“Here.” He handed me a small bunch of grapes and sat across from me, grabbing my guitar.
“Thanks.”
I picked at the plump, round fruit, while David plucked the strings; the squared tips of his fingers finding the notes so effortlessly, as if he knew every one like his own flesh.
“Do you realise,” I said with my mouth full, “that I’ve never actually heard you play guitar?”
“Yes.” He smiled, keeping his head down, twisting the pegs atop the neck. After a strum and a nod of satisfaction, he started playing.
My eyes tried to close again as the sound touched my heart, but I forced myself to open them and watch the phenomenon that was David’s every note. In comparison to him, my musical ability was substandard, clumsy even. I hated that. “You make me feel like an amateur.”
“Well, I’ve been playing for a very long time.” His laughter sounded like a release of tension, and as I sat back, watching the midday sun beam across his neck, he stopped playing.
“What are you doing?”
He shuffled over and picked a grape off the bunch, then popped it in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully. “I wanna play you a song.”
“Okay.” I dumped the grapes back in the basket, readjusting my seat. “Do I know it?”
“You might. It’s by Muse.” He propped his left leg up, resting his forearm on his knee, and strummed the guitar. “It’s called Unintended.”
I picked through my music brain, but didn’t recognise the melody at all.
With each chord change, my mind began to wander, the wind-chime notes carrying me to another place—a dream-like world where emotions were displayed in melody. This one, with its harmony balancing on the edge of sadness, would be the song of a night sky that fell in love with the sun—forever forbidden to be together, watching over a world that would end if one didn’t exist.
David looked at me, and as he sung, the notes starting low and rolling up through the scale, his lips curved into that sexy smile. He tried to hold it back, but it crept onto his face anyway. And I closed my eyes, feeling a tight pull, like the blood in my brain suddenly gained ten pounds, filling my skull, David’s perfect voice surrounding my thoughts. He made me want to cry—to be a part of him, part of his voice—and though I couldn’t see anything but the golden light turning my eyelids red underneath, I could feel the colour of the lake around me; an image carved out in melody.
As the song came to an end, the last notes hovered in my subconscious for a moment. I wiped a fingertip under my eye.
“Ara? You’re crying.” Sudden warmth spread through my cheek, the bright red glow behind my eyelids becoming shadowed as David’s hot, sun-kissed fingers touched my face, pressing it against his heart.
“I’m sorry, David, it’s just that—” I pulled away and wiped my face with both hands, “—music is something that comes from a really deep place in me. I feel things so much, so completely, and that song?” I leaned back and looked into his emerald eyes. “It was so beautiful.”
“It reminds me of you—of us.”
“Why?”
“Don’t you see how much I’m in love with you?” He grabbed my face, his gaze penetrating my watery barrier, making my heart forget how to beat. “Don’t you get it? Forever doesn’t have to be a curse for me. Not anymore—not now that I have you.”
Motionless, breathless, with the only connection to the real world being the burning sun above, my mind fought for reason. “But we don’t get to live forever.”
“What if we did? What if you could have an eternity with me?” His thumbs pressed into my cheeks a little firmer. “Would you take it?”
I nodded. “If eternity were real—I’d give my soul to spend it with you.”
“Ara?” He squeezed my face. “Open your eyes. Look at me and say that.”
The sun brought momentary blindness with its bright glare as I looked at David. “I didn’t know they were closed.”
He studied me carefully, his brow tight in the middle.
“What did you want me to say?” I asked.
Nearby, bee’s buzzed with a gentle hum and a few birds chattered noisily in the treetops above us, and David’s round eyes stared, glassy and distant, his lips sitting parted—no words coming out.
“David?”
“Nothing.” He dropped his hands, shifting away from me, weighted like the dead.
A cool breath lifted my chest in a long, slow gasp, and a strange pull of energy—or maybe warmth—detached from the physical space between us, like hot ribbons had bound us, and now, snapped and tore away.
A spell had been broken.
The cold breath rushed out of my lungs too quickly, tightening my throat. I touched my fingertips to the racing pulse between my collarbones. “David? I feel dizzy.”
“It’s okay.” He rolled me onto his lap, brushing my hair from my face.
“What just happened? I feel so sick.” I snuggled my brow against his denim jeans, closing my eyes around the icy torrent of blood draining all the warmth from my cheeks.
“Come on.” David patted my back and lifted me to sit. “You need to eat. You get dizzy when you’re hungry.”
I forced a smile. “True.” But that was different, I was sure of it. That felt more like my soul had been connected to his for a split second. I felt so drawn to him, like I could’ve stayed there forever—died in his arms and have been grateful for that one, close moment. Now it was gone—that warmth, the breathtaking intensity of our bodies so close to each other—I wanted it back. I felt like it belonged to me.
David shuffled over and leaned his back against the rock while I swallowed every agonising bite of the food he handed me, forcing it down with orange juice because my mouth refused to make saliva. In fact, my body refused to do anything normal—including breathe properly.
“Did you feel that?” I looked up from under my lashes, pinching the edges of a sandwich. “Before—when we were close?”
“Feel what?”
“That…the energy?”
He shook his head once, pursing his lips. “Nope.”
“You big, fat liar!”
“I’m not lying.”
“Yes—” I got to my knees, “—you are.”
“Look, even if I knew what you were talking about, that does not mean I felt it.” He sighed heavily and threw his sandwich into the basket, then sat back against the rock, folding his arms.