the Grand Room. She’s waiting in there for me. I hesitate for another few seconds, but then I ultimately leave the kitchen and walk across the hallway.
I pause in the doorway to the Grand Room because Willow is lowering the lid to the grand piano. Then she proceeds to climb up on top of it. She sprawls out across the piano on her stomach, stretching her arms out over it. She sees me eyeing her with perplexity. She smiles gently and says, “I want to feel the sound. I never get to feel things without a body. It’s nice.”
As much as I want to preserve my memory of this room with Layla, I feel equally bad not playing a song for Willow. She doesn’t get to interact with people outside of me. That has to be lonely.
I reluctantly take a seat at the piano bench. “What do you want me to play?”
“Play the one you were writing earlier, on your laptop.”
“I thought you weren’t in there when I was on my laptop. I tried to talk to you.”
She lifts her cheek off the piano. “I didn’t want you to stop writing, so I pretended I wasn’t there.”
I thought she might have been in there. I don’t know how. Sometimes it’s like I can feel her in the room with me, but I don’t know if that’s because I know she’s in this house or if she really does have a presence.
Willow lays her cheek against the varnished wood again, patiently waiting.
I look down at the piano keys and try to remember how the song begins. “I haven’t finished writing it yet.”
“Play what you have, then.”
I start fingering the keys, and when I look back up at her, she’s closed her eyes. “This one is called ‘No Vacancy,’” I say quietly. Then I sing it for her.
I showed up rich while feeling poor
I didn’t knock but they opened the door
Throwing stones, they pierce my eye
Leave tiny cracks all down my spine
We were royalty without a throne
Our castle didn’t feel like home
Echoes of “I love you” in the halls
Our words absorbed into the walls
I checked us in so we couldn’t leave
Thought maybe time would make me believe
If I took us back to the starting line
We’d never cross the finish line
My hands may not be red
But my heart, it feels the bleed
If my soul had a neon sign
It would read No Vacancy
If my soul had a neon sign
It would read No Vacancy
When I’m finished playing all the parts of the song I’ve written, I look up from the piano. Her eyes are still closed.
She remains pressed against the piano, like she doesn’t want the feeling to end. She seems sad . . . sort of regretful. It makes me wonder if she’ll miss this when we leave. She’ll be alone with no one here to talk to at night, no one here to play music for her, no one here to give her something to do to pass her time while she just floats around in nothing.
She finally opens her eyes, but she doesn’t move.
I feel my chest constrict when we make eye contact, because again, I just want to comfort her. But not because I’m mistaking this urge for some wandering remnant of how I feel for Layla—but because I want to comfort her.
Willow.
“I’m sorry you’re so lonely,” I whisper.
She smiles, but it’s such a sad smile. “You’re the one who wrote this song. I’m no lonelier than you.”
Silence slowly descends over the room, wrapping us tightly in its grip.
But I don’t say anything to break it. I soak it up. I soak her up. No one else ever will, and that makes me sad for her.
“She’s really in love with you,” Willow says.
I don’t know why she says that. Does she sometimes feel Layla’s urges to touch and kiss me, the same way I feel the urge to touch and kiss Layla? When she’s inside of Layla, is it as confusing to her as it is to me?
“Her body is really tired tonight. I should let her sleep.” Willow sits up on the piano. “You coming to bed?”
I want to.
Which is exactly why I shouldn’t.
I swallow the yes that’s stuck in my throat and look down at the piano keys. I place my fingers on them. “You go ahead.”
She stares at me a moment, but I don’t look at her. I begin playing the song over again, and when I do, she leaves the room. After she walks upstairs and I