They devour everything around them.
While the term black hole might be more accurate, it doesn’t evoke the same cosmic beauty as a star frozen in the depths of space, suspended, eternally waiting.
Torrid heat licks through me as my middle finger wanders over the teeth of the piano, my gaze absently trailing the inked designs across the back of my hand. The compulsive need to press the same note with my right hand pulses against my skull. That agonizing desire for symmetry is a demon at war with my will.
Just one of the reasons I haven’t attempted to play in all these years. You can’t perform a musical piece when you’re fixated on pressing keys to feel a rightness versus creating music. It destroys the ability to compose.
Before the wreck, music was a passion.
After, the desire to even touch a piano withered into decay.
When passion is lost, the very spark of our soul that animates us becomes a destructive force. We become these frozen stars, suspended, waiting—fearing the pain from any change.
While this piano is merely a decorative addition for the university, for me, it’s an infuriating reminder of that loss every time Iwalk past the atrium, speared through with a searing rod of resentment.
But tonight, in an effort to expel her torturous melody from my head, I forced my fingers to the keys. I invited the pain. Like a darkening celestial body, she’s a star on the brink of collapse. Vibrating at her own frequency, resonating a tune that demands to be captured, composed.
If I could just purge the melancholic notes I hear every time I look into her beautiful, arresting eyes, then maybe her song won’t haunt me once she’s gone.
When observing an event, the observer cannot interfere. In our universe, it’s an unbreakable rule.
Nothing I do will alter the outcome.
Instead, as the warm piano note fades, I flip my wrist over and check my astronomical watch, gauging the alignment markers. The sun and moon dials inch closer—a countdown to the solar eclipse.
Once the sun goes dark, so will I.
I glance at my reflection mirrored in the dark pane of glass, my twin staring back. It’s a distorted, disturbing symmetry—the core paradox of my research.
Light and dark. Matter and antimatter. Life and its opposite, coupled in cosmic duality.
At the shadowed boundary of every black hole lies a place where past is preserved, memories trapped beyond the horizon of loss. Echoes detectable at the brink of annihilation, in the final pulse of a fading heartbeat.
My fingers splay wide across the keys, and I hammer down a D minor chord. The dark notes crash through the room with jarring intensity, my resistance splintering against sweet smiles and sultry looks.
Shaken, I pull my hand away and rub the dust between the pads of my fingers, feeling the particles tangle with mine. My vessels constrict, pulse spiking in alarm. The compulsive urge to wash the grime away is surpassed only by the prickling sensation at the back of my neck.
I sense the change in the air, feel the abrasive rustle of fibers against my skin as cold sweat stings my scalp. That’s why, even before I hear a sound echo from the observatory, I know someone has invaded my space.
My finger gently depresses the piano key. A stark note rings out, reverberating against the glass, before a sharpclinkfollows in response.
Pushing to my feet, I send the bench scraping across the sandstone in warning. As I slip on my gloves, I stride from the atrium, my steps deliberate.
The corridor grows darker the farther I head toward the observatory, and I catch the familiar scent of vanilla in the air. I breathe in deeply, a smile twisting my mouth as hunger burns low in my stomach.
Like a hunter trailing its prey, I follow, my senses sharpening as I pick up on the clack of heels, the movement whispering through the shadows.
It’s been one hundred and fifty-six hours since I last laid eyes on her. One hundred and fifty-six hours of torturous restraint, denying myself even the smallest taste. No lingering gazes on courtyard benches. No heated exchanges in darkened hallways. No stolen glances across lecture halls.
The sight of her now crashes into me with the devastating force of a high-speed particle collision. The impact almost hurts, this energy that can’t be contained, its only course is to crack my rib cage.
Restraint shattered, I have her backed against the stone wall, my gloved hand covering her mouth to stifle a scream.
Her startled cry is hot against my palm, the enticing, throaty sound of it traveling right to my groin. Unable to deny myself the sinfulfeel of her curves, I press my thighs flush with hers to trap her in place, and my cock defiantly twitches.
Her wide eyes stare up at me, and before she can push against my chest, I have her wrist captured and pinned to the wall above her head. She curls her other hand beside her thigh, somehow having the capacity to keep from touching me.
I don’t have the same capacity when it comes to her. The fact that I’m stripped of control around her drives a pulse of fury through my veins.
