When the last chord fades out, Mike looks up, a nervous expression on his face.
“I love you too,” I tell him, no need to draw it out.
Mike blinks, disbelief flashing over his face for only a moment before he covers it up with the biggest smile I’ve ever seen. “Well, obviously.” He says. “Who wouldn’t love me? I’m extremely lovable.”
“Shut up.”
“I have great hair, I’m hot, I’m funny, I’m an incredible musician, which you just witnessed—”
“Yeah, yeah,” I say, cutting him off before this goes on forever. “My turn.”
“What?”
I hold my hand out for the guitar.
He narrows his eyes, but gives it over, and I settle it across my lap.
I haven’t touched a guitar in almost two years, but the muscle memory is still there, my fingers finding their position. I strum the open strings, the sound filling the room while Mike watches me, with a tilt to his head. “I used to play.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Mike says.
“Guitar. I used to play.”
“And you never mentioned that before now?” I look up, and he’s wearing an expression of complete betrayal. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I shrug. “It never came up.”
“It never—” He shakes his head in disbelief. “How long have you played?”
“Since I was ten. Nate got me my first guitar for Christmas.”
Mike is staring at me like I’ve told him I used to be a porn star, and it would be funny if the truth weren’t the most heartbreaking part of all of this.
I position my left hand.
The chord I’m reaching for is one of the first ones I ever learned. A simple C chord. I could play it in my sleep. And I know what’s going to happen. But the guitar is in my hands, and I still have this stupid hope inside of me that this is all some fucked up dream.
When I press down, the pain is instant.
I’ve learned to work around it, the pain in the cold, the pain when I hold something too tight, it’s barely noticeable most days, it’s not even my dominant hand.
But this.
This is what I lost. The particular pain that shoots from my fingers to my elbow when my fingers press down the strings is too much to push through.
Believe me, I’ve tried.
I lift off the strings with a wince and set the guitar to the side.
“Alex?”
“He broke my hand that night,” I tell him, like I’m not talking about the thing that destroyed me. “It’s fine, now. I can use it. But the way it healed… it still hurts to play.”
Mike stares at my hand, resting his chin in his own.
He doesn’t say anything, but I can see him working through it. What it means. What was taken. He understands better than anyone else how it would feel.
But he doesn’t say that.
