Page 104 of Love Sick

I then lead into when I knew my heart wasn’t as strong as I wished it to be. The rhythm is melancholy because I can still remember the dull beating in my chest. Of course this was my mind playing tricks on me, but it made me tackle life differently.

Instead of embracing life, I ran from it, too afraid of finding forever, only for it to be snatched out from under me. I found solace in music, and if it wasn’t for piano, I don’t think I’d be here today; and that has nothing to do with my defective heart.

This part is sorrow laden, and I’ve done that with intent because when I reach the next section of music, I slam my fingers on the key, a contrast to what I just played and that’s because I play with the memory in mind of when I woke with an alien heart inside my chest.

I could hear “his” heart the moment I opened my eyes. I think back to it andThe Ravenby Allan Edgar Poe is the perfect analogy to how I felt because all I could hear was someone rapping at my chamber door.

It drove me crazy. So much so, I tried to cut out the infernal bastard with my bare hands. That’s what led me to Parkfields—unlike Disneyland, this was the unhappiest place on earth.

I punish the keys with an almost lunatic rhythm as I encapsulate every single emotion I felt in that place.

The desperation.

The desolation.

The fear of dying alone.

My hair has come free, and it falls around my face, but that’s what I want; I wish to hide from the horrors which shaped me into someone other than me.

My heart squeezes because it’s painful to tap into these memories. They are ones which remained forgotten for a while. This section goes on for seconds, minutes, hours, I don’t know.

Music isn’t about keeping score.

It’s about touching someone with your pain.

And what better pain is there than falling in love?

My muse.

My Luna.

The music changes direction; there are highs and lows, just how my relationship is with Luna. Every single emotion I feel for her is thrown against the keys and expels from me in a rainbow of notes.

I put into song the moment we met, and everything that followed. Our life together is far from conventional, but to survive this, our love knows no bounds. It has survived in the bowels of hell and yet, here we are, still hopeful for something…more.

Which is why I can’t let her throw it all away.

And that leads to the last interlude of music, the person who this story has always been about because without him, none of this would be possible.

Misha.

I put his story into notes; the man I’ve never met but changed my life and helped me live. And to honor him, I can’t let anything happen to Luna. She’s going to hate me, but I know that she cannot come up here and lie to these good people about Parkfields.

I know she will do everything to expose Parkfields for the hell on earth that it is, publicly of course, because she will want to shame Alanna in front of her peers, and once she’s done that, she will tear out Alanna’s heart, just how Alanna did to her.

Consequences be damned. She will happily go to prison or be re-institutionalized if it meant Alanna paid for her sins.

But I can’t stand back and watch her destroy her life that way. I hope she will understand why I’ve done what I have.

The guilt, the betrayal, it’s all put to music and when I play the final note, I hear him one last time.

Thank you.

Misha’s voice is the closing note, which seems fitting as this started with him, and now it ends with him.

My hair falls around me, so I can’t see a thing, but when the room erupts into thunderous applause, I smile. Music has the capability to change the fucking world.

I stand awkwardly, hoping the redhead ushers me off stage. But she doesn’t.