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“Here. Put your fingers here.”
It’s strange to let her take his hand, move it how she wants it. It’s vaguely uncomfortable. Touching her – touching her in all kinds of ways, all of them innocent and frankly a little curious – hasn’t been all that weird for a while, but when she takes the initiative and touches him, that’s when he freezes up. Just a bit. He’s still not sure why that is, but he doesn’t like it.
It’s been weeks and this should be easier by now.
But he lets her take his hand and place his fingers on the keys. That too feels strange – not just her touch but the piano under his fingertips. He realizes then that he’s never touched a musical instrument in his life – or he can’t remember doing so. Music is her thing. Always has been. Before her there were jukeboxes in shitty bars and Merle blasting bad rock on radios but never…
Never like this.
She plays in the evenings, because there’s really nothing else to do, but he doesn’t want to do anything else. He just likes to listen to her. Listen to her play whatever, stuff he doesn’t recognize, stuff he never heard before; he knows some Tom Waits, just a little, but there’s other stuff which is completely unfamiliar, and after a while it occurred to him that maybe some of it was hers. Maybe she was writing her own songs. Secretly. Inside herself. Bringing them out and showing them to him without telling him what he’s hearing. And then it occurs to him that maybe she’s actually nervous about it, and he has no idea what to do with that possibility, except that he’s the one who’s supposed to be nervous. Not this girl, whose bravery stunned him very gradually as it revealed itself to him, who – he looks back and sees – has been sad and furious and even despairing but never truly afraid of anything at all.
But she could be afraid of this.
Whatever this is.
He lets her put his fingers where she wants them and then he looks over at her, sees her arranging herself the same way, and she looks at him and there’s a little smile tugging at her mouth which in turn reaches into him and tugs something else.
“Okay, here.” She lays her free hand over his and presses down, presses down again, guiding him into a slow, easy rhythm. “Just keep goin’ like that.”
He does.
Her hands start to move on her half of the piano. Slow at first, slow as him, but then a little quicker, sliding into something sweet and the tiniest bit sad. It emerges with him, with what he’s doing, and as he looks from his hand to hers and the melody forms itself and rises around them he realizes that they’re doing this together, playing this song together, and if he’s sort of clumsy and not very sure of himself it doesn’t much matter.
She’s certainly not judging him for it.
She’s never really judged him for anything.
It goes on for a while, and after a bit he isn’t even paying attention to what he’s doing. He’s just paying attention to her, all of her focus, keeping time with her, watching her hands, her delicate fingers as they move. She doesn’t sing, and that’s when he knows that there aren’t words for this song at all, that it hadn’t even existed until they started playing it together, that they aren’t just playing it together but making it together.
Something pushes into his throat and clenches.
At some point she winds down and stops, and he can feel the logic of it and stops with her, surprisingly smoothly, not abrupt. They bring it to a close in time with each other, and the last notes hang in the air. But their hands are still on the keys, and after a moment or two she raises her head and looks at him. Finally puts her hands down in her lap and takes a breath.
Oh.
That was the last thing, a while ago. They both just sort of let it hang there between them, like the notes, something strange and a little terrifying which neither of them wanted to pick up.
Beth, he thinks, and maybe she isn’t afraid of anything, but he is. He definitely is.
All sorts of things.
"That was nice,” she says, again with that small smile, and he nods but doesn’t say anything. It was. It was nice.
Nice.
“We can do that more. I can teach you. If you want. ‘s not that hard.”
He shrugs. Because it really is her thing. He doesn’t think it’s for him.
But it’s not just about that. It’s about her. It’s about how he thinks it’s special, something inside her that she brings out into the world, makes real, and that should just be for her. He shouldn’t move in on that territory. He might just ruin it.
Only much later do other possibilities occur to him.
“We got time now,” she adds, and her voice is softer.
Beth, he thinks again, and that fist is still in his throat. Suddenly this is like the kitchen all over again.
But worse.
“Daryl,” she says, his name coming out in a little huff of a laugh. “Quit lookin’ at me like that.”
He has no idea how he’s looking at her. He blinks, glances away, and his hand drops into his lap and the piano bench feels too small, he feels too big and very awkward next to her and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. He never has.
But he doesn’t want to be anywhere in the world except right here.
“Okay,” she says, and gets up. She doesn’t seem upset at all, just quiet, but suddenly he’s sure he’s done something wrong, misinterpreted something, fucked up, and he turns and feels a little desperate and wants to fix it but has no idea how and no idea what he wants to fix.
And she’s stopped, she’s standing there, she’s looking down at him, and for reasons completely beyond his understanding he thinks Holy Jesus I am so fucked.
“It’s alright, Daryl.” she says, very soft. She seems like she might be about to say something else, and then she sighs, almost sounding exasperated, and she reaches up and slides her fingers into his hair, and he stiffens – like he always does – but he doesn’t pull away.
Because he can’t.
When she leans down and kisses him he doesn’t pull away then either.
It’s very light. Very quick. It isn’t even fully his mouth; it’s just the corner, just a graze of her lips, and she’s hugged him and held his hand and this could be just something like that, impulsive, and just because he doesn’t know what to do about it doesn’t mean it means anything.
But it does.
“I’m gonna get some dinner ready.” It’s like time has jumped and she’s straightened up, she’s turning and moving away from him, and he stares after her and his hand lifts to his mouth, his fingertips where she was. Like he can’t quite believe it.
He can’t. At all. That’s the thing.
He watches her go. He thinks about the song, that thing they made together, something beautiful. Not fully formed, not yet fully itself… But beautiful. How she said they could do that again. Do that more. How she might be able to teach him.
Teach him a lot of things.
He drops his hand onto his thigh, palm up, and looks down at it. He looks at it for a long time.
Holy Jesus.
I am so. Fucked.