Stop it! Stop it! Just stop singing!
Every time I go, the place is quiet, but when I leave she is there, on the other side of the door singing her songs that she wrote, writing music sheets to match them. Melody was so proud of her. Melody is the owner of the music store that we both went to. I went there for guitar lessons and she went there to sing. By the time I left her lesson had begun when I started she wasnâ??t even there yet. We never crossed paths but as I left through those doors I would hear her. Her voice would fill me, bring me up, make me want to sing... And I hated her for it.
I hated her deep to my core. Why does she sing? What does she deserve to sing? I wished something would happen, something to make her stop singing, stop making me want to open my mouth and let loose my voice. A few years earlier I would have done so gladly and proudly. My voice was good enough to match hers but then it was stolen from me by illness. For two years I couldnâ??t sing anything because of the damage the disease did. Trying just left me with aching lungs. The pneumonia that struck me still keeps me from singing like I used to.
I would pass by her practice room and hear her, outside I would hear her mother talking with Melody. â??She is really good.â? They would tell each other, â??She has a real shot.â? They would say. â??She could be famous.â? And that just made me hate her more, brought back memories of when those same words were said to me. I used to sing with my youth group, the instructor would motion for us to get louder and I would. I lead everyone with my voice and after the show was over I had every person in the audience come up and complimented me, â??You are really good.â? â??You have a real shot.â? â??You could become famous with that voice.â? And it made me so mad to hear those exact same words told to this strange girl, spoken about this strange girl. Why does she get to sing and I donâ??t?
I did not give up but it was hard, still is hard. Most songs are about three to four minutes, I could only sing half that time before the burning in my chest became too much to continue. Yet as I waited in the store she would sing for the ten or fifteen minutes it took my mom to come and get me and she would still be singing when I left. Sometimes I would stand outside the door and try. I would lift my voice to the sky only to have it slap me in the face with its difference. An echo of what it once was, that was all I could hear. Sometimes I would keep trying then start choking because I couldnâ??t breathe. Singing is mostly about breathing, and that was what the pneumonia took from me. It struck me on the day I turned fourteen and lasted through two weeks of camp and another in the hospital. Even after I was out my lungs were weak. If someone sprayed perfume I would start coughing, the scent of hand sanitizer made it hard to breath. I knew if there was a fire anywhere in Florida.
I still remember when there was a raging wildfire that had been burning a while, it was far off but you could see the smoke in the air and I could feel it in my lungs. I spotted a friend on my way to class and clung to him, I needed to stop, I couldnâ??t breathe. He had to practically carry me to the nurse. This is what it left me with and took my voice in return. But she had her voice. We were the same age but my voice was lost and I was reminded of that every time I found hers ringing in my ears. And I hated her for having what was taken from me.
Envy is a wicked thing.
My mother, avid obituary reader, told me to be careful when driving with friends because there was some girl that died because a drunk driver hit her. She was just a passenger and everyone else in the car lived with minor injuries. I didnâ??t think it was far, if things were spread evenly then they all could have lived. I felt bad for the girl that lost her life. I got to live and she didnâ??t. I wonder is the girl that could sing felt bad that I couldnâ??t.
It is not entirely uncommon for people to die when a drunk driver is involved, admittedly the fact that her friend survived with just cuts and bruises and the drunk had even less then that was strange but I thought nothing of it. I was fighting a cold and on my way to my guitar lesson where that girl would unknowingly rub her talent into metaphorically open wounds. I finish my lesson and leave and she is not singing. I hear a piano and figure she is working on her music. Happy for the break from hearing her I leave and go on to the next week. I thought it was a bit strange when I didnâ??t hear her a second time but I didnâ??t think much of it. There was no piano this time but I had just gotten over my cold and it was going around. I thought she had it and was just out sick for once. When I didnâ??t hear her for a third time I began to worry. I didnâ??t know anything about the girl so I had no way of finding out anything and Melody wasnâ??t there to ask.
After a month of not hearing her I assumed she dropped it, she finished that CD she had been working on and went off to become famous somewhere. By the middle of the second month I began to miss hearing her as I left, the brief joy I felt listening to her singing before I remembered that I couldnâ??t sing like that anymore. By the end of the second month I hear her again, this time during my lesson. My instructor left for a second to go to the bathroom and in the silence I hear her singing again and I smiled. I still hated her but I was happy that she was back and that she was okay. So my instructor came back and the lesson went on.
When I left I saw the girlâ??s mother and I wanted to ask her where she had been. I went up to her but as I approached I noticed her eyes were red and her cheeks were blotchy. Melody had tears falling from her eyes. I didnâ??t understand why they were crying, they were standing outside that girlâ??s practice room and I could hear her singing inside. I felt like a ghost, they didnâ??t even notice me as I approached. I was a foot away from them and still they didnâ??t see me, but I saw what I needed to. I saw why they were crying. Between the two of them was a laptop, I could see the track playing out on the screen, a song I recognized after hearing it so many times. In the picture next to it I saw a face I recognized. It was a face form the news paper, from a story of a car accident that involved a drunk driver.
I backed away, still unnoticed. I didnâ??t know what to do so I just stood back and listened.
â??She never finished the music to this one.â? Melody commented, her voice sounded strong despite the tears on her cheeks.
â??I know.â? The mother choked out the words, quiet and weak in comparison.
They listened longer.
â??She never could quite fix that mistake.â? Melody noted, still a teacher beneath the sadness.
â??I know.â? Her mother said even weaker, it sounded as though the words were strangling her.
I watched a tear drip form the motherâ??s eye and then I hurried out the door, realizing this would be the last time I heard her singing as I left. I couldnâ??t stay, I couldnâ??t watch them grieve for the stranger that I never knew but despised so deeply. I could not comfort them, I could not dry their tears, leaving was all I could do. As I stood outside and waited and sickening realization dawned upon me. In some dark and twisted way I got my wish. I wasnâ??t the only one that lost my voice, I just wish she didnâ??t have to lose everything else with it.
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