Chapter 8
His fingers tingled underneath, the tips feeling something.
"Here.... There we go."
Muscle memory never leaves you.
Flexed his right hand.
Even if it, leaves you.
Felt an old, worn but vibrant piano underneath them. ...Small hands under his palms.
Felt it echo around him, and if he closed his eyes enough (and his head could stomach the pain as much as his heart), could see his old apartment with his family. Becca beside him on the stool.
She pressed a key, wonder in her eyes. "Like this?"
(She had just lost a tooth, the sound whistling.)
Remembers his Mother telling him there wasn't a 'wrong' way to play an instrument.
He smiled. "You've got it kiddo."
Closed his eyes, her smile lighting up the emptiness of the apartment here, now. A million miles from Brooklyn, and about another 10 into the past.
That glow that nothing was wrong. Nothing could be wrong.
Steve wouldn't lose his Mother in the next month's. He wouldn't join the Army in the next two years.
Regulated his breathing.
He wouldn't have been deployed to Azzano. He wouldn't have been caught with his unit.
He wouldn't have been singled out by Zola. Wouldn't have had Steve rescue him.
In. Out.
He wouldn't have been programmed by Zola later.
His life, he sees now, is just a web of "what if's?". What if he had stayed in Brooklyn with Steve?
What if he had asked to be deployed to France?
What if he had resisted-
Clenches his fist.
He resisted all he could. Reason tells him he couldn't have fought it.
But the growing & unceasing guilt that presses against his memory and his dreams tells him otherwise. That us was his hands, his body, his fingers. & no matter what, he's responsible.
Tries to hold onto the memory as long as he can, watching Becca and her daisy dress that his Aunt sent her for her 4th birthday.
Feels the smooth white keys underneath his fingers.
Right now though, he just wants to feel this memory, the old apartment and the smell of it.
Wonders what if he never left.
And tries to hide the fact that that option, never existed.