Chapter Thirty

Lucianne's eyes flew open. She turned back to see who had spoken to her, but there was only empty space on the sheets beside her. She blinked, rubbed her eyes. She felt so groggy and she yawned. She must've been dreaming and heard something that wasn't real. Shrugging, she got out of bed to wash up.

After she was done, she stopped at the foot of her bed. Memories of Gabriel came back to her and she smiled with fondness. Pushing her hair away from her shoulders, she went to the side of her bed and bent down. She reached a hand underneath the bed, feeling about in the darkness. Her hands connected with a book and she pulled it out.

Sublime.

She put it on her desk and pulled the trash bin from below to turn it over on the table. The contents came falling down, heaps of crumpled papers everywhere. She picked up one ball and opened it up. It was one of the first poems of his book.

She flattened the page on the table, pushing the creases out. Then she took some scotch tape from her drawers. Applying the tape to the side of the page, she made sure not to let any fingerprints get onto the sticky side. She picked up the page, opened Sublime and flipped to the part where that page had been torn from and slowly taped it back onto the binding. Holding the book up to check everything, she sighed in happiness when she saw that it was good.

Bit by bit, she opened up the ball of papers she had crumpled up which once belonged to Sublime. She taped the papers back into the binding, until every single page was back to where it came from. When she was done, she closed the book again. It was slightly puffy from all the creased papers but somehow, it had a beautiful quality to it.

Bringing the book to her bed, she read it cover to cover. It was a thin book and they were filled with short poems so she managed to finish three reads of it in a short amount of time. She lowered the book to her sheets, then stared at the door.

He was still not here.

Putting the book aside, she got out of bed. She unlocked her room door and stepped out. The air was windy outside from the open window and it smelled of age. She returned to her room to wet a cloth before coming back out to the area outside her room again. She cleaned the dusty piano up carefully, until it was free of dust.

Lifting the cover of the piano, she sat on the seat before it. Her fingers touched the keys, and she brushed them over the black and white. She pressed some buttons to test them out and strong sounds left the grand piano.

Growing up, she had a great childhood. It was not hard like Gabriel's and she was blessed with everything she wanted. When she asked for piano lessons, she was allowed to have them. And she loved them. She worked hard at it and became better, and now she could come up with brand new melodies on the spot.

The melody realised piece by piece in her mind and her fingers flowed to the keys, pressing them according to what she pictured in her mind. The song was mournful, yet upbeat at the same time. She loved melodies that reminded her of longing, and the melody this time was no different.

She was also free, so she composed a lengthy piece on the spot. The song came naturally to her and she played deftly. Eventually, it was time for her to hit the key on the extreme end in the middle of the piece. She reached all the way to one extreme end and hit the button.

But no sound came out.

She hit the button again, and still, no sound. Nearing her face to the button, she tried to press it, but the key did not go down, neither did the piano make any sound. She inspected it closely. It was noticeable, but only if you paid close attention to it. The piano key was a slightly darker grey than the other keys and as she applied pressure to it, it seemed like a false key. She put her nails under the protruding edge of the piano key and attempted to lift it up. But it did not budge. She looked at it in confusion.

Why was there a false key in the grand piano outside her room?