The music fills my body with a warmth, beauty, and peace like nothing else can. I close my eyes letting it move through my body, my heartbeat matching the quite pound of the piano. It makes everything alright. Breathing deeply I fold my arms around my torso and stay there for a moment and let the delicate notes intrude my thoughts. Suddenly everything is beautiful. Then something less pleasant enters my earbuds. My ringtone. My phone screen shows a picture of my friend Shaun with a green bar tell me to slide to answer. I take the ear buds out and wait in silence for the call to go to voicemail. When it does the music starts again, but the moment has passed and I’m no longer in to mood for my perfect world. Standing slowly I make my way to the kitchen where I find my brother wrapped up in a video game, typical. Pulling out my homework, I settle next to him and start simplifying the fractions. I’m not good at math. I never have been.
“I’m hungry,” My brother wails next to me. “Aria, will my make me some food?”
“Sure,” I say quick to escape the equations. “What do you want?”
“I don’t know!” He whines.
“Dom, what did mom tell you about when you talk like that?”
“You guys can’t hear me,” he groans.
“Right. Now tell me again what you want.”
“Grilled Cheese?” I start the griddle and pull the bread out of the pantry. I layer the cheese on top of the bread and butter each side of the sandwich.
Before I hear the sickening tune I see Dom sprinting down the stairs to the front door yelling, “Ice cream!” I run after him; abandoning the sandwich, leaping down the stairs, and tripping over my shoe lace. He’s already out in the street waving his arms at he truck. It pulls over and he starts to order his usual spongebob popsicle.
“Good afternoon Ari.” Shaun says from inside the truck.
“Hey Shaun,” I reply, as he hands me an ice cream sandwich, my favorite.
“Have you finished the math homework yet?” He asks.
“Try barely started.”
“To busy in your land of music?”? “As always.”
  “I tried to call you earlier to see if Dom would want to ride around in the truck during my shift today, figured it would give you some quite time to finish that song.”
“You were gonna let me inside there?” Dom’s eyes light with excitement.
“You betchya, if only you had a better older sister.”
“Shut up Shaun. I haven’t even started a song in weeks, if you take him it’ll just put extra pressure on me.” I smile at him.
Completely ignoring me Shaun excites Dom by saying, “You know, I think that there is still just enough room back here for a special little six year old.”
“Shaun, please, you don’t have to-” I start but trail off when I see my brothers delighted eyes pop out from inside the ice cream car.
“We are gonna have a great time!” Shaun says as he lifts my little brother onto his back. Turning to me he says, “we better come back to at least a finished verse,” he says giving me that you’ll-thank-me-later look.
Still considering rejecting the offer, I see his point. I haven’t finished a song in months and I’m getting anxious. The car starts to pull away and I realize we never paid but I figure we could figure that out later. “Thank you!” I call after them as the truck pulls away from my driveway. I make my way back to the kitchen and throw out the now burnt grilled cheese. Sliding my homework into the pocket of my backpack I make my way over to my piano. I place my hands on the keys, and wait. Something will come to me. The dark quite of the house stalks me as I try to think of at the least a chord progression. Suddenly my hands tingle and I start to play. The sweet sadness of the music fills the room. I don’t know where the music is coming from. The depths of my mind I guess. Letting my head fall back I continue with the piece. It’s slow and romantic. I backtrack to the beginning pressing my brain to remember what I had played, I scribble something onto a piece of paper next to me. My awareness when I am writing the song is gone. This has never happened to me before; It’s like I have a different motive that isn’t usually there, but I don’ know what it is. I just play and let the music fill my bones like the song from my playlist had before. Words pour out of me, secrets that I don’t acknowledge start to reveal themselves. The song is sweet and soft like something out of a sappy romance film. The ones I hate. But a horror film this isn’t. It’s funny how I’m almost a different person when I am writing; my rigidness and sometimes bitter personality must hide in the strings of the piano. My lyrics are usually and depressed, even though they are the only thing that makes me truly happy.
When I finally come to my true senses I look around me. Papers covered in sheet music blanket the floor around me. I gather the papers in my arms and read my careful handwriting. The pictures they create are beautiful. I’m in disbelief that they are something I wrote. Settling back down on the piano bench I start the song over, but now I am reading it off there paper like it is something new to me. I finish the song and stay there for a moment. Without a word, I hear slow clapping from behind me. I jump and turn around.
“That’s amazing!” Shaun gasps as he lifts my fragile frame off the piano bench. “How did you come up with that?”
“You weren’t supposed to hear that!” I scream at him as a wiggle out of his arms. I don’t know why I’m upset but defiantly am.
“Why not?” He backs away from me confused.
I don’t actually know the answer the question, so I just avoid it. “Please leave.”
“Leave? I just got here.” He says taking a step back.
“You have to go finish your shift don’t you.”
“I’ve already worked a double shift today, I’m all set.”
“But Dom wanted to ride around in the truck!” I say thinking they must have just gone around the block and then come back.
“He did. You know for that two hours that you were writing.”
Two Hours! I whip my head around to face the clock. Sure enough it’s already six o’clock, they really were gone for a while. It only felt like fifteen minutes. “Please just leave, it’s getting late.”
“Ari, I don’t undersand.” Shaun sulks.
The fact of the matter is I don’t understand either and I don’t have the energy to figure it out. “Alright,” I say as I sit back on the piano bench, “you can stay, but you can’t distract me.”
“No problem.” he says, “I’ll just go help your brother with his homework.” He walks into the kitchen and I pretend I don’t know he’ll just be at the doorway listening. There was one fault with his cover story, you don’t get homework in kindergarden.
I rearrange the pieces of sheet music on the stand and do my best to ignore the pressure of Shaun's ears waiting for music. Clearing my throat I place my hands on the keys once again. I start to play but the rhythms are all wrong. The first lines chord progression no longer makes sense and it feels like every note I hit is incorrect. I straighten my spine and try again. Wrong note. One more time. Why is there a G chord? I clear my head and tell my self to skip to the third line where the lyrics start, thinking that they might inspire my fingers. I start to play once more and finally I get into the groove again. As the sound waves slowly echo through the walls I hear my little brother yell. “Shaun! Aria told you not to listen,” followed by and angry hush. I ignore it and play on. The song is starting to come together again and for the first time I actually take note of the lyrics. They’re so romantic, the kind of words that could my a heart melt with every syllable. I stop and read through all of them.
I’m truly confused now. I’m not in love. I don’t know of anything or one that could make me write this way. I stand up and wrack my brain for the place I first created these words, no cigar. Pacing I’m frustrated. The words aren’t me. I look over my shoulder and see Shaun contented as he looks at me. “What?” I ask.
“Nothing.”
I stare back at him for a second, his deep blue eyes making my stomach curl, and his kind smile shakes me. No! I stop myself at that. It can’t be Shaun. He’s like my brother. I waltz up to him and start to tell him that he should go home, but before I finish his lips are pressed against mine and his hand cradles my cheek. My heart buzzes and jumps. He pulls away a moment later looking down at the floor. “I don’t know who that song is about,” he starts blushing furiously, “but I can only hope that somewhere inside it there’s a big enough spot for me.”
“Actually,” I whisper “I’m starting to think it was about you all along.”