SHE WAS SILENT STILL }{ TAG: Open

IF YOU LOVE ME, WON'T YOU LET ME KNOW?

The Words: 508 The Tag: Open! The Notes: Cliff is so sad omg.

Cliff hadn’t played piano since before Geneva died. Until today, it had felt like an insult to her memory to make such a beautiful sound. Today, however, things felt different. He had finished all his classes but there was still time left in the day before all the students went home for the summer. Since there were still students in the building, it was appropriate for a teacher without a class to play piano in the auditorium. That was how he justified it to himself, at least.

The left side door that led backstage was always unlocked. Cliff wasn’t sure if this was because the lock was broken or because the janitor was lazy or some other reason, but it didn’t matter. Today, the unlocked door was convenient, because he wanted to get in without anyone noticing that he was there. Part of that was because he wasn’t positive that he was allowed to just hang out in the auditorium if he wanted to, but it was mostly because he was out of practice and wasn’t sure how much he wanted people hearing him play if he didn’t know that it would sound good enough for anyone else’s ears but his own.

He ducked into the backstage door and walked across the stage behind the curtain to the other side where he knew the piano to be, at which point he went around the curtain and down the few stairs to the pit where he found the baby grand.

Sitting down slowly onto the piano bench, he opened the cover and put his hands in place. Being in that position again brought back so many memories... It was strange not to have Geneva beside him, her head on his shoulder. If he thought back enough years, she might be playing along with him, but a few years before her death, the arthritis in her hands made playing too painful. It was then that he started just playing for her.

In her last days, she would lay on the couch and he would play something slow and quiet until she fell asleep.

Cliff started playing then, because he couldn’t think about her dying anymore.

He started with some simple songs to clear away the rust, and gradually challenged himself with some of the harder pieces, deliberately avoiding anything that would remind him too much of his late wife.

Thinking about her hurt so desperately. How rare it must be, to find someone whose love never faltered, not even when she grew old and he remained beautiful.

So he filled the air with the sound of hammers on strings, hoping it could clog his head and prevent it from turning back to her.

It was then that he got the feeling that he was being watched, so he stopped playing and turned himself around slowly to face the person behind him.

"Good afternoon,”