Page 49 of Serenade Me

“It’s all because of you, Marius. All you. You and the meditation techniques you taught me to do before going on stage. They made all the difference.”

“You would’ve figured it out eventually, I just helped you get there a little faster.”

“No. Listen.” Hey eyes fix on mine and they are glistening but not sad. She looks content. Wondrous. “You don’t… you don’t know what this means. This… problem that I’ve had, it’s crippled me. I thought… I thought I was never going to be able to perform again. I didn’t want to numb myself with sedatives every time I performed. With them I don’t feel anything. I can’t make music that way! What’s the point? So, I told myself, yesterday, if this meditation wasn’t going to work, I was going to give it up. Forever. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

“Aw, Anca, no. Never ever give up! Especially after only trying it once. Your gift is so extraordinary. There’s always another way.”

She turns back to the window and traces a tiny crack with her finger. “You gave me that way, Marius. I don’t know how to thank you.”

There’s no reply to that. I didn’t do it for the thanks. We stare at the canola fields whizzing by, blurring into a bright yellow haze.

“No wonder you were so nervous when we started,” I say after a minute, understanding more now, what was at stake for her.

“You saw that?”

I don’t want to embarrass her, so I just squeeze her hand and she grips it tighter.

“Of course you did, you see everything. You see me.”

“Just what you’re willing to show me, Anca.”

She leans against me and her cheek is against mine. “I want to show you everything.”

Her words fill with me hope and fear all at once.

Because I want to see everything she has to give me. I want to see the world through her eyes, and her through the world’s.

But it’s not for me to see. Not in this lifetime. Not for the life I’ve chosen, and the friends I’ve chosen to be in it.

Not now, not ever.

I take a long, deep breath, her vanilla scent intoxicating me.

Extracting my hand from hers, I pull away and it hurts, physically. Tearing at a strand that binds us, woven when I wasn’t watching

“I’m sorry. I… I told you, I… can’t,” I stammer. The words struggling to form. I look at her one more time. The wondrous look on her face crumbles, one sparkle at a time. The tableau of the girl in the window has changed. And now I’m on the outside looking in.