Ivory Fingerprints

I ran a fingertip across the dusty windowsill – small specks fluttered into the air and glistened in the sunlight. It had been a long time since anyone had stepped into my Grandmother’s house.

I had been completely grateful for my inheritance, though.

There would never be a day where I wouldn’t be grateful for my inheritance.

She was a beautiful young woman – a looker, if you will – back in her day.

I had always been a little obsessed with the story of how her and my grandfather reunited after years of being apart.

His smirking face at her door holding a bunch of Freesia’s as he uttered the words, “I never stopped loving you.”

It warmed my heart.

But I had always wondered about the man she had vaguely spoken of, but once showed me a letter that he had written her.

I still remember the line, “No other mortal could ever know our love,” and how the words gripped me when I read them.

That hadn’t been grandpa.

The grandpa where her wholesome loved lived for years.

No.

It was someone else.

Something else.

It wasn’t until I was sifting through old photo albums, reminiscing about my childhood in her home that I came across a little black book.

I frowned.

I had never seen it before.

It seemed surreptitious as it sat gracefully in the corner of the album box daring my fingers to touch the cover.

I opened it.

I gently flicked through brittle pages that looked as though they had been read thousands of times – the creases and smudges evident of someone memorising every detail, every curve of a letter.

My heart ached as I began to read the first few lines.

It read:

Your eyes were the first thing that seeped into my skin.

I was frozen – trapped in cerulean depths – not sure if I could ever look away.

You didn’t seem to notice my hesitation as I searched my mind for my name.

You didn’t seem to notice how long we had stared at one another – the seconds so intricate I could hear my lungs expand and deflate.

My heart thud against my chest.

She had never told me much about the mystery man...only that he had broken her heart so well that at times even the light that grandpa gave her dwindled.

I adjusted and leaned back against the wall, then with a sigh I took in every line.

When I finally said it…you smiled and repeated it back to me, a whisper of air, as though you were savouring it.

That was when I became entranced in everything that was you.

Unknowingly.

Unwillingly.

Just a witness to my own demise.

I tried to deny the feelings that pulled at my gut. Tried to crush it with thoughts that it could never be.

That we could never be.

That you could never love me.

But I was always reminded of your love – of the intensity that burned within the blue hues of your eyes.

Of the flames that became wholly consuming.

The first time I truly felt your smile, feather-light like gentle sunbeams hovering over the cusp of my skin, I had just walked off stage.

I had played a melody that was just for you. My heart had left my fingertips as your song poured out.

I never told you that that song was for you.

I hoped you knew.

The moments after were only short, but the moments felt as though we stood for an eternity, our bodies just vessels as every other part of our existence intertwined in the air of the room.

Everyone was congratulating me on my performance.

But I didn’t hear them.

I was trapped.

Your smile, so completely consuming was holding me and everything I was.

Your stare consumed me.

The intensity was almost unbearable, but I could never look away.

That night, my own smile could have eradicated all of the darkness in the world.

Our minds were melded and I could feel your praise – feel your worship of my beauty in your eyes, in the soft whisper of your words – so loud over the lull of conversation around us.

The crease that etched your brow.

Your crooked smile.

The mirth that graced your lips…all became one as we fell through the cracks.

The second time I ever felt your love I was trembling with vulnerability.

My skin was itching to run as we walked into the auditorium.

I knew I was about to expose my heart to you.

This song was different.

This song was completely yours.

We sat down – you in a chair next to me – as my hands floated above the keys.

I had told you this melody only reminded me of you.

But to my untrained fingers, it was all you.

Completely and wholly for you.

I remember fumbling across the keys and wanting to retreat but forcing my hands to keep playing.

Because you needed to hear.

I had just finished the last few notes – their sound still humming in the hollow of the room.

Still tracing your memory.

I turned to you so unsure.

But in an instant my doubts faded into the afternoon light as I looked at your raised brow and parted lips.

You whispered ‘beautiful’ to me.

I felt the words.

They slivered inside of me and wrapped around my still heart.

You told me that we understood each other. That somehow I knew the way that music had embedded itself into your soul.

I understood.

And then you asked me to play it again, enamoured with the flick of the keys as I cascaded down the notes – letting you hear what I had created.

I prayed that you felt the words I could never say.

Our final moments, where I finally understood my love completely but hated it all the same, came in an empty room as the sky sputtered its sadness across green fields.

I remember staring out the window in lament of our last moment together, searching my mind for any words to tell you what you meant to me.

But the moment was brief, as we stood in the silence of the room and I stared at your words as they hung above us and felt them echo inside of me.

I couldn’t help but repeat them.

Over and over.

Stuck within the confines of the memory.

“I don’t love you.”

It didn’t matter how many times I relived the good.

You were always there, in those final moments, where my heart lay in the soft of your fingertips and the warmth of your smile, where you stopped time to contemplate your answer.

But still.

You said.

You don’t love me.

A stray tear trickled down my pale cheek as I read the last few lines.

There were thousands of pages dedicated to her memories, but these pages were by far the most read.

The most painful.

The most beautiful.

I put the book down and stared up at the roof – searching for her.

My heart mourned the love that she had lost.

My fingers tightened around the book – I would keep it – though it was like peering into the most personal parts of her mind, it made me feel closer to her.

It made me feel like I wasn’t so alone and that she was still right there with me.