Your melody led me to where you were that day when the leaves started falling. My soles crunched against the barest bones of the brown and red landscape, guiding my way towards the outskirts. What more can I say? Husks lead to more husks, like how bruised people maim others. It was a cycle. Kind of how seasons are.

The peeling asphalt, the growing potholes, and the loose cobblestones paved the path leading to you. Cigarette smoke mixed with the tang of sweat and rancid butter was thick, sticking into the walls of my nose and the edges of my memory. It was the kind of place you were not supposed to be in, and if what you said about me had been true, I should not be here too.

But we were. Against the odds, and even though you knew nothing about me finding you, we were there, breathing the same rotten air, hearing the same scratches of claws against cement walls, and losing ourselves into the fantasy that we were alone.

You were not alone that day, and it should have stayed that way even when you knew it.

Plumes of poison rippled in front of your face, distracting me from the fluid dance your fingers did over black and white keys. The discarded piano, one who might have been owned by a world class soloist or a washed-out dreamer who thought they could be more, witnessed your languid melody. Maybe it was happy it was played after a long time of being passed by people who could not care less, but the notes were slow and dark. Dismal.

Desperate.

I knew a thing or two about music, and those notes, they came from you.

The shadows hid me well, and you have not looked up, not even once. That was how you failed to see me, to remind me of your innocent smile or the hooded gaze telling me you have secrets while betraying none. That was how you failed, in more than one way. I would have called out to you, filled you with endless praise for what I thought you could do, made you the dreamer you were not meant to be, but the shadows were a comfortable home I could stay in and never go to.

When you stopped, it was a quick halt. You cut off the shrill and out-of-tune trills as if you did not know what lay beyond. Or, based on the way your shoulders tensed, your eyes narrowed, and the corners of your lips plunged deeper, you knew but could not face it for what it was.

It was yet another one of your secrets, and I accepted I could not learn them even if I had a lifetime. And as if you were listening to my innermost thoughts, you made sure I never get one. Because you were a liar, a hypocrite, and at that moment, you were a thief.

When the dark could no longer be held back, you left your melody unfinished and my heart in need for more. You started going home.

Perhaps it was my youth, my ignorance, and my fault, but I came along without you knowing it. You did not notice, and because of that, you failed once more.

You failed to hide your truth from someone who had been doing the same thing for eternity.

Behind the ancient, gnarly tree in your yard, past the white picket fence, and through the glass windows with the curtains drawn back, I watched a scene from a movie that was your life, and from there, I understood why you tried to hide it. When screams and demands follow you on your way to your room, when complaints result in fistfuls of hair grabbed, punches thrown, and words wielded like knives, you would want to melt into the nearest wall. You would want to run.

You would want to disappear.

Perhaps that was why you believed words should be said, and why words outlive those who uttered them. Having received those daggers yourself, you would know.

Dear God, you would know better than anyone.