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He swallowed audibly, and lifted his left hand, closing and opening it.
“I can’t play anymore.”
Gayle shook her head. “I heard your recording for Amanda Tiegg.”
“Track after track of one note at a time, layered on top of each other. It takes forever, but when it’s done, you can’t tell they weren’t played together. I build the bass that way, then play the treble against it, and record the words last. You must have noticed I only play the right hand line when we rehearsed your songs.”
“Well, your left is usually occupied.” She blushed. “I Googled you, and nothing came up about a CD.”
“It was under Richard, not Rikard. The marketing gurus thought that would sell better. If I’d known it was going to be my only CD, I’d have insisted on my own name.”
“Oh.” Quickly, she changed the topic. “What’s the other mask for?”
“I had to wear it for two years after the accident, pressing against the skin of my face so that it wouldn’t grow back all knobby and gross.”
“Didn’t that hurt?”
“Compared to burning the skin off in the first place? No. Eventually, I found it comforting. The same with the gloves. It started as a pressure glove. When I no longer had to wear it, I found I wanted to wear a glove.”
He didn’t say it, but she could hear the unspoken end to that thought. He wanted to hide his scars, from the world, but more importantly, from himself.
She took a deep breath. “So that’s why you didn’t want to go out?”
He nodded. “I knew wearing that mask would be lying to you. And that’s the real reason I didn’t want you to go with me on my trip. I knew you’d notice it, confined to a car for eight hours. You almost spotted it on our first date, when the latex adhesive started to come loose.”
“Your lip wasn’t peeling.”
“No. The mask was separating. The hot coffee, the steam, or both loosened the adhesive on the lip.”
“Swear to me that that’s the only thing you’ve lied about.”
Rikard blinked. “What?”
“You lied about not being scarred. Did you lie about anything else?”
He frowned, thinking hard. “No. Just about that, or anything that touched on that, like not being able to play the piano anymore.”
“And since the secret came out, everything you’ve told me is one hundred percent true?”
“To the best of my knowledge, yes.”
Was this the secret he’d tried so many times to tell her after they made love? Or had it been this lie that kept him silent?
“Do you love me?”
He blinked again. “What?”
“It’s a simple question. Do you love me?”
“Yes.” He shrugged his shoulders and stared at his feet. “But I understand—”
“No, you don’t.”
“What?”
She smiled, and captured his hands in hers. Both hands, the one clutching the safety and security of his black leather mask, and the one revealed in all the scars of reality.
“If you don’t stop saying ‘What?’ I’m going to think that accident affected your hearing.”
