My fingers tremble over the strings of a guitar that was last touched over a decade ago. This melody is as unfamiliar to it as it is to me. You see, this little one is used to rock, to the hard edge of a mediator and blood lining the frets from hours of practice. So this calmness is quite unfamiliar, so unfamiliar it’s almost funny, but she takes it well, and if she feels uneasy in her new skin, she doesn’t show it.
It was a pain even getting her to sing, as now her wire only works if you plug it in from a certain angle, and her tuning’s dropped down almost painfully. I couldn’t even tell you why we decided to get her out, or why we’re even here, but if I focus long enough on the golden light filtering through the windows, I can pretend we’re 19 again, and everything starts to make sense.
Chris stares at me expectantly, as if a part of him is waiting for me to play one of our old riffs, the ones that would ring out in stuffy bars and derelict parking lots. My wrist just cracks.
“Not in the best shape are you?”
“You’re one to talk.”
Chris chuckles, “I guess I am, eh? With every passing day I feel like I’m closer to arthritis. Amy says she can hear my bones weakening.”
“She has quite a mouth on her, don’t she?”
“Always did.”
“Always did.”
I strum another chord, if only to fill the silence. Dust floats around us like a swarm of lost fireflies, drifting aimlessly, aimlessly, aimlessly.
“How’s your sister?” Chris asks after a while. I avert my eyes while I try to think of a suitable answer. Leaves fall outside the window.
“Well, you know how Ella is.”
“Only if she’s still the same as she was.”
“Does anyone ever change?”
Silence falls over us again, and I’m afraid I’ve spooked him, but Chris only chuckles again, “Do you still like baked apples?”
I laugh, the same apples my mama used to make every weekend? I want to ask.
“How could I not?” I say instead.
“Well, I guess we have our answer.”
“I guess we do.”
“I guess we do.”
Another chord paints a street in front of us, like the ones we used to run through back when there were four of us.
“How are Johnny and Miller?”
Chris hums noncommittally, “Johnny’s married.”
“That’s lovely.”
“Sure. To that chick who did photography.”
“Called it.”
A throaty laugh, the exact one he always had, “I’m glad I came, you know?”
“Are you?”
And how could he be? How could he return home knowing he cannot stay?
“Yeah.”
And I know he means it with all his heart, and yet I cannot hold myself back from another question. Will he answer? Does he miss the past as much as I do?
“Will you stay?”
It comes out wrong and accusatory and strained, but Chris hears me anyway, hears the words for how they were really meant, which is will you remember?
“I feel like I never truly leave.”
I set the guitar down, and probably won’t pick it up for another while. We become engulfed in a strange stillness; the sun draws a line on the wooden floorboards, childrens’ muffled laughs drift through the window. I want to ask him to elaborate the way I would’ve when we were 19; I want to beg him to stay a little, to humour me and let me pretend, just briefly, that nothing has changed and we still play at being rock stars in our parents’ attic. Instead, the words shrivel up on my tongue, and this fleeting moment of connection fades into memory just like the rest of our youth.
“Maybe you should visit sometime,” Chris says, and it’s like a peace-offering, a hand extended.
“I’d love that.”
Chris smiles, and his mouth wrinkles around the corners, “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
The world quietens a little, and, for once, the weight of the past doesn’t feel so heavy anymore- only a gentle pressure, like a faint knock on the door, a reminder that it’s always present.