Ella
Go on the road for three months with him? Really? It’s crazy to even think about, yet at the same time I want to go. It’s not like I’d truly miss my job at the art gallery and I could finish school online. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I wonder why I’m even thinking about it at all. I should just go with him. Live life to the fullest. Draw. Be happy. Relax. I’ve never done that before, never thought I could. But suddenly it hits me: I can. Holy crap. I could just do whatever I want. Travel on the road with him, listening to him play, watching him up on stage as his words move me the way he always does whenever he sings. It seems so damn easy, so why am I hesitating?
I decide after he plays me his song I’ll tell him that I’ll go with him. That way he won’t have to worry about leaving me behind, because I know he is. Oh my God, I’m seriously going to do this.
Dressed in only his boxers, Micha gets his guitar from the closet and sits down at the foot of the bed. Holding the guitar his lap, he wraps his long arms around it, and then plucks at the strings. “You know, I’m sort of nervous.” His eyes skim over my body as I relax against the wall with only a sheet draped over my naked body. “I never in a million years imagined you’d be naked when I played you this.”
I can’t help but smile as I fluff up a pillow and lean against it. “You know, I’m not going to even be surprised if somewhere in your song you talk about me being naked.”
“No way.” He lowers his head, his blond hair hanging down into his aqua eyes as he positions the guitar. “This song was not about my horny feelings for you. Only about my love.” He peers up, grinning, but it’s underlined with nervousness.
I roll my eyes, but my stomach flutters. “So sappy.”
He wiggles his eyebrows at me and then he grows silent, holding his breath. “Are you ready for this, Ella May? Because it’s super intense.”
I nod excitedly. “Bring on the intensity.”
His fingers start moving gracefully across the strings, and everything around me, the room, my thoughts, my body blurs away into something that I never thought I could be. When he sings the first few lyrics, the soft, melodious sound of his voice blankets me and I float away to a place of memories linked to emotions that connect his soul to mine.
I see you standing inside the crowd, heart hidden inside, drowning in pain, no way to get out.
The pain stabs at my heart, bleeds inside me, because if you’d just let me, I’d take all the pain away.
You think no one needs you. That you don’t deserve anything else, so you let yourself drown.
But I sink with you, refusing to let go. I want to take away the pain and let it bleed into my soul.
He starts to pluck the strings with more passion, the volume increasing as he closes his eyes, his voice intensifying as he reaches the chorus.
Know that no matter what happens
through the hurt, the sadness, the burning ache inside my chest
I’ll always be with you, inside and out.
Through hard times and helpless ones, through love, through doubt
My heart is yours forever. I’ll never let go. I’ll never let you sink.
I’ll carry your pain for you if you just let me.
He pauses as he plays a few more intense notes and then opens his lips again.
The way I feel about you burns deep inside my chest, feelings I hold in, but desperately want to let out.
It hurts every time I’m around you, hoping things will change, that somehow I’ll find a way to save you,
find a way to stop you from drowning, pull you back and take your place, let the pain take me over.
God, please just let me take the pain away before it kills me because I can’t watch you drown anymore.
Because I need you. I want you. I can’t live without you.
The pitch of his voice is a little uneven at the end, but it still sounds beautiful and his fingers keep playing, his eyes still shut.
Know that no matter what happens
through the hurt, the sadness, the burning ache inside my chest
I’ll always be with you, inside and out.
Through hard times and helpless ones, through love, through doubt
my heart is yours forever. I’ll never let go. I’ll never let you sink.
I’ll carry your pain if you just let me.
God, please just let me.
His voice drifts off as he plucks a sequence of notes and then finishes the song. He sits quietly for a moment, his chest rising and falling before he opens his eyes. Then he takes one look at me and his eyes widen in alarm.
“Shit.” He shoves the guitar aside and scoots across the bed toward me. “Baby, you don’t need to cry. It wasn’t supposed to be a sad song.”
I touch my fingers to my cheeks and they’re soaked with tears. I hadn’t even realized I was crying or when I began to, but I’m guessing probably from the start because each word hit me powerfully in the heart.
“I’m not sad,” I tell him, wiping the tears away with my hand. “I just didn’t know you felt like that all the way back when you were fifteen. It means you felt like that for a really long time.”
He traces his fingers down my cheeks, erasing the tears, but the feelings behind them still linger in me and I’m glad. “I couldn’t even understand the lyrics myself at first, but when I finally did I realized I loved you and I’d do anything to make you happy.”
More tears flow from me and I don’t even try to hold them back—I couldn’t even if I tried. Too much emotion was in that song and it still burns in my heart, too fresh, raw, but in the most wonderfully real way. I think about all those years where it was just him and me and all the many more years we have ahead of us.
As I climb onto his lap, I circle my arms around him and hug him tightly. “Just so you know, you were the one who didn’t let me drown. If it wasn’t for you, I probably would have given up,” I say and he rubs his hand up and down my back. “And I’m glad you didn’t let me.”