Teach Me

       The numbers on the house matched the ones in the crumpled ad she held, and her feet shifted to stay grounded on the cement as she waited. Waited for her body to move, do something. She was nervous and she knew it, but she tacked her quavering up to the cool breeze and shuffled her scarf so that it hid more of her face. Her jaw stung with anticipation, and after a minute of her heels and cheeks twitching, she threw her shoulders back and knocked on the door. Some of the paint chipped away when she did, and she stared at her hands, wishing she’d worn gloves to pick at the threads or at the very least hide her palms.

            The door rattled open quickly; she hadn’t heard anyone approach and did not have adequate time to ready herself for what she was about to do. Startled, she was pushed away with a small gasp, leaving a bewildered expression on the face behind the door.

            His hair was sort of shaggy, but not in a bad way because it curled down to the end to account for the messiness. He looked even messier as her panic made her vision spin. Words wouldn’t work in the mechanisms between her teeth, so for several moments, all they did was assess each other warily from opposing sides of the stoop.

            “Can I help you?”

            He could. He could.She straightened her back and held up the ad, though it was crinkled.

            “I’m here about your ad.”

            His eyes were no longer warped with confusion, but then he studied her like she was empty, his sight jolting around her silhouette.

            “Oh, alright, usually people set up an appointment, but – “

            “Is it really true?” she cut him off after he closed the door behind her. The tiny flat was incredibly dark compared to the stingy white November outside, but she couldn’t swallow her air well enough to notice, not in the moment. Maybe another time she would have inspected it, glanced around to decipher details of who this person that she had sought for so long was, but she had more immediate matters to attend to. “Is it true that you can teach people how to love?”

            He looked at her emptily again, but it was a different kind of empty. “What?”

            “Your ad!” she shook it for emphasis and held it out to him. He squinted to try to see it, but she moved it away too fast and the dimness he cultivated did little to help. 

            “It says you can teach people how to love!”

            “I teach…. guitar lessons. You must have the wrong place – “

            “I do not! I do not have the wrong place! Are you A. P.? Lives at 099 Mirth St.? Lessons in love! Every Sunday – Wednesday! It’s Wednesday! And I need the lessons!”

            “It is Wednesday, and that’s my address and initials, but I don’t, I – “

            And when she realized he wasn’t messing with her, all the hope she had curdled and she felt herself sinking. She read the ad again in the dark, mostly to herself. “Lessons by A. P., 099 Mirth St., Sunday through Wednesday, expertise in… guitar.” And then she saw that it was dark inside. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck fuck. I’m, I can’t believe - I’m so sorry, I’ll – “ and as she tried to raise herself from the ground it spun around her and she tumbled, and A. P. dove to catch her with a shout before the room wasn’t just dark anymore, it was black, and her fingers were so cold they were numb.

            When she opened her eyes again, she felt like liquid and her ears rang with noise. Control was far from in her grasp and her back was being supported by something shifting, so it was hardly supported at all and she felt herself waver. She didn’t feel safe, and then the fear gripped her again so that she looked out with some clarity. A. P. was dragging her upright in his arms, and she feebly reached for the couch he was trying to get her to, as he was not getting very far himself. 

            “Whoa, whoa, okay,” he said, though in her hazy mind the syllables blurred together so it seemed like he said nothing at all. 

            “Did I… blackout?” she croaked as she was settled on the lump of cushions.

            “Seems so,” A. P. said, a deliberate kind of anxiety wracking over his limbs as he dissolved into a part of the gray space. She took several moments and collected her mind, waiting for it to stop spinning, like a DVD disk after the movie is done. She could hear her heart shifting off; it had nothing to play anymore. She had tricked herself into believing she could be taught, that she could learn. How foolish, how naïve. Her palms were frigidly empty, and though the room has stopped spinning and her head sat stably on her shoulders, she sunk. 

A. P. came back with a chattering glass of water, and neither of them really knew how it would help but she took it when he held it out with both hands. “Here.”

            For not having just passed out, he seemed more rattled than her.

            “Thanks.” She took a small sip as he sat in a cramped, worn armchair across from her. It wasn’t much of a distance as the room was so small, and in the dark she squinted to see his figure in the chair. She thought it was a light green color, the same color as her jacket, but she couldn’t be sure. “I’m so – “

“If you don’t mind my asking, who are you and why did you show up on my doorstep and then ask me to teach you how to love?” he cut her off, more unapologetically than his words implied, and watched her for an answer. 

            She sat up. “I’m Nona - my name, it’s Nona. Like Luna, but no.”

            He looked puzzled, seemingly having forgotten the formality of a simple introduction. That was fair, she supposed. Though they had never met before, after the happenings of the last few minutes, they were far from total strangers.

            “I’m Arin.”

            “Like Aaron?”

            “No, Arin like Arin.”

            “… sure.”

            “Anyway,” he said, suddenly sure and serious again. “I think it’s fair to say that I deserve an explanation.”

            She sighed, setting the glass in her lap. “You do. Well, I just…” 

And it took some time, some snowballing of emotions before the words flooded out, and as she spoke, she realized how truly stupid she had been. It was a long while before she could take a full breath, and even then it was thin. When she was silent, so was he. He just stared at his hands. The silence was more overwhelming than her feelings, so she kept speaking, even though he didn’t seem to register she had started again. It didn’t matter. He got his explanation. This was for her now. 

            “I don’t think the problem is having the ability to love, I think I have that. I just, I don’t know how to… be in love. Being in love is different from loving, right? Or giving love? Right? Because, I don’t think I’ve even been in love, or fallen in love, and… somethingmust be broken in me, right? Because it’s not from lack of effort. In love is not an individual thing… If no one else will be in love with me, how can I be in love? I want to be. Is there a way? That’s why I needed lessons. I want to know how to fall in love. How to make it happen.”

            She looked at him, hoping he had answers, even though he only taught guitar and that was a completely different variety of strings. 

Have answers, he did. But they weren’t the ones she’d hoped for. Even before he spoke, she seemed to know, but her head and feet ached too much to have that be the end.

            “There is nothing to… learn about being in love. Or falling in love. It just… happens.”

            “How?”

            “What?”

            “How can it just happen? I’ve been trying to get it to happen, but it hasn’t. So, if it just happens, why hasn’t it?”

            “It’s just not something you can try for.”

            “But it must be! Because people seek love, they find love. They’re looking. It’s rarely spontaneous. Everyone says you have to put effort into a relationship! So how can you tell me that it’s effortless?”

            He shrugged and stuttered, because he didn’t really know either, but he knew how it was. He had some ideas, and she had come for them. Even if he only really knew the language of frets and chords and strings. He knew enough. He supposed everyone did. Everyone except Nona, apparently. Something inside him crackled with pity, and another flickered with curiosity. “It’s just how it is. It’s not like a job search. You can’t strategize, or plan, or – “

            “But why not?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Why can’t you strategize or plan or anticipate?”

            He shook off her completion of his cut off sentence. “I suppose you can, but it doesn’t do you any good.” Anticipating her next question, he went on. “Because it just happens. And you can’t know who it will be with or how it will start or anything, so you could waste your time and make a whole lot of plans and worry until you’re sick but it won’t do you good because when it happens it’s nothing you could have planned for.”

            “But… what if you plan correctly?”

            “I… I’m not sure you really can.”

            They both sat, evaluating. She took another sip of the water, now very lukewarm. 

            “I just,” she said, shaking her head, and this time he tilted his to look at her. “I wish I knew what it felt like.”

            “…what?’

            After all of this, she looked at him dumbly. “Being in love.”

            “Oh… okay. Why?”

            “I guess so I knew if it was worth it. If it lives up to the hype.” She tried to laugh; it was more of a choke. “To see… if it’s what I really want. Because I can be happy without it, right?”

            He nodded shortly. She wasn’t very convinced, but she took it. “Yeah, so, does it really matter? I don’t know. I just… wish I knew what it felt like.” Every time she repeated it, the words rang hollower.

            Silence hovered and made her hands itch. The distance between them was too short for her to realize that he was leaning closer until his lips were on hers, soft and uncertain and not at all what she had expected. It was a request, an olive branch, the only definite answer he could give. She was startled to realize that she didn’t mind his presence, being so close, and she parted her mouth cautiously. His hands settled on her cheeks, fingers twining in her windblown, frazzled curls, and the weight felt comfortable, careful. She hadn’t considered the sweetness of a kiss beforehand, how it could ask everything and nothing. Arin was soft but present. He didn’t expect anything from her, but he was just answering her inquiries anyway.

            The comfort was not lost when he finally pulled away. Just the sweetness, the closeness.

            When they both sat back, she took a breath as the realization settled in. 

            “I don’t love you.”

            He nodded as if that’s what he’d expected. 

            “You don’t love me.”

            His head nodded to the other side. 

            “That – “ she referred to the kiss, not wanting to define it in case she’d gotten it wrong, “Wasn’t love.”

            He sighed, agreeing again, but not entirely. “But that’s how it can start.”

            For the first time he met her eyes unequivocally. 

It could have been a moment, it could have truly could have been “the start”, but it wasn’t, and they both knew it. 

“I don’t love you.”

“No, you don’t.”

They both sighed, uncertain where to go from there. But she realized she’d gotten all the answers she could get from there, though none were what she had expected, or wanted. But she had wanted what was easy, and no matter how frustrated she was with all of it, she knew enough to know that easy wasn’t how it would happen. 

Arin was calm, unmoving and still like he’d been before, able to hold himself lightly yet firmly. She wished she knew how to do that, but then again, that wasn’t her. Stillness scared her, calm frightened her into action. So she stood and Arin watched her stand. After a moment of twitching confusion, she handed him her glass, which he promptly set on an end table. That was all.

“Well, um, thank you, and I’m so sorry for just barging in – “

“No,” he said like he was going to reach out to take her arm, but then he didn’t. “You don’t need to be sorry. It was an honest mistake. And hey, if you ever need guitar lessons, I’m the guy.”

Nona smiled, genuinely, thankfully. “I might like that. Thank you for the – the… the water,” she stuttered, not wanting to mention the kiss. “And for listening,” she added, quietly though. He still heard. 

He shrugged, perhaps trying to hide a faint blush, and some of the dimness in the room faded. “Someone had to. I hope you… learned something.”

“You know, I think I did.”

“I don’t recommend hitting up anymore Craigslist ads, though. You don’t know what trouble you could get into.”

“Yeah, I’m starting to think that that wasn’t my best idea. But I think I’m alright now. I think I know what to do.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

They watched each other, smiling tentatively, until the stillness was overwhelming again and she turned to the door.

“Thank you, again, and I’m – “

“Goodbye, Nona.”

“… Goodbye, Arin.”

She was gone, back into the harsh light, but she’d left behind her ad. He laughed and picked it up from the couch. It was too dark and crumpled to make out any words, or really anything at all. He shook his head and reminded himself to not worry about it, setting it on the table next to the glass. Before he sat again, he swiped his guitar from the corner it rested in.

He thought carefully before setting his fingers on the strings, and after humming to himself, plucked out a sweet little melody. It wasn’t from anything; it was nothing he’d played before. He built it as it went until the light inside was greater than outside, and in his hands he held a song.