Pulse

“Never again, never again!
I won’t fall into your trap.
I won’t fall, I won’t drown.
I won’t jump into that pit again.

And you don’t even care
What I do to myself.
Please stop and stare.
Look at the damage you have done.

I can’t stop. I can’t stop!
I keep going far too deep.
Once more, one last time.
I tell myself and I turn away.

And you don’t even care
What I do to myself.
Please stop and stare.
Look at the damage you have done.”

Ivy paused, taking a deep breath so she would have the air to sing the bridge. That’s when she heard the cough. The cough that changed her life forever. She looked up, mouth agape, eyes wide, as the applause started.

Comments like: Who wrote that? Was it you? That was amazing! Do it again! flew through the air.

Ivy’s cheeks went from a normal color, to a pasty white, then a tomato red, a sickly green, and were now turning the oddest shade of purple. She gathered up her belongings, forgetting her now written on sheet music in the process, and stumbled away, horrified. That was three weeks ago.

From that point on, Ivy was practically a local celebrity. The boys loved her, the girls wanted to be her. Just kidding. But her life did change. Forever change.

It was like that day she finally woke up. She saw, heard, felt, tasted, even thought like she never had before. She noticed the boys playing guitar outside in the frigid morning air. She noticed one in particular, who seemed to watch her every move as she walked past him now and again. She caught him attempting to play her song, which she had decided to title “You Don’t Care” a few mornings, and wondered absently if he had been the person who had picked up her forgotten sheet music. She never could remember the guitar part that she had written that fateful morning… It had been exceptionally pretty, too.

It was partly that longing for the music which prompted her to step up and introduce herself to him. More probably, though, it was his pretty blue eyes, or his shiny hair, or his soft-spoken demeanor…

Ivy shook her head, snapping herself out of her personal meditations. Those were of no use to her now. All she wanted was to see if he knew the whereabouts of her missing sheet music. Honestly. And maybe stay a bit to see if he was any good at playing, too.

“H-Hey.” Ivy said, stepping over the invisible barrier that seemed to be between them. He was sort of cute. Stop thinking that! She scolded herself. “Um, would you happen to know…” She made herself stop bouncing her foot on the ground.

“Know what?” he asked, sounding friendly.

“Did you take my sheet music?!” She practically screamed at him. It sounded much more like an accusation than she had wanted it to. She bit down on her bottom lip.

His eyes instantly dropped. His hair fell in front of his face, but even through the shiny wall, Ivy could see his skin turn a deep shade of pink. “I’m sorry.” He mumbled, taking it out of his backpack and handing it to her. “I just really wanted to see if I could play it.”

Ivy was silent for a few moments, contemplating. He had heard her music. That much was certain. He had even seen it written down. But he had also taken it. To see if he could play it. That meant he had to have liked it, right? Either that or else he wanted to make fun of it. Improve it. Change it.

“Well?” Ivy heard herself say, rather than actually telling herself to say it.

“Well what?” he asked, looking up at her from beneath his hair, his expression so pitiful and cute she almost smiled through her anxiousness.

She mentally sorted through the million and one questions in her head, and decided on the least important. “Can you play it?”

His bottom lip quivered. He was obviously very uncomfortable. He looked like he was about to cry.

So instead of pressing him for information, she sat down shakily on the ground and asked the most vital, the most loaded of her questions. “Did you like it?”