Out of This World

Andy

Andy sat in her room, feeling downtrodden. She had walked home from school and barely said a word all evening; she knew her mother could tell something was wrong.

She heard a knock at the door, but didn't bother responding. She could tell the difference among the three other members of her household when they knocked: her father's knock was a sharp rapping, her mother's a light tapping, and her sister's a solid thunk. This knock was a light tapping, and her mother never bothered with permission.

Sure enough, the door opened readily and her mother walked in. Andy did not move from where she sat despondent at the desk, waiting for her mother to speak.

"Something is wrong," her mother started.

Andy, not facing her, rolled her eyes. No duh, she thought.

"Can you tell me what it is?" There was a sort of earnest quality in her mother's voice that Andy did not hear all that often. Her mother could be an overly critical person, something her sister had picked up as well. She did not often lend herself to warm kindness, or verbal intimacy. Andy and her father, however, threw themselves wholeheartedly into both.

She sighed, and turned towards the window. "Someone... who I thought was my best friend said something very mean to me today."

"I'm sure whoever this person is will come around," her mother supplied unhelpfully. "They were probably just having a bad day."

Andy turned to face her mom. "That's the thing, Mom. I don't think they lashed out because they were simply having a bad day... I know what they look like in a pissy mood. This wasn't that."

Her mother shrugged, at a loss. "I'm sorry, baby."

"Despite the fact, I can't even bring myself to be angry at him," she said.

"Him?" her mother questioned, leaning forward a bit in interest.

Andy sighed again. "Yeah, him. My best friend is a guy, Mom."

"Oh, okay," her mother said, sensing the peeved tone of Andy's voice, and leaned back a bit to sit more comfortably on her bed.

"I am sure he is more mad at himself than he is at you," her mother soothed, standing up and resting her hand lightly on Andy's shoulder. "And something tells me you care for him more than you're letting on."

Andy didn't say anything, she just watched as her mother left the room, closing the door behind her. She turned her attention back to her math homework with another dejected sigh. She didn't understand any of this; she wished Krel was here to help her.

Another half hour passed, Andy mulling over math problems with an air of general confusion. She used Khan Academy liberally, but not even its great wisdom could teach her polynomial functions.

Just as she was beginning to give up, there was a tapping at her window. At first Andy thought it was just the wind knocking the branches of the tree outside her window against the glass panes, but they were a bit too even and regular to be the wind or the tree.

She went over to the window and opened it, expecting it to be nothing. She certainly did not expect to open her window to find Krel crouched on a tree limb, holding a guitar with an earnest expression on this face.

"KREL! What the-" she gasped, taking a deep breath. "What the fuck are you doing outside my window?! My second story window?!"

He sighed. "I know I messed up this morning. I said things that I should not have, because I was dealing with feelings I was not accustomed to feeling. However that is no excuse. I am here to say I am sorry." The whole time he did not make eye contact with her, only looking down at his guitar, as if he were afraid of what she'd do or say if he looked into her eyes.

Andy did not know what to expect.

Krel took a deep breath, situating the guitar in his lap, and then began to play a song. It was slow, and in a minor key. It had a four note pattern that Andy only sort of recognized, but loved instantly.

It told the story of a matador who no longer wanted to fight bulls, and it was told as an apology from the matador to the bull. It was a figurative apology, but one that Andy understood truly and wholly.

And Krel? Krel had an amazing voice. Andy had always suspected he could sing, but nothing like this. This was absolutely incredible.

"I'm sorry, Toro I am sorry," Krel sang, and Andy could see the music on his face. "Hear my song, and know I sing the truth, and although we were bred to fight, I reach for kindness in your eyes tonight." He looked at me when he sang that line. "And if you can forgive and if you can forgive, love will truly live, and if you can forgive and if you can forgive, love will truly live." He drew out the last note on the guitar and let it hang in the air for a heartbeat, before releasing the breath Andy hadn't realized he'd been holding. He looked up at her, not saying anything.

Eyes filled with tears over how touched she was and how beautiful his performance was, she threw her arms around the boy in a warm embrace and tried to hold back her tears. Ultimately she failed, sobbing into his shoulder. He set the guitar gingerly inside the window and returned Andy's embrace with strong arms. Andy wanted very badly to kiss him right now, but she sensed that might be in poor taste.

When the two of them broke apart and Andy wiped the tears from her eyes, Krel spoke. "I didn't know how to make it up to you," he said, climbing into her room and sitting on her bed. "So I did one of the two things I am good at. Do you... forgive me?"

"I forgive you," she said, sniffling. "I do forgive you." She saw Krel attempt to discreetly wipe away his own tears.

"Good," he breathed, voice a little ragged with emotion. "Thank Seklos."

"Krel, I didn't know you could sing like that!" Andy exclaimed, after a brief moment of silence.

He shrugged. "It is just something I enjoy."

"Well I enjoyed it too," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder.

He reached up and placed his hand on top of hers in an almost romantic tender gesture that definitely caught Andy a little off guard. "I am glad."