Standing in the doorway her ice blue stare finds him. She’d do anything to sparkle in his eye. She’d give everything for one more day in paradise.

As the piano plays, the melancholy minor notes float into oblivion and her heart aches. She knows that those notes come from somewhere deep inside him. Some place dark and secluded. Some place she couldn’t reach.  His heart. His pain. His words and melody, an essence of himself.

His body sways gently with the tune, his fingers dancing over the keys in an enchanting ballet that he controls. A simple flick of his wrist and the dance comes to an end, the sound still resonating in the empty room.

Just man, piano, and her. She felt like a stranger intruding on this intimate moment between man and instrument. Her eyes strayed from him to look at the crumpled balls of paper strewn around the room. Most were creating a circle around the piano, a force-field through which she couldn’t pass. Some reached the far corners of the room, where they had been hurled in frustration.

Other than the piano there was nothing in the room. The widows had no curtains, the walls were bare, the hard wood floors had no rugs. It was somewhat desolate. Empty.

Her eyes came back to him and she was startled to find his crystal gaze staring back at her, sparkling tears falling down his cheeks. Most would be moved by the showing of emotion but she was stoic. He did it to himself. He put himself through this torment. He didn’t have to keep dragging himself back in to the hell of his past. Secretly she knew that he enjoyed the pain. The soft tugging in his chest was proof that he truly was a suffering artist. Without it, he was just another poser, trying to sell a song. With it, he was miserably happy.  What a bitter sweet combination.

She sighed, walking into the room, cringing as her bare feet hit the cold wood of the floor. Her feet swept through the paper wads sending a soft rustle through the air, almost deafening her. She sat beside him, using her thumb to brush away his tears.

He turned away from her, placing his fingers on the keys again. He sat there as if frozen and seemingly forgetting how to play. He raised his eyes to look at her briefly and then slammed his hands on the keys, a garbled sound shattering the thick silence in the room.

“Josh.”

His name was whispered softly and she saw his jaw clench, his lips pursing. He stood up, kicking the paper wads at his feet and walked to stand in front of the windows, arms crossed over his chest, guarding himself from her comfort.

“I don’t know why you do this to yourself,” she said watching his back muscles move with his heavy breathing.

She looked down at the instrument in front of her and gingerly pressed down on one of the ebony keys, the sound floating into oblivion. She liked the black keys best. She felt as if they were never used, even though she knew they were. She looked up at him and he hadn’t moved.

“I wish you would talk to me.”

His head lowered, watching his bare feet scuff across the wooden floor causing a soft squeak to come from the friction.

She frowned, then banged her hands on the keys, loud horrendous sounds crashing into the emptiness. She didn’t look up, just continued to bang her fists against the cold ivory until two hands came into her field of vision, grabbing her wrists and pulling them away from the instrument.

“Have you lost your mind?” he asked, his blue eyes blazing at her.

He pushed her aside, gently laying his fingers over the keys, testing out the chords, his brows drawn in concentration. She scowled at him, standing up.

“So sorry to desecrate your idol. Please tell the music gods that I’m repentant.”

The wryness in her voice wasn’t lost on him as she made her way to the door.

“You just don’t get it,” he muttered.

She stopped dead in her tracks in the middle of the room.

“You’re damn right Josh! I don’t fucking get it!” she screamed, then ran a hand over her face. “This miserable little bubble you keep yourself in, its not right,” she added softly.

“What do you fucking know!” he screamed, causing her to jump at the gruffness in his normally passive voice. “You don’t know what I’ve been through!”

“Oh don’t I?” she asked crossing her arms over her chest. “Then explain it to me. Make me understand.”

“Its just…its like…well…” He was at a loss. “You just won’t understand.”

“That’s because there’s nothing there!” she screamed. “Poor little pop star.” She swaggered over to him, her body dancing with the sarcasm in her voice. “You have everything you could possibly want and you’re still not happy.”

“Shut the hell up,” he said, his face screwed up in anger.

“Even before you were a pop star, Mummy and Daddy gave you everything. Poor little rich boy,” she taunted. “Has to write songs about how hard his life is. Get over it Josh!”

She grabbed a handful of the bar-lined paper with music notes scribbled on them and tossed them into the air, sending them fluttering to the ground around them.

“This is all bullshit. A girl has never broken your heart. You’ve never been made fun of. You have led a perfect fucking life!”

“Shut the fuck up Hannah!” he screamed standing to loom over her.

She cowered in the shadow of his immense figure. His eyes burned fire into her and his face was so close to hers their noses were almost touching.

“You don’t know what its like,” he said his voice soft yet forceful, strained as if it were coming from the back of his throat. “You don’t know how it feels to be second best. To be so close to the spotlight that you’re blinded by it but can’t feel its heat. To be back up to a fucking 22 year old baby.”

With each word he said he took a small step forward, causing her to take a step back. Her eyes were wide, her body was tense with fear.

“You don’t know what its like to go to award shows and be looked over. Having people screaming for your best friend and never for you on that damn carpet. Then when you go to the ceremony you’re looked over again, and again. You know in 2000, we sold 2.4 million and fucking Steely Dan walked away with album of the year at the Grammy’s?”

Her back hit the wall. No escape. She closed her eyes in relief as he turned away from her and threw his arms in the air.

“What the hell am I doing this for? Why am I even bothering to write an album? Justin’s already proved that he’s the one that’s going to survive. Why do I even fucking bother?!” he screamed, slamming his fists onto the piano, another mangled sound exploding into the void.

He slid to the floor then, severe sobs taking over his frame, which had seemed so menacing before and now was reduced back to the small fragile thing it actually was.

She wetted her lips as she walked closer to him, her mouth suddenly dry as tears surfaced in her own eyes. She knelt beside him and touched his shoulder. He grimaced, hugging his knees to his chest and hiding his face in them.

She brushed her fingers through the soft strands of his hair and tugged on his arm. He allowed it to fall and she wrapped it around her shoulders, tucking herself into his body and pulling him close. He opened to her, bringing his other arm to wrap around her waist, his face burrowing into her neck.

She looked around the room. It was just her, the man she loved and a piano, bits of paper strewn about the room. What a tragic painting this made. She felt compelled to bring this to his attention but decided against it. She held his sobbing body and prayed that one day he’d let go of his demons and see all that he had wasn’t in this damn room. It was in her.