If I Fell

Prologue

With a loud groan, the young girl dropped her head onto the piano, the keys slamming down angrily and filling the room in an echoing boom.

As the sound faded away with a threatening warble, the woman set herself stiffly onto the edge of the piano bench. Without so much a word, the girl shuffled down, giving the woman more needed room. As she moved, her forehead dragged along the piano keys, the sound dropping down a note with the passing progress.

Trying – though very much failing – at hiding the smile that crinkled the papery skin about her eyes, the old woman just looked forward, her hands hovering above the keys slightly. “Be careful of the piano,” announced the woman finally, not letting her fingers brush the instrument. “It’s older than you.”

“Grandma,” the girl whined, not so much as raising her head.

Smiling kindly, the woman let her hands fall away from the gleaming ivory keys, one landing lightly on her lap while the other brushed over her granddaughter’s dark hair. “What is it, love?” she asked softly, although she could easily guess what was bothering the girl.

What bothered teenage girls? It had been the same for longer than she could remember. It was always love, friends or family, sometimes all three at once at once. Although they affected more than teenage girls.

“Mom is driving me insane,” she mumbled.

Half right so far, the elderly woman thought as she halted the stroking gesture, her hand moving to tuck her long since greying hair behind her ear before it fell to her lap as well. “Your mother is… your mother,” she said slowly, unsure of what she could say.

“She’s crazy,” announced the girl bluntly, pushing up from the piano, letting the bright blue eyes that so mirrored her grandmother’s look up boldly.

Trying not to smile at the familiarity of the emotion that her granddaughter was feeling, the woman looked back to the elegant black instrument in front of them. Knowing very well that there truly wasn’t a thing she could say that would completely cure the girl’s ailment, she said simply, “Your mother adores you.”

With a very unladylike snort, the young girl shoved her delicately curling hair behind her ears absentmindedly. “The way she acts, I doubt that.”

Typical feelings of teenage angst cannot be ignored; they’re just as potent as anything else. Maybe even more important if you look at the enormity of things. And that was something that had never faded from the older woman’s mind, her once dark gypsy curls might have faded and her brilliant blue eyes might have dulled, but she never doubted that. Carefully, she spoke, “She just wants what’s best for you.”

Yet that proved to be the wrong thing to say, as the woman should have guessed. “She wants what she thinks is best for me! It’s what was best for her, but we’re not the same person! I’m not her and I never will be. That’s what she doesn’t understand!”

“Shh,” crooned the old woman, twining her arm around the teenage girl’s shoulder. “Don’t worry; I know exactly what you mean.”

“Just the very idea of getting married in general is barbaric,” sniffed the girl, leaning her head onto her grandmother’s shoulder, “Let alone your mother questioning you about it when you’re just getting out of high school.”

Now smiling broadly, the woman just rubbed the girl’s shoulder consolingly. “Don’t worry, she doesn’t want you to get married right now, I doubt she’d allow you to anyways. Your mother has just always been rather blunt and pushy.”

“Understatement of the year,” mumbled the girl.

“She just really likes your boy right now; it’s the first that she’s ever approved of.”