I love you too.

“And this is it” – He whispered to her in such a lovely way, slowly taking his hands off the

 piano keys. “My heart was overflowing in a way words were not enough to put it out.” – He was speaking

while looking directly in her eyes going straightly to her core. He was being so careful with his words as if he was afraid to hurt her if he said it the wrong way.  He took a long breath and steered his hand towards her face in order to wipe her watered eyes. He let it linger there for a moment to feel the warmth of her flesh rubbing off on him. That exchange of smiles was a non-spoken promise they made that they would never, ever leave one another.  Suddenly the two bodies were held together – but they were two only in a physical matter, for an unique soul was occupying that room.

They were just happy. They finally felt complete. They felt grateful for being blessed with that feeling during all those years now, and inside their hearts, they didn’t have a need to show the world that they were one – they knew it. They could make that embrace last forever. The love they inhaled was enough to keep the two of them alive - or so they thought.

Suddenly, they smelled fire.

One year went by. During that year, she never left the house. 365 days in which the gray ashes all over the house were all her soulless eyes could reach for, and a growing hole that was swallowing her up inside was all her weeping heart could feel. The sunlight had become her great enemy, not ever touching her skin during that long period. When she laid her hands over her body embracing herself with hopes that, somehow, it might cease the pain, bones were all she could touch. That burnt, destroyed place where she had to go through each day of her so called life was nothing as it was once before. All the pictures of them were gone, all the flowers -the beautiful flowers they kept together, every single thing just melted away. The only thing that somehow made it’s way surviving was that old, black piano. It’s queer appearance led anyone to believe there’s never been a single deadly flame running through that place – but she was too wasted to give any thought about it.

She was miserable. But there was only one thing, one single thing that kept her going, for it was the only way she could make believe it wasn’t real, that it had never happened. It was the only way she had to see his angelic face again – her dreams were the only thing that that fire could not torch, so in her sleep she would be hypnotized by his figure, admiring every feature of his face, silently, forever. In her subconscious her eyes would slowly trace every inch of his person, tenderly but in such a focused way, as if each second was not enough. Her heart would overflow back all the love he once poured into her heart, a love that had not died, in fact, a love that had only grown so much it was too much for her weary soul to bear.  A love that was seeking a safe place to attain - when there was none.  Every night she would cry herself to sleep and those healing dreams seemed to be each time further from her, mostly when she closed her eyes, violent blood-red flames were all she could see.  While awake, there was only one recurring thing that her mind would keep asking her own self:

 “How come I wasn’t the one to go?”

That question kept on haunting her and she knew there was no way out of it. She was, each day more, losing every track of the few motivation she had had to keep on living that year. 

However, exactly one year after that hateful day, on the very anniversary of her love’s hurtful demise, something happened. She was scattered on the floor, staring at the empty wall when suddenly the deafening silence of that room – that had been her only company during that period of time – was broken. It wasn’t much clear at first but still, in a way, it was simply astonishing. Any sane person would agree it was utterly a delirium of hers, but, along with that young soul’s beloved one, that fire had burnt away every ounce of sanity that she once had. She effortfully forced herself to stand up and let her body follow that sound. She wound up standing at the entrance of the piano room and stopped for a while. She put her hands over her heart. Was that her mind trying to play a trick on her? She would not manage to bear it. She had no strength left. She took a few steps forwards, and stopped a few inches away from the piano. The music  started playing louder, so louder that it penetrated her being until she was completely swallowed up by it. Suddenly, she felt something she had not felt for over a year: A flame burning deep inside of her heart. But not that dreadful flame that chased her love away forevermore, but a flame that could somehow bring him back to her. She recognized that sound.  She had heard it exactly a year before. She was not surprised when she realized there were still many tears left in her to be shed. Then, with that beautiful, purifying, passionate music consuming her soul, she fell to the cold ground and got numb. She could not feel her body. She could not feel the cool ground pressed against her. But she could feel him.

She knew it was him. The eternity of his music seemed to slowly drag her back into him. His music could not die, it could not cease entering her heart every time, nothing could take it away from her, no, not that. Every single note that was being cried out of that old, dusty, black piano was the way he had found to remind her of that silent promise they made, the way he found to make her feel the love, that incessant, eternal love that could not be expressed by words. He had done it before. She knew he could do it again. She let that melody heal every nerve that hurt, rejoin every single seam of which her heart was filled with. She was transported to a heaven that she could not see with her eyes, only hear with her soul and feel with her heart. After 12 months of darkness, she had found light.

All of a sudden she felt strong again. She got up and set on the piano bench. Then, unexpectedly she saw her arms moving without her will. Slowly her two hands were placed onto the piano’s keyboard. At the same time she heard that mournful minor chord being played, she saw each of her fingers touching each note of that chord. The song stopped all at once. She took a long breath and closed her eyes.    

She felt a warmth in her hand, a well known, cozy warmth of flesh touching hers.

She woke up the other day lying on the floor again, she had fainted, but she had not forgotten about it. Now she had something to make her want to wake up every day. Everyday she knew he would be there, waiting for her, as he promised. She knew he had not really gone away with half of her heart, as once she thought he had done – it only took him a little longer than she thought. Her insanity had become the only thing keeping her alive. A reason to keep on breathing sprung from her own pain. Now, religiously every night she would anxiously make her way to the piano room and wait until that sound would take her over again, and each day give birth to a strong, keen desire to be alive.  Everyday she would sit on half of the piano bench, close her eyes and let that music consume her soul to the point she would forget where she was, how she got there or why she was there, but could only feel that the person that was her meaning of the word “love” was there beside her, sitting right next to her, on that same piano bench. Love could be nothing else than that. Love is too sacred to be seen only as a word, a mere word does not fit it’s meaning, it’s way beyond that. He fits. He IS love. And then, she would allow that rampant bliss flow inside her body.  She was drowned in love again. And after each time of each day that the song ended, she would whisper with a a smile in her face and a burning flame in her heart, so low that even she could barely hear it : “I love you too.”

 Beatriz Nobre