Ben critiqued my piano rendition of Candle In The Wind this morning by pointing out some of my notes are off. I play by ear. If I can make the chords I'm fucking thrilled. If I can't, I chip away at it until I can.
He puts his big over-the-ear headphones on me and tells me to have a listen with those. He is 'helping' me. He hates the fact (they all do, I know) that I can't hear things.
Oh. Wow.
Right?
There's guitar?
Jesus. His face falls. It's the only way I can teach them it's merely hurtful to keep rubbing it in and that unless I live in these headphones and have all sound filtered through them this isn't going to do anything but continue to highlight a flaw I can't ever fix.
Hearing aids are awful. I've tried a dozen different ones at price points ranging from five hundred to twelve thousand dollars, trust me. I hate the way they feel. I hate the way things sound. I'm better off missing the noise if that's how I'm going to be presented with it. A rusted tin radio with terrible reception and almost-drained batteries.
Ben is still hopeful. Maybe an ear transplant.
I shrug. Maybe, turning my attention back to my keys and he plants a kiss on the back of my neck, headed downstairs to his own music.
I change the song to Levon and change all the lyrics to be about Ben. He comes back and leaves a second kiss.
***
Had a day off from my brain yesterday. It got a lot worse, Jake came into the house and they called Joel.
Joel is like Caleb but with more connections and now I'm strung the fuck out on ghosts and benzos and no one cares if I can play the piano or if I'm drooling down the side of my cheek because at least I'm not screaming. At least now I'm quiet and not fighting and not losing whatever's left of my fucking mind.
At least I stuck around to do the hard parts. Jake just comes back to make this harder.
***
Lochlan didn't want Joel here.
I got her. I got this! Get BACK. He insisted. I heard him pleading. Heard his voice break as he struggled to be heard over me yelling. Heard him pointing out over and over again that this is his fight. That he's in charge. That he can fix this if they just leave us alone.
But they won't. Too risky. They just want it fixed before the kids see me. Before it gets any worse and they can't deal with it at home. Before they're no longer able to send the ghosts away with a good nights sleep and a perfect high.
Before it's too late for anything at all. If I could feel anything right now it would be sympathy for him.
Why didn't you tell me, Peanut?
I didn't want to hurt you too.
His face falls. Just like Ben's did later on the same morning over the music. It's just another flaw I can never fix and I wonder what the dealbreaker point is now for him.
There isn't one. He kisses my face. Oh. There are tears. I can't even feel them but I guess my body is sad (perhaps from memory) while my mind doesn't care about a damn thing right now.
Then I am crying for you, I guess, I tell him.