The Love Who Gives Me Wings: Finding My Voice: Chapter 4

He believes in me when I can't

Kai leaves his number on my piano.

Along with a single piece of sheet music. Not one of my old songs, but something new. Hand-written in his careful script.

"Song for Lily"

The melody is haunting. Simple enough that I could play it with one hand, complex enough that it makes my chest ache with recognition.

It sounds like hope learning to breathe again.

I sit at the piano for hours, just staring at the notes. Not playing them—I haven't touched the keys since the surgery—but feeling them in my bones.

At midnight, I finally call.

He answers on the first ring.

"Lily?"

I can't speak, but I don't hang up. Just breathe into the phone, letting him know I'm here.

"I know you can't talk," he says softly. "That's okay. I can talk enough for both of us."

[gentle piano music begins]

"I'm at my piano," he continues. "Playing your song. The one from the demo that I should have said yes to."

The music drifts through the phone, and my throat tightens with memory.

"You know what I hear when I play this? I hear someone who isn't afraid to break. Someone who turns pain into beauty." His voice goes rough. "Someone who reminds me why I fell in love with music in the first place."

I press my hand to my chest, feeling my heart keep time with his playing.

"I wrote something for you," he says. "A song. Will you let me play it?"

I tap the phone twice. Our makeshift code for yes.

The melody that fills my apartment is everything I heard in the sheet music and more. Tender and fierce and achingly familiar.

It sounds like rain on windows. Like breath becoming rhythm. Like silence finding its voice.

"The lyrics are missing," Kai says when the last note fades. "I was hoping you might help me find them."

Before I can lose my nerve, I hang up and drive to his apartment.

He answers the door like he was waiting for me.

"Lily—"

I hand him a piece of paper: I want to try.

His smile could power the lighthouse.

He leads me to his piano, a beautiful old upright covered in sheet music and coffee rings. The song he wrote for me sits open on the music stand.

"Together?" he asks.

I nod and settle beside him on the bench.

He plays the opening bars, and I close my eyes. Let the melody wash over me like a familiar embrace.

When he reaches the first verse, I open my mouth.

Nothing comes out.

I try again. Push harder, willing sound to emerge from my damaged throat.

Silence.

Frustration builds in my chest, hot and familiar. I start to pull away, but Kai catches my hand.

"Music doesn't always need voice," he murmurs. "Sometimes it just needs heart."

He plays the melody again, slower this time. Gentler.

"Breathe it," he says. "Don't sing it. Just... let it exist."

I close my eyes and breathe the song instead of singing it. Let the rhythm fill my lungs, my chest, my entire body.

And something magic happens.

My throat relaxes. My shoulders drop. The frantic need to force sound gives way to something softer.

Something like trust.

Kai plays the bridge, and I feel a whisper of vibration in my throat. Not sound exactly, but the memory of it.

"That's it," he breathes. "Don't push. Just let it come."

The third time through the chorus, something shifts.

A sound escapes. Barely audible, more breath than tone.

But it's there.

[soft, tentative humming]

Tears stream down my face as the whisper of melody grows stronger. Still fragile, still broken in places, but unmistakably mine.

Kai's playing never wavers, holding space for my damaged voice to remember itself.

By the final verse, I'm humming along clearly. Not the powerful voice I used to have, but something new. Something scarred and beautiful and real.

When the last note fades, we sit in perfect silence.

"How does it feel?" Kai asks eventually.

I test my speaking voice, careful and quiet: "Like coming home."

The words are rough, gravelly, nothing like the polished singer I used to be.

They're perfect.

"I'm sorry," I whisper. "For running. For not trusting you."

"I'm sorry for taking so long to find you. For all the music we might have made if I'd been braver two years ago."

I turn to face him on the piano bench.

"Maybe we weren't ready then," I say, echoing his words from the lighthouse. "Maybe we needed to break first. To learn what silence sounds like."

He cups my face in his hands, thumbs brushing away my tears.

"And what does it sound like?"

I lean into his touch, feeling my voice settle into this new, imperfect form.

"Like the space between notes. Like potential waiting to be born."

When he kisses me, I taste salt and promises and the echo of every song I thought I'd lost forever.

"I love your voice," he whispers against my lips. "This voice. The one that knows what it means to fight for every sound."

[rain beginning against windows]

Outside, a storm gathers. Inside, we sit at the piano as rain applauds against the glass.

And for the first time in months, I sing.

Like rain on windows, your love sounds like applause.

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