Long enough for the waiter to swing by, drop off the check, and flash us one of those polite smiles that seemed to say, “Time’s up, lovebirds.”
I stayed put.
Didn’t stir.
Just soaked in the moment, letting it breathe, letting her breathe. Her gaze remained fixed on the skyline, fingers dancing over the condensation on her glass. There was something flickering in her eyes, something delicate.
Then, at last, she spoke.
“There was a piano,” she said, her voice barely rising above the gentle hum of traffic and distant melodies. “In my father’s study.”
I stayed quiet, just listening.
“I was six when he brought it home. Had it shipped all the way from Italy or something wild like that. It was this… enormous, black grand piano. It barely fit in the room. But he didn’t mind.”
She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. It was more like a memory she was unsure how to handle.
“He said it would ‘build discipline.’ Claimed it would help train my hands. Precision. Dexterity.”
A pause.
“I wanted to learn something fun, you know? Like movie scores or Disney songs. But he handed me a list of classical composers and insisted that emotions were a distraction.
Her gaze dropped to her hands.
“They bled. My fingers. From playing too long and too hard. He made me push through it. Said pain was a sign of progress.”
My heart sank a little.
“I hated that piano for years,” she whispered. “Until one night, he was away on some mission, and I crept downstairs. Played something I wasn’t supposed to. Just… my own thing. I improvised. Made it up as I went along. No metronome. No rules.”
She looked up at me, her eyes drifting far away.
“It was the first time I felt like I was me. Not his. Not the programs. Just… me.”
A soft sigh escaped her lips.
“I never played it again after that.”
We sat in a hush.
I sensed her retreating again, as if she feared she had shared too much. But I leaned in, elbows resting on the table, heart wide open.
“Thank you for sharing that,” I said softly. “I know it wasn’t easy.”
She took a moment before responding.
“I don’t know why I did.”
I offered a gentle smile.
“Maybe because part of you knows I’m not going anywhere.”
She regarded me for a long moment.
Not as if she were testing me. More like she was trying to memorize me. Like she was pondering whether this version of herself—the tender one, the honest one—was allowed to exist alongside someone like me.
“Do you ever think about playing again?” I asked.
