Sweet Collateral

Anna’s lone form sits behind what was once my mother’s piano. Her fingers glide over the keys slowly, as though testing them. A solemn note becomes two and then three. She winds together a tune I’ve never heard before, and it’s so brutally sad, each note a painful stroke that weaves through the air like a growing cloud of despair. And yet, in each melancholy sound is a tortured beauty that is every inch, Anna. I watch her play until she suddenly stops.

It’s only when I hear the soft hitch of her breaths that I realize she’s crying. I feel like an intruder to her heartbreak, a silent witness to her pain. She was almost right when she said she was a lie. She’s just two halves of a very splintered whole. On the one hand she’s this strong, resilient, beautiful woman, and I am in awe of her. On the other, she’s so fucking broken, so dark and twisted and utterly ruined. And truthfully, it’s this raw, stripped version of her that calls to me on a visceral level. It’s the way she can pick herself up and morph from one to the other that makes me fall for her.

“Avecita,” I say quietly, stepping into the room. She quickly swipes at her tears, refusing to look at me.

“Rafael. I thought you were working.”

Sweeping her hair away from her neck, I place a small kiss below her ear. “I thought you were sleeping.”

“I was.”

I fall into a crouch beside her stool and she drops her chin to her chest, allowing golden hair to fall over her face. Reaching out, I tuck it behind her ear and swipe at a stray tear on her cheek.

“Don’t hide from me.”

“I just had a nightmare. I’m fine.” She’s not fine, but I’ll let her pretend for a little longer.

“You play well.”

“One of the many gifts, The Master gave me,” she says bitterly. “I should take joy in it, but when I play, it just…hurts.”

“So why play?”

“Sometimes, you do the things that hurt you, just to remind yourself that you can survive them.”

“So strong, little warrior.”

She stares at me for a beat, nothing but silence stretching between us until she finally breaks it. “Why do you try to fix me, Rafe?”

“Why do you think?”

A void of unspoken words lingers between us because I could tell her exactly why, but I won’t. “I don’t know. I can never work you out. I just know that I shouldn’t trust you, but I can’t help myself.”

“Before… you asked me if I wanted to own you.”

“I remember. And you said you wanted to love me.”

“Want…it implies a choice, doesn’t it?” She tilts her head to the side. “I’m not sure I’ve ever had any choice when it comes to you, avecita.” She should be nothing, and yet this broken little bird has become everything.

She reaches out, her expression sad as she strokes over the stubble of my jaw. “I’ll never be…what you need.”

“How do you know what I need?”

“You’re a man, Rafe. I’ll never…” she trails off, her hand falling away from me as she does.

I press my finger under her chin, forcing her to look at me. “Says the girl who watched me in the shower.”

“Rafe…”

“You’re wrong by the way. I’m not trying to fix you. To fix something implies that there is something wrong with it.” And she’s so perfect in her fragility.

“I wish that were true. One day you’ll lose patience and realize just how worthless I am.”

“Avecita, you’re the most priceless thing I’ve ever come across.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, and a single tear slips down her cheek. Her hands cup my face, and she closes the small distance between us, pressing her lips against mine. My little warrior kisses me like I’m the air she needs to breathe.

She’s wrong. I’m a patient man and for her, infinitely so. I saw the way she watched me in the shower, the heat in her eyes, the way her body subtly strained towards me. She’s never been allowed to be curious, never known pleasure, or the genuine feel of lusting after someone. I see the way her eyes sometimes linger on me before she snatches her gaze away. She wants to look, but she doesn’t want to invite anything. I feel the tentative need in her kiss, in the way she gravitates towards me.

I want every single part of her, but more than anything, I want her absolute unbreakable trust. It’s become a feral kind of craving, festering away at all rational thought. And I will have it. If I have to wait forever.

28

Anna

I can see myself sitting behind a piano, like a spectator to my own nightmare. The Master is standing over me. That twisted grin on his face as he watches me play. And across the room, is Rafael. He watches from the shadows, thick arms folded over his chest as he observes. The song The Master made me write for him drifts through the room, the notes full of my pain and sorrow.