Inferno Falls Trilogy by Aubrey Parker

Author:Aubrey Parker [Parker, Aubrey]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: EROS

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Abigail

There’s a hitch in the soft melody permeating the air as Gavin pauses — he doesn’t exactly stop, but pauses with his hand still holding his pick, poised, fingers still on the strings — and then his eyes lock onto mine. Deep, fathomless blue beneath a serious brow. I feel caught. Captivated. Studied, like something fascinating.

Mesmerized, my mother’s pop psychology book would say.

I think he’ll speak, but the pause lasts only a second, and in it, Gavin says nothing. I feel history unreel in that pregnant moment. A million unsaid things are spoken. Between Gavin’s gaze and mine, we tell a lifetime of stories.

He’s asking why I’m singing his song … when both of us know there’s nothing to be sung.

He’s asking why I’m so bold as to sing it now. And in my own way, I’m giving the only answer I now realize I have to give: that it seemed natural to sing it now, considering how much I’ve been singing it at home. How often I’ve been humming or whistling the tune at work, sufficient to invoke threats from Roxanne and invite delight from my girlfriend Maya. I sang now because I knew the words, because they came to me while hunched over my laptop, determined after our date Wednesday to fight through my block. Nothing came from my fingers that day or the next, and I left my writing sessions more frustrated than ever. And yet I seem to have written these words, even though they were effortless. From the aether, they simply came.

Gavin strums, his eyes still on mine. His fingers slide and squeak, and he strums again. He doesn’t look at the guitar; his fingers either know where to go, or he simply can’t look down and is getting lucky. But to me, the first notes are perfect. They resonate within me, vibrating some sort of energy that’s resided inside me for days, since I first heard this song’s skeleton.

After a few strums, after it’s clear that Gavin means to keep playing while watching me, I decide to continue.

He’s so serious. His jaw is set but not locked. His dark brow and handsome face are fixed, unmoving, dead earnest. His eyes stay on me and are almost a challenge, maybe a dare. As if I’m being asked if I’ll have the courage to sing again.

But it’s not reproach I see in Gavin. It’s curiosity. The same fascination I felt at first, now focused with a world of importance. He scoots away from the corner, finding some of the room’s light, and then Freddy, the kid he’d been talking to when I came in, is walking out from the back and standing with his arms limp, clearly surprised.

Gavin plays louder. Maybe fifteen seconds have passed, but to me it seems like all the time in the world.

The chorus ends. Instead of moving into verse, it repeats.

So I sing.

Softly, at first. But even though Gavin’s expression doesn’t change, I see something in him rise — something I could never articulate, but that’s obvious in his look beyond his unchanging irises and pupils.

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