let go.”

From that day their encounters became more intense, yet nothing ever occurred. She had never felt a connection so deep.

It infuriated her that she couldn’t explore it.

Not that she never thought about just grabbing his face and kissing his full lips as his shoulder brushed her own when they sat by one another at the Piano.

Not that she never thought about how his breathing quickened if their hands ever brushed.

Not that she never thought about running to the bar that he frequently visited and professing all of her love for him.

She never did.

Somewhere along the way she had discovered he was seeing someone.

Had even run into them right after she graduated – she gulped back tears as one of the most beautiful women she had ever seen hung themselves off of Harvey’s arm.

She could feel something in his gaze reaching out toward her, even on her turned back as she fled with eyes brimming with tears.

Ten long years passed. Amelia finally returned to Baltimore and chose to visit one of her favourite bars – The Distillery – where she could fumble across piano keys to an audience that didn’t know her.

Under the glow of the stage lights, in a place with fading memories, Amelia methodically let her fingers start.

It was a melody that trickled down the high notes, feather-light and entrancing as her hands danced gracefully into the melody.

An old melody.

An ode to an old life.

She became taken with the composition.

Her body swayed with the rise and fall of the crescendo.

Her chest heaved as she felt the memories bleeding through her fingertips – as they rose above her and hummed into the quiet of the room.

To someone who knew her it was a heartache being etched into the keys.

When she finally finished, the room was silent.

Amelia looked up. Her chest trembling. Her hands shaking.

And then her eyes were caught in emerald depths.

Her mind became blank.

Harvey Sulloway.

His stare stretched into the darkest corners of her heartache as though it were trying to pull something from her.

She managed to step from the stage – while somehow thanking the audience for their applause – which almost fell deaf on her ears as she was caught in the trancelike fire that burned her skin.

She shakily approached the bar.

“Hello.” She said quietly. Apprehensive. It had been so long since she had seen him.

The scar above his right eyebrow.

The dimples in his cheeks.

And then he said her name, “Amelia,” a whisper of recognition, prickling her skin.

“It’s good to see you.”

It was so unsuspecting that she felt herself falling into the old rhythm that they had as she took a seat next to him on the bar stool, “You too.”

She looked down at her hands.

The heat from his stare making her squirm.

“Can I buy you a drink?” He asked, lightly.

Amelia smiled and nodded at him.

Her cheeks were flushed.

She hoped the hum of the bar would eradicate the sound of her heart pounding against her ribcage as it tried to escape her chest and leap toward him.

“Do you still drink Merlot?” He asked, waving the Bartender over, “Long Shadows, right?”

Her expression startled and she smiled at him, “That’s the one.”

The silence ate at her as the Bartender brought them each a glass.

“That song you played,” he started, staring into the red of his glass – his thoughts swelling with the liquid, “It sounded familiar.”

Amelia took a sip of her own wine, “Yeah, I played some of it once for you. A long time ago.”

He licked his lips and her eyes darted, distracted, as he took another sip.

She could feel the warmth of his shoulder as it brushed her own.

She let out a long breath.

“How have you been?” She asked, changing the subject.

The familiar flick of his lip quirked. He noticed her reluctance, “Well enough. Life’s been a bit boring.”

“Really?”

He shrugged, running a hand through the same haphazard tuft of hair on his head, “Well – a bit boring since my favourite drinking buddy, and musician moved away without even saying goodbye.”

And there it was.

The familiar stab of guilt in her gut that had gnawed at her with every email and phone call she ignored from him.

She stared down at her hands, unsure of what to say.

He nudged her shoulder playfully, “Don’t worry, I’m just glad you’re back.”

She half smiled, “I’m only here for a few more days…then back to London.”

She saw the disappointment in his eyes.

“So Casey tells me you were married.”

Amelia’s eyebrows shrugged, “If you could call it a marriage. I’m afraid that disaster only left me with myself to blame.”

She felt vulnerable as the words left her.

“Explain.”

She sighed.

“I guess I knew who I was marrying, but just didn’t want to believe it when I suspected he was cheating on me. And then he left me and I guess I was a mess.”

Harvey hummed into his wine glass.

Her melancholy melted over them.

“You don’t deserve anything that happened to you Amelia. What you do deserve is so much more.”

The intensity of his words caught her off guard.

Which he had constantly done.

Her eyes stung with tears.

“Thank you.”

“Do you want to go somewhere?”

She laughed, “For a walk?”

“For a walk.”

“Ok. Let’s go.”

The footpaths were powdered with snow and it crunched under their feet as they walked under the glow of late lights.

It was almost like it used to be. A calming walk between two old friends.

“You’re quiet.” He commented.

“I’m just thinking.”

Suddenly he ran forward and she saw him dig something shiny from the pavement before he turned to her in an excited huff, “A penny for your thoughts?”

Her laugh bounced off the tall buildings and passing cars, rumbling deep in her chest.

She walked toward him playfully bumping his shoulder.

“I-uh, suppose I was just thinking about what you said in the bar.”

They were both quiet for a moment.

“About you deserving more?”

She nodded.

The silence reflected off the quieting streets as their steps took them to a little park bench.

They slowed and Amelia took a seat, twiddling her thumbs as he sat next to her.

The bubble in her stomach was torture as she willed herself to say something.

Anything.

He uttered her name softly and it carried on the soft of the wind.

“Wait, let me talk,” she said. Hesitant.

And then it just came out.

“You were supposed to be more.”

He cleared his throat, ready to reply, but she didn’t let him.

“You were supposed to be the more, Harvey. And that song was familiar because it was the beginning of the first song I’d ever played for you from the heart. It was yours.

Completely and wholly.

Didn’t you know that I was in love with you?”

She watched the words escape her.

“Didn’t you know I felt the same way?”

Her bones shivered.

“W-What?”

He grabbed her hand and squeezed it and she felt the pull of his soul as it latched onto hers.

With watery eyes she stared into his, “Then why…in September before I left, why were you with another woman?”

His face crumbled.

“I broke up with Ella that night.”

Amelia stared with her mouth agape, her tears trickled down her cheeks, “Why?”

Harvey grabbed her other hand and ran his fingers over her thumbs, “Because I’d met someone who made me want to be more. You made me want to be the more that you deserve. I’ve never met someone who can speak through their music.

Or someone who completely and utterly understands what music does to me.

You are the woman that I can love in this life and the next.”

His hand cupped her cheek, “Can I kiss you?”

She grabbed his face with her own hands and brought his lips to hers.

The electricity wrapped around them and encompassed everything that she was as the smoothness of his lips brushed against her own.

She breathed him in.

His hands wrapped into her hair.

It was as though every second they had spent apart and every ache that she felt in her bones, was devoured by their kiss.

As their kiss fell into small pecks, Harvey smirked, “So, for our second date I think we should see a movie.”

She frowned, “Second date? So tonight was a date was it?”

“Of course. I bought you drinks, there was entertainment AND I even accompanied you on a midnight stroll. I think that’s a pretty romantic date, don’t you?”

She ran the pad of her thumb of the stubble of his jaw, attempting to memorise every inch of his skin.

“OK. So, why do you want to go to the movies for our second date?”

“Obviously, so I can make up for all of the time I lost, not kissing you.”

Amelia’s smile was brighter than the snow as it fell from the sky.

“A second date it is then.”