Piano Strings

Chapter 6

Yoongi POV

I suppose I could have emailed her. Working in the same district, I could easily look up her work email address. But, I felt it would be unprofessional to use a district resource for personal reasons. Whenever I met with Bob for district collaboration once a month, I hoped he would bring her up.

In January, he mentioned that she had asked him if he knew me. I figured that must be how she found out about the winter concert. In February, she never came up. He didn't mention her in March, either. I wondered how she was, but I didn't want to seem like a creepy stalker. I missed her. For someone I only knew for a few fleeting moments, I missed her. I wondered if she ever thought about me.

My best remedy was to drown myself in work, in particular in finalizing the music arrangements for the district middle school music concert I had spearheaded. When it was decided at the April district collaboration meeting that the concert would be held at her school, I had mixed feelings. I wanted to see her, but I was afraid of what would happen if I actually did. To distract myself from the anxiety of possibly seeing her, I started surfing the internet during one of our breaks. I had planned on using the money I had made playing piano at the hospital during the holidays for a vacation in Hawaii during summer break.

My mind started to wander off into thoughts of being with her. If only she would speak to me. If only we could vacation together in Hawaii. We could walk hand-in-hand on the beach as we watched the sunset. Attend a luau. Spend the nights in each other's arms.

"Which island were you thinking of visiting?"

"Huh?" I asked, having been lost in thought.

"Which island?" Bob repeated.

"I haven't decided."

"Well, if you are going for romance, I recommend Maui."

"Yeah, I'm not dating anybody at the moment."

Bob looked at me strangely, then spoke up, "You know, back in December I thought maybe you and Melody might be an item after she asked about you, but I guess my instincts were off."

"Melody? How is she?"

"Good. She's coming along really well considering."

"Oh, no. Did her mother pass away?"

"No. Her mother is responding well to treatment."

He left me baffled. "What do you mean by 'considering'? What happened? Did she get hurt?"

"No. She's fine. In fact, she's . . ." he paused suddenly. "Yoongi, did you and her . . . ? Did you two . . . date?"

"We uh . . . I guess you could say we went out. I really liked her, too. Remember when our AP got fired?"

"Oh, yeah. I think I heard something about that through the grapevine."

"Well, Ginger, our AP, made a move on me after the winter concert. She came on strong. We both thought the auditorium was empty, but Melody was there. She saw Ginger kiss me and ran out of the auditorium. We haven't seen or talked to each other since. I'm pretty sure she blocked me."

Bob's eyes grew wide. "Shit! I'm so sorry, Yoongi. So, you haven't seen her since December?"

"Nope. And I really liked her. A lot. We hadn't been together for long, but I was starting to think she was 'the one', you know?"

He nodded his head and I still was baffled.

"So, what do you mean by 'considering'?"

"Oh, nothing. It's just that it must be hard for her to take care of her mother while working full time. That's all."