Double Life: Through my eyes II

A/N: oh my! this was supposed to be short as well!! but Yay the muses that decided to pay me a last minute visit and gave me the whole last part of this one and I love it!!! 

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Joshua moved towards where a keyboard was, took a deep breath, and started to play a slow song, there were no lyrics but the melody carried out emotions of fear and sadness mixed. Here and there he touched the keys that produced lighter acute sounds that were like a splash of color or light, perhaps a smile he´d seen. The melody morphed into a faster one that carried anxiety and uneasiness but it was a still beautiful melody that rose like sea foam to come to an abrupt stop and started again in that slower pace of melancholy in which it ended as if it had produced a lingering question. The music had a soul and even if it had been only sound, it carried that which words couldn’t express. Both the composer and the muse of the song stared at each other for what felt a long time.

“That´s something I like about your projects, despite being your solely perspective, they are on the same page” Mike made them look at him. And that was Josh´s cue to stand up. He took one of the tall stools and sat a few feet away from where Mike and Nic were seated on similar stools.

His voice was melodic and his words were like rain drops covering all, the room, her ears, herself. In it there was wonder and questions and the hope to get to see, maybe it was not all out there but there was implied somewhere between the carefully chosen words. There were sad lines made out of some of her phrases but said from his ears. His songs were like him, blunt and questioning but kind enough to not for an answer. She let out a breath, a small sigh. Death covered her life, lingering ghosts walked by her and he didn´t see them and a part of her hope he didn´t, but there he was showing her his thoughts of her and had he grasped who she was without really noticing.

For the last song, she closed her eyes and let his voice wrap itself around herself, his words couldn´t go ignored just like him. The creations of their minds managed not only to show the way they say the other but to show them as well, without showing much yet showing a lot with the opportunity of letting it slide if that´s what they preferred… she was already doing it.

“What did you think?” Josh asked as they got out of the Arts building

“I didn´t know you played the piano”

“Oh –he chuckled- it was the first instrument I learned”

“The first? Meaning you play more, what others you play?”

“A few”

“Don´t be modest, Josh” she bumped her shoulder with his. He chuckled

“You didn´t answer me” he reached for her hand

“I like them. It was worth the wait. You´re good at it… but of course I was the topic” she smirked

“You were” he said

“The last picture… how would you come up with it?” he said after a while

“Why?”

“…It was a lot like my memory-slash-nightmare… what were you thinking when you made it?”

“This was in my mind” she lifted their held hands “and that´s all that I´m saying”

“Why?”

“It´s supposed to be art. You can love it or hate it and either way it´s fine, it´s to provoke emotions, some kind of answer from the viewer…”

“I just find it …I don´t know intriguing how you put together my memory nearly like I see it in my mind”

“Is that bad?”

“No, just unexpected”

“I see…”

“Everybody´s at the SCR. They saw your paintings…Come, plz” had been the text Joshua had sent to Nichole nearly ten minutes ago.

“Maybe later… Have fun” read her reply. It was nothing that he hadn´t expect. The group of kids of the Art Club had set up some kind of karaoke they went from singing to talking and back. They were talking of their projects, of the end of the school presentation and their vacation plans.

Josh got up to pick up a phone call from Maggie. It was too loud inside to answer it. As he was going back inside, his roommate was coming out.

“Hey!” he said, they bumped fists “Can I ask you a favor?” the roommate asked

“What is it?”

“Do you think that I can have the room for myself tonight? Lex´s coming over” he said in a whispered voice

“Where would I spend the night?” Josh laughed quietly

“Tonight´s our last night at Burgeoys… I thought you could spend it with Nichole…”

“And why would she let me do that?” Joshua chuckled shaking his head

“Come on, Josh! Last time Lex and I were not the only ones getting caught”

“Joel, did you see me?” Josh had a playful disposition

“I had a doubt but I noticed your shoes…”

“Plenty of students have similar shoes”

“And I commented this with Lex and she said it was more possible since you´re the closest one to her…”

“That doesn´t mean I got to be there”

“Ok, Lex told me you´d deny it but I wanted to make sure –Joel said with annoyance- I thought you´d want to spend the night with her”

“No, you just want our room to yourself”

“Don´t kiss and tell, huh?” Joel said

“I´ll stay with my brother. Just let me go get a few things”

“Thank you”

“Yeah, sure”

“I´m spending the night with you” Josh said into the phone

“Your other two roommates kicked you out?” his twin snickered

“Right” Josh said with annoyance as he heard voices. Aaron had his friends over

“Come! The more the merrier!” someone else said

“I’m hanging out with friends here. I´ll be there in a while” Josh informed his twin

“Bring food on your way here!” someone else shouted as he hung up.

“Hello? Who´s there?” Nichole heard a voice asking sounding serious but failing at the end

“Are you lost again?” she said re-living the first conversation Josh and her had have on the stone wall of the school

“What are you doing here?” he asked, he wondered if he meant it or if he was just re-living the memory as well

“Walking” she said except she was seating on it, one of her legs stretched on the wall and the other dangling on a side. He saw Josh smile. “I thought you were with the Art Club kids”

“I was”

“and now you´re not”

“That´s right”

“And why´s that? It might rain tonight”

“That´s ok. I was…” he trailed off

“You were…?”

“You saved me in this very place a while ago” he said. She jumped off the wall and sat against it on the grass, he came over and did the same

“You´ve saved me too” she said in a small voice and then it was all silence.

“Joel realized it was me at your room the other night” Josh broke the silence, she said nothing.  “He wanted me to not stay at my room tonight”

“Why?”

“Lex´s coming over”

“Oh, so that´s why he said it was you the one with me”

“Yeah, apparently that´s the downside of me being the one that´s closer to you or something”

“So, there´s no way anybody else can go to my room unless they´re with me in the daylight too?” she sounded amused

“That´s what he thought”

“What do they know?” she muttered

“…Does that mean…?”

“What?”

“You… eh, never mind” he said and she laughed quietly

“Do I take guys to my room under the cover of the night? Mmm what do you think, Josh?”

“The way you said that… It sounded like you might do it”

“…Besides you, I took another person up there” she said quietly and it sounded as if Josh gasped

“Who?”

“Curious much?”

“Er… I… things related to you seem to become rumors, I haven´t heard rumors of you and people getting in your room”

“That´s ´cause you´re the rumor” she chuckled and he tensed a little “I don´t mind” she said and he relaxed again

“Your friend” Josh said after another while in silence

“mh?”

“That´s the one you invited up, the friend you went to visit the other day” he heard her inhale sharply thus confirming his words

“He was great at sneaking into places…”

“I´m sorry”

“For?”

“You sound sad, when you mention him, you sound sad and it´s your birthday, people shouldn´t be making you sad today” he said with a slight exasperation

“It´s not your fault, you don´t have to be sorry” her voice seemed to carry a smile in it

“Still, why don’t people see it? –he sounded somehow angry- even Mike, I don´t know why he couldn´t see it, he sees your stuff all the time” he said and she stopped breathing altogether

“You picked on that, I thought…”

“I´m not that insensitive” he reached for her hand in the darkness and found it but she slipped it away “Nic?”

“Don´t. I told you I sometimes hurt people” she sounded as if she was holding back a sob

“These hands –he reached for them- saved me from falling” he said and despite the darkness she was able to see his green eyes, his green sincere eyes blind to her.

“And now you´re my slave for eternity” she went back to her usual self

“Come on! For the eternity? That´s too long! Plus in some other cultures it´s the one who saves the life that is responsible for whom he has saved! ha! Gotcha!” he said going back to saying bits of their first conversation in this place.

There was a sound coming from his phone, he checked it. “Uh, Joel wants to take my stuff out now” he grumbled clearly annoyed “I guess I´ll be going now” he tried to stand up but she hadn´t let go of him, he tried again but once again, she stopped him.

“Nichole…?” he said her only answer was to keep holding his hand not letting him go until he sat against the wall again. They sat in silence.