What comes out is completely out of my head, something bluesy, and something that never repeats. I play for maybe a full minute, and somewhere along the way, my mouth curves into a smile, and I don’t realize until I open my eyes; Owen is looking back at me. I stop abruptly, my smile collapsing fast.
“What?” I ask, embarrassed, feeling foolish, feeling as though I betrayed myself somehow too, giving in to my protest.
“You’re something else, you know that?” he says, his eyes bright, his smile full, and his hand never breaking its soothing touch. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” I say, pulling my hands back into my lap, closing them into fists. “I made it up.”
“Wow,” he says, and when I look at him, he’s still smiling.
“Stop it; you’re embarrassing me,” I say, a small giggle slipping out. I tuck my face into his shoulder.
“All I know is you…you loved that,” he says. I look long and hard at the keys, my mouth a faint smile, afraid to give in to Owen’s temptation, afraid to admit that I did love it, that I still love music, that I still have this connection to my father.
“Stop thinking it’s for him,” Owen says, reading my mind. My eyes snap to his. “It never was—your gift? It was never for him. So don’t go giving it away to him now. He doesn’t deserve it.”
I lay my head back along his chest, and just breathe. Owen holds me, and we sit still in the silence of the enormous room for almost an hour, my hands never crossing over onto the piano again. I let my eyes take it in, though, mentally playing every sound in my head—my sounds, the songs that were always for me.
Owen is right.
“I never gave you your present,” he says finally, snapping me back to the present, bringing me out of the dream I was so happily falling into while resting in his arms. “You think we can make it upstairs?” he asks, nodding up, toward my mother’s door, the one that comes before my bedroom.
“You go up first, I’ll turn off the lights and lock up,” I say, not able to fully look him in the eye. The thought of having Owen in my room, alone with me, has my body feeling alive and warm and electric. I’m also nervous and scared—of being caught, yes, but also of being that alone with Owen.
We’ve never been so alone.
I watch nervously as he glides up the stairs, pulling his shoes off halfway, so he can slip quietly past my mom’s room. I wait a few extra seconds, making sure he’s in my room, then I lock the back door, walking the length of the house from the back to the front, flipping every light switch off along the way.
I check the front door, bolt it and glance at the clock on the wall. It’s already well past midnight, and my mother never once came downstairs. I’m pretty sure she’s fallen asleep. She trusts me. And I’m about to take advantage of that—a tinge of guilt squeezing at me from the inside, a tinge that I bury and ignore and replace with anxiety over all the what ifs that come along with being alone with Owen.
Holding my breath, I pause at my mom’s door, listening for the familiar sounds—the buzz of her humidifier, the dull sound of the low television, the constant stream of infomercials that I know she isn’t watching. All signs point to her being asleep, to the risk being minimal, so I continue on into my room. I close the door and turn the light out quickly, surprising Owen.
“Okay, so I know I’m ugly, but really? You have to keep me in the dark, too?” he jokes.
“You’re not ugly,” I say, reaching to the end of my bed and throwing a pillow at him where he sits. He clutches it in his arms and sets it next to him, on the floor—the space where I usually sit to watch him through the window. I notice his gaze pauses at that window, his smile quirking up. For some reason having him here, knowing I watch him from this room, embarrasses me, so I quickly turn my attention away from that space.
His back rests against the headboard of my bed, his feet stretched out in front of him, the small bag with his gift in his lap. When he pats the space next to him, I swallow loudly, kick off my shoes, and crawl next to him, folding my legs up in front of me. My fidgeting hands and feet create a small barrier between us, a barrier Owen is quick to crash down when he lets his hand graze along the inside of my leg, stopping at my knee.
“Present time?” I ask, my voice a whisper. I’m sure if I speak any louder my mom will crash through the door. I’m not sure what she would do if she caught Owen here. She’s not the type to get angry over things like this, and I think a small part of her would be glad to see me do something so typical and teenager. But I also know she wouldn’t trust me anymore. And that would make me sad.