Hallelujah

I'd heard rumors of a secret chord that David played. I heard it pleased the Lord to no end since it was so beautiful. Maybe because only one person knew how to play it. For whatever reason, I sure didn't know. It was a mystery to someone such as me to know that King David could play such a chord.

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She didn't care for music. Not like I did. It was one of the many things we didn't have in common. Then again, we had very little in common, even after we first met.

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I believed in the Lord well enough, but I wasn't willing to give up my life for it. I remember reading old stories from the Bible as a child, but quit coming to church. The sermons and the talk had annoyed my mother to no end, who had only gone to try and save her marriage to my father, whom I never remotely liked once in my life.

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She was a Christian, from what I thought of her, not willing to believe in anything other than the word of God. She only read the Bible from my knowledge, as she had done for years before I had met her. Actually, she didn't believe it, she felt that she needed the proof for it, but still read the Bible and attended church regularly. Her faith was true, but she needed proof, as she told me time and time again.

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The first time I had actually met her was when I was visiting a friend across town. While walking home, I spotted a figure, lying on the roof of a tall house, bathing in the moonlight. I had called up to her and she climbed down, glaring at me most of the time. We exchanged names and I offered her a place to sleep other than the roof of her father's home. Later, I had learned she was kicked out of her home by her father, who had not wanted anything to do with her or her 'imaginary' God.

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For a while, I allowed her to stay in my ratty home, giving her a bed to sleep on and food to eat. During this time, though, we had become an item, but never left the comfort of the house we lived in. For my whole life, I had been a bachelor, never dating and focusing on school more than girls.

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After some time, we were constantly arguing over little things. One of the most memorable times for these fights was when she tied to a kitchen chair and cut my long, unruly hair. I admit, it was something stupid to fight about, but I liked my hair long, unlike others. She criticized me for it, saying that only women should have hair that long unless you are over the age of fifty with a beard longer than the hair growing from your scalp.

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For the first time in my life, while she was untying me from the chair, I thought of a word I had only heard of in the few times I had gone to church: hallelujah.

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Why that one word? Why not the words, 'oh shit,' instead, like I would've thought before I met her. I wasn't sure of it myself. Not then, and not now, nor will I ever know why that came into my strange mind.

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I walked the empty house I used to call home a few years ago. It's been years since I moved out, but a quick visit every now and then brought me back to the past. Fantasizing about what we would've done if we still lived there, I remembered where everything had gone. I could place the furniture in the exact places they were before we left, just as I had them for years like our favorite couch sitting on the far right side of the room and the TV just across from it.

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I used to live alone before I knew her. Never having a room-mate, I was left alone to pay the bills and buy food for myself. I could hardly believe I walked those floors before I knew her, living alone. Once she had started living with me, she had taken some pressure from my life off of my shoulders. It was easier to live with her than just myself.

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Before she knew me, she was a proud woman, always going for a fight instead of laying back and relaxing every once in a while, like I had done. She always held a flag in her honor, acknowledging no one but herself. Obviously, we weren't the same. In fact, we were the opposite.

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During a darker time in our relationship, she was quiet, insecure about everything. She wouldn't tell me a damn thing unless I forced her to open her mouth. Every time I had asked her what was wrong, she shut down and said that she was fine. Unlike before, she made it seem like she didn't want me in her life at all.

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Eventually, I confronted her and finally, I drew the answer from her lips. She was afraid. Of what, do you ask? She was afraid of falling in love. How could falling in love be so scary, you think? It can be very scary because you aren't sure what you're getting yourself into. What if my heart gets broken? What if something happens? What if I'm not really in love? These are the things that ran through her mind. That and one word: hallelujah.

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That night, I told myself, 'maybe there is a God,' as I drifted off to sleep while the girl of my dreams silently slept in my arms. Maybe I was in love. The only thing I learned as a child was to try and be better than the next person, get through life with no regrets. That's what my father had told me after my mother left us. I was the only reason she stayed in the first place.

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Soon after, I had started attending church with her and had gained a new perspective on love. Everyone said it was some sort of burning passion from deep within your soul. But, I had never believed that. That wasn't what love was. Love wasn't a victory march after a bitter war against rivals. Love wasn't a cry you could hear at night. It wasn't somebody who'd seen the light. It was a cold and broken hallelujah, as the pastor explained.

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That's what she had been. She was broken and cold hearted until I came along and made her realize it. And she was the same to me. We were two puzzle pieces that fit together perfectly, not just two people looking for anyone in particular. We had never meant to find each other, love or the Lord for that matter. When we first met, we were thinking of how we were going to pay the bills and how we would get well-paying jobs.

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We were changed and nobody could say otherwise.

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