The Music Sheet From Last Spring

Sometimes, the best things that could ever happen to you are just passers-by, that’s why we should never take anything for granted. God knew it was too late when I learned it.

All my life, I have been molded up to become a perfectionist, or in my case, someone that plays the note perfectly. My life has already been decided as I move my fingers over the keyboard. It was a fated harmony, without excitement nor a tinge of spice, gradually coming to an end. Somehow, deep inside, I have been begging for someone to help me feel what it was like to be human.

I walked straight in these tragic halls, yet even when the windows were free, I still felt suffocated. The people around me started whispering, their gazes full of pity. I grabbed my coat around me tightly, as if it were protection enough from their sight, but it wasn’t enough. It had been a year, but my heart was still bloody fountain, my eyes were showing a monochrome.

Inhaling the scent of the fresh dandelions that were perched near the windows, I cooped myself up in the corner, for the first time in my life I didn’t hold my head up high. My head ached from the memories. Our smiles, our laughter, my short period of rebellion, all of it. I couldn’t just bear to part it. Somehow, I wanted to wake him up and shout at him for leaving me, for letting me learn how to love, for teaching me how to feel!

My coach put a hand on my shoulder and helped me up slowly. She guided a hand on my back as we walked towards the registration center. My moms words were slurred, like my vision was a blur. I tried to point out what was wrong, but then I heard the music. Somewhere, in the corner where the instruments lay, I could see the bow, untouched, yet it glided through the strings. The music bothered me. It was Liebesleid’s Love’s Sorrow, the music sheet from last spring.

Last spring was the annual classical music competition that my country held. It was usually held in spring as spring symbolizes a new start of the seasons, and as they say, “What better way to start the year than through music?”

I have been attending it every year for 5 years as an undefeated champion ready to take my claim on the throne once again. But the judges were the Fates when it comes to capriciousness and had made a little twist which was grouping a pianist and a violinist. The pairings have already been decided, and I was with a guy, more like a newbie to be exact. My mother, my coaches, and every single person involved in my music life tried to change the judges’ minds. Yet, somewhere deep inside me thought, it’s what I had been hoping for, someone to help me in my robotic state.

The first day of practice was not what I expected it to be. At all. He was a rebellious, arrogant, I-don’t-care-what-you-think-about-me kind of person that was exactly the opposite of who I am. I kind of relaxed a little when he said that he knew how to play our piece, Liebesleid Love’s Sorrow, but then, I shouldn’t have been expecting him to follow the tempo.

He played with such intensity as if he was saying, “Look at me, look at what I have become,” that I couldn’t help but be angered. For me, music isn’t the place where you ought to find yourself. Music is something that has to be perfect, perfect tempo, perfect keys, perfect execution, perfect everything! It was like shaming the ones who had invented the piece if you play it with the wrong emotions. I told him just that, but before I could finish my lecture, he suddenly collapsed.

The next days had me visiting him in his hospital room, always greeted with his smile I had and still have come to lov-- get used to. It was finally a week when he had been discharged, yet the doctor told us not to be involved in an activity where he would be pouring his heart out, which means music was off-limits. So, during those days, hiding my revolutionary attitude from my mother and coaches, I spent all of my time in school with him. He was indeed my classmate, but let’s just say I’ve been too busy back then to notice. The newbie made my heart race, my smile never fade, my perfectionism never control me, and my life change. As I predicted, he was the one the deity had sent to fulfill my wish. But never had I asked myself, “Until when?”

He was hospitalized again a few days before the competition started. I had wondered, “Why was he in a hospital so frequently? I’ve only been in the hospital once in my life, let alone twice a month.” I was somehow worried, and something inside me stirred as I realized that I was slowly starting to care. Thankfully though, he was released again just before our performance.

That day when the competition arrived, we were the second to the last. My hands were sweaty and my brain started panicking. It was cursing me at how I hadn’t even practiced, though I knew that I had memorized the piece by heart, and just spent all my free time with some newbie. A dilemma started to form my head, but he noticed it. And as quick as it appeared, it went away with his kiss in my forehead. I was just there, hugging him, until our number was called.

I played the piano, he played the violin, but I noticed there was something off about his playing. It wasn’t what he showed me back then in our first day. Somehow, as he glided his bow through the strings, it actually was the song itself, Love’s Sorrow. Somehow, he was telling me a message. And somehow, I finally knew. This piece, this moment that we had together, it was indeed what the song had whispered. Love’s Sorrow. Somehow, to both of us, it meant that one way, or another, he would be leaving me.

Somehow, I realized it too late. The bow and violin stopped, and the piano next.

But what was the weirdest? The music had kept on playing.

Even until now, as I stayed there in the center of the room, suffocated and chained, replaying the memories, that music had kept on playing. The last reminder of him being gone.