We all exist in our own novels. Mine seems to have been set on fire, exchanging ash for any explanation of my origin. The flame left behind enough lines to piece together a pitiful intro chapter, but that is all I was able to gather. The lack of pages in my story doesn’t extinguish my birth, only recontextualizes it. 

I was born sometime in November 2009. I emerged into the world at age 19 with frizzy brown curls and constellation-like freckles. People called me Mae, baristas gave me coffee cups with sharpie marks that spelled out May, or sometimes Mai. I hate it. Call me Maeve, that’s the name I printed on the fancy ‘change your name’ paper at the courthouse. I did it for a reason.

There is nothing that distinguishes me from any other 19 year old on the planet. It’s a snoozefest to learn about. I take college classes online from a university I have yet to learn the name of. I frost cakes at a dying bakery. My friends consist of a stray cat named Leona and the boy who lives next door. I’ve never had a sip of alcohol, I have yet to fall in love. 

Each day I wake up around noon, programmed to make coffee, brush my teeth, and sit at a shaky desk attempting not to break my laptop in half. I’ve learned to make peace with feeling like a shell of a being, its easier than fighting it. When the sun begins to set, it settles at an angle that pierces through my window. An excuse to retire to my pull out couch and obsessively draw until my eyelids force themselves shut. I never know what I’m drawing, my hands carry the pencil without demands from my brain. They draw strange fields I’ve never seen before, apple trees, waterfalls, sometimes I’m stuck filling pages with music notes that I don’t know how to read. The boy next door always begs to play them for me on his guitar. Each time he offers, I can’t restrain myself from letting chuckles slip through my lips. I hear his awful tone-deaf songs through the walls when I can’t sleep, he’s always singing about some highschool love story and it’s painful to listen to.

I rearranged my furniture this morning so the pull out couch is on the opposite side of the room that shares a wall with Dempsey. I haven’t slept in two days and could use some silence at 4 a.m. I barely clocked in on time at work today, not that it matters. The bakery doesn’t exactly have customers racing through the door when we open. Or at any point in the day. I frosted two purple cakes with white buttercream borders, one green cake, and an orange sheet cake. I made a cappuccino for the droopy eyed man, otherwise known as our only regular customer. My boss pocketed all the tips per usual. She always wears those plastic hair clips; the ones that sit obnoxiously on the back of your head. On her way out each day she slides the tip jar off of the counter and swiftly pours the contents into a fake designer purse. I never impose this action, she’s unaware that I know and honestly, I always assumed she had kids just based on her hairstyle. 

As every day goes, I found myself climbing the two flights of stairs that lead up to my apartment. I can never really recall how I end up back here, my mind seems to slip from consciousness on my bus ride home. 

The front door whined when I pushed it open, cutting through echoing piano chords that I just realized were sounding. While attempting to ignore the noise, assuming it was simply another dreadful ballad, I crashed onto my half-bed half-sofa. My arms extended to fetch my sketchbook that had been rudely wedged between two couch cushions and some popcorn kernels from the night before. Simultaneously, my tongue pressed against the roof of my mouth, emitting melodic frequencies. I dropped the notebook to cover my mouth, slapping my face with such aggression that it caused blood to rise in the shape of a handprint. The humming subsided but the melody did not. Each note felt painfully close to a stroke of a pencil, drawing a picture I didn’t recognize. I scooped up my sketchbook and began to dra––

Nothing. I can’t draw what I see. My hands seemed to shake in panic, for this had been their first encounter with intangibility. Before my brain could contradict my body, I carried myself to room 2476 with only one sock on. A frail one, two, three, knocks on the door were exchanged with sour offbeat notes. The door whined, identical to the sound my door makes. Dempsey’s thin figure revealed itself, his face plastered with confusion to hide pathetic excitement.

“Mae!––hey uhm,” He fumbled with his pockets in twitchy motion, while clearing his throat.

“Ahem, what’s up Mae…Maev––”

“Maeve.” 

“Right, sorry, Maeve. Was the piano too loud? It’s a keyboard so I can turn it down if you’d like.” I didn’t respond, the conversation was already painful, too far gone to salvage any inch of small talk. I pressed my hand on his chest, inviting myself into his front hallway. Confused, Dempsey followed me, commenting some sort of joke about my single sock, which I ignored. We awkwardly made our way to the kitchen when I stopped in my tracks. The dinner table was pushed up against a wall, creating a space on the floor for a keyboard surrounded by pencil shavings and sheet music. 

“I hate you.” I whispered while finally meeting eyes with Dempsey. His face told me it needed to see a smile for reassurance. I complied, even added in a flirty giggle.

“Of course you do, what did I do this time?” He seemed less nervous now, his eyebrows relaxed.

“Did you hear me moving furniture this morning?” 

“Yeah, speaking of that it actually woke me up so thanks for tha––” I cut him off to maintain my train of thought.

“Do you know why I was moving furniture?” He shook his head, fluffing up his black curls.

  “I was trying to move my bed further from where your play music, you know, where you always play music? Your room?” My eyes were now smiling. “Your kitchen air vent connects to my living room, I couldn’t escape it even if I wanted to.”

“So it was the piano! I knew it, you could’ve just texted me…” Dempsey trails off as if he had just registered what I said. It was the closest thing to a compliment he had ever received from me.

“Wait, you’re doing that weird thing again. You know that you’re an impossible person to read right?” Goddammit, I really have to spell everything out for this idiot.

“Dempsey.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Don’t call me ma’am.”

“Sorry.” I pressed my pointer finger to his lips and contemplated what to say next.

“I didn’t hate the piano.” I paused, removing my hand from his face.

“Actually I liked it––I mean no, I didn’t like it like it, it was just okay.”

“Okay?” Poor guy, he probably hasn’t exercised his brain this much since high school.

“I didn’t know you played piano, I always just hear the guitar.” I felt silence fall upon us and decided to word vomit out of panic. 

“I was wondering what the piece was called, it uh, I mean I really liked it. I wanted to draw it but I couldn’t. Like the picture seemed to far away to grab. I can’t stop thinking about it now.” Dempsey looked so smug I wanted to punch him across the face. He walked over to a stack of paper that was leaning against a chair leg, functioning as a make shift music stand. He motioned me to join him on the ground and I did, less reluctantly than I would’ve liked.

“Je Te Laisserai Des Mots.”

“I don’t speak french.”

“It means, I’ll leave you with words.” My breath shuddered, releasing uncertainty.

“Can you play it for me. Please?” He placed his hands on a calculated spot within the keys. The first chord echoed, pulling at my heart strings. I laid flat on my back, focusing on one blade of the ceiling fan go around and around until my eyes closed. The darkness of my eyelids wrapped around me. I could feel the song behind my eyes.

“You know this song?” My pupils refocused on the ceiling fan. The piano subsided but the melody did not. I weakly engaged my stomach to sit up as the melody slowly died.

“No, I told you I don’t listen to music.” 

“Oh right I forgot, you don’t listen to music you just stay up all night writing sheet music. Sheet music that I am forbidden to ever touch.” 

“Precisely.” I pushed my cheeks in opposite directions to form a smile. Dempsey opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but instead joined his jaw back together, clenching his teeth. I interrupted his potential train of thought as I jumped onto my feet to get a better glance at the paper. He followed, hurling himself in my direction. 

“Hey! HEY! If I can’t see your secret music you can’t see mine!” In between laughs and tangled body parts I clutched the stack of paper and yelled out.

“Shut it! You’re just being difficult its not even ORIGINAL!” I felt Dempsey’s body relax.

“You win. That’s fair.” Relieved, I caught my breath and scanned through the pages. 

They were strikingly similar to they way my sketches look, only with more detail. The left side of the page had two symbols I already recognized, a curly one on the top lines and a backwards ‘C’ next to a colon on the bottom lines. Last month when Dempsey invaded my notebook out of boredom, he saw a few pages of music notes and took it upon himself to mansplain it to me. All I remember he said before I hit the sketchbook out of his hand was that the curly one was the treble clef and the backwards ‘C’ was called the bass clef. In addition to the two clef symbols, his music also had the numbers 3/4 on both sets of lines and two hashtags––sharp symbols I think, too. I glanced back up at Dempsey, who thankfully seemed to be unbothered by my existence. I returned back to the music, flipped through until my hands froze. 

The third page loudly announced itself to me. Everything was right. Each filled in note was solid black, the white ones were left empty. All the notes that were supposed to be joined together at the bottom were brought to justice with straighter lines than I could construct. 

“Can I have this one?” I looked back up only to find an empty room. What the hell. The toilet flushed behind me, followed by the sound of a sink running for too short of a time to be hygienic. 

“Have what?” Dempsey finally responded while stumbling out of the bathroom. I waved the third sheet of paper through the air and he squinted to make out what it was.

“That’s not how music works Maeve, you’ll have a third of a song and leave me with whats left.”

“I know how music works.”

“Didn’t you say you don’t listen to music?”

“I’m taking this, I’ll give it back tomorrow.” I left without allowing Dempsey to formulate an argument and returned to my apartment

I wish I was oblivious enough to halt in my tracks and march back over to room 2476, delivering a single knuckle sandwich to Dempsey’s orbital bone. I wish I was oblivious enough to assume that Dempsey is in fact a creepy stalker who decided to prank me with my own trauma disguised as an unassuming song. Instead I am just a freak. A freak with an alien brain. A freak with no childhood. 

After a mild display of psychologically concerning behavior, I collapsed, sprawling myself out onto the floor boards. Of course Dempsey’s song was composed by Wesley León, the universe thrives off of my suffering. At least I feel like it does. I can never outrun what I can’t control. My senses began to get weaker, my sense of self slowly grew smaller, and soon my being was sliced into two. With a hard blink, I was released back into an unrecognizable reality. One where I am separated from my physical body, where the creases in my hands appear foreign. One where I find myself, oddly naive. I carry the awareness that my eyes are staring blankly at a wall but am lacking the capability to move them. Most apparently, I feel the presence of two. Two opposing halves that are both me. And there is a familiar thumping, rhythmic beats that I curiously follow. 

ONE, two, three...ONE, two, three...ONE, two, three…Hear that Grace Bunny? That’s what a 3/4 time signature sounds like. If you focus enough, you’ll find that songs written like this paint a beautiful picture. 

...Mama, I hear church bells.

I hear church bells too, I hear them all the time Grace. Church bells right now mean its time to go to bed.

My left hand shrieked, sending my nerves into enough panic to reunite the two halves. I peered down at my hands which were tingly, but felt like my own again. Without much thought, I smeared the graphite that had accumulated on the side of my left hand within the fibers of a stained blanket and sat for a moment, beginning to ponder how it got there. My eyes focused in on the digital clock above my stovetop reading 4:37, which meant it was probably around 3:32 in the morning. I didn’t care to reset the clock ever, the math was easy enough, and though I’d never admit it I have no idea how to change a stove clock. My feet were half asleep, tingling with each step as I made my way to the bathroom. The moon was bright enough to stare at my reflection without turning the light on, but even in the dim light I could tell my face was flushed. I’ve never had a breakdown like this, or rather, never allowed myself to recall memories that brought me pain like this did. The sink ran for about ten seconds, isolated in the silence of the night as if it were the only sound in the world. I splashed a small handful of water on my face like people do in the movies, except it wasn’t as effective as its usually portrayed. With soaken sleeves, I retired to the same spot on the floor to sleep. An odd security was found in this, bordering on a clear feeling of familiarity.

A persian rug, a brick fireplace, two large windows, one glossy piano, stacked up dusty canvases, a bengal cat, a pillow on the floor, and my mother. More landscapes I don’t recognize. Three pages of the same excerpt from Je Te Laisserai Des Mots. I’m late for work again. If life was a game of tic-tac-toe, I would’ve just won. Three days in a row being late, what more harm could skipping bring? Casually, I returned to analyzing the sketches from the night of my breakdown and allow my thoughts to drift. 

I’m obsessed with this idea of a black hole, one that is not daunting in its power, but rather sacred. A crater in the earth, so dark the inside appears as a thick pool of absence. And I’d sit on the edge with my legs hanging down, contemplate for a moment before pushing off my finger tips, and I’d sink. I’d sink with such flight, I’d sink for a nights worth of time before I emerge here. Where the persian rug becomes my bed, the fireplace is only an accessory to marshmallows, where the two large windows capture two familiar fields of dying plants. And I’d be joined by her, it’d all make sense. Her hands would tremble in between the looping chords of Je Te Laisserai Des Mots sounding on the glossy piano, the dusty canvases would be hung, and she would finally let her eyes meet mine. She would look at me, see me, call me Grace. She’d hold me like I was all she had, and we’d hum together, harmonize each note of the song until we decomposed. If only life had been proven to be this predictable, maybe I would find my peace. 

I returned the page of sheet music to Dempsey four days ago, slid the paper through a tear in his screen door with an attached sticky note that read, ‘Thanks!’. We haven’t spoke since the night I took the piece. It didn’t bother me, I preferred to be alone right now anyway. I left my apartment once this week, not for work or food, but to purchase noise cancelling headphones from BestBuy. Despite not having seen Dempsey in a week, I could still hear his voice and pitchy guitar through the wall every night. They worked well enough, allow me to sleep when I could. My laptop remains at 0%, dead in the corner of the living room. My inbox has likely piled up, I’ve left numerous assignments undone. I haven’t changed my sweater in so long that the number of hours its been on my body has surpassed triple digits. I am depressed. No, I am hiding.

Have you ever played hide and seek by yourself? I tried once when I was little, counted to 30 in my head while racing to the kitchen. I folded my body into a cabinet under the sink by the time I reached 24 and sat there for a while. Listened to the clock tick, waiting to be found. The fumes coming from the expired cleaning products beside me robbed oxygen from my lungs with no mercy, kicking me out of their home after five minutes. I rested in rejection on the tile floor, feeling foolish. You cannot play hide and seek by yourself is what I learned, you cannot hide from yourself as hard as you may try. And I have tried. I have tried to hide enough times to qualify as insanity. I’m trying right now. 

I’ve been slipping in and out of consciousness all week, maybe as a result from this. My train of thought refocused as I felt my fingers wrap themselves around a sketchbook. My hair has matted itself down at this point, formings knots around the headphones I often forget are resting on my head. I stand up and feel my body ache, as if it just now realized that it had been laying on the floor for the past two and a half hours. I carry myself and the sketchbook to the kitchen drawer to strike a single, silent match. Unsure of why I am here, or what brought me here, I follow my body, compelled to understand.

I take the burning match and press it against the last blank page of the book, moving it with such intention, as if I were drawing. With limited control over my body, I watch the paper fade from white to black, catching flight and sprinkling ash through the air in confetti-like patterns. A growing flame forces the pages to flutter in fear and my eyes capture a single glance at one of many excerpts from Je Te Laisserai Des Mots. There is not enough fire in the world to burn the image from my brain. And nowhere near enough noise cancellation in these headphones to silence the melody in my head. I follow the same, familiar thumping down a dark hole that had appeared in the floor. I do not feel like I am flying when I sink, I am heavy, I am falling. 

The beats faded. I had arrived here again. The persian rug, a brick fireplace, two large windows, one glossy piano, stacked up dusty canvases, a bengal cat, a pillow on the floor, and my mother with a match in hand. She does not acknowledge my presence at first, too intrigued by the flame, which she held like a cigarette in between her two fingers. I handed her a paintbrush that had fallen on the floor, defenseless to the force that had taken over me. We watched together, harmonized in the same song as the bristles erupted into flames. She pressed the fire against the only blank canvas left. I closed my eyes, humming notes until three off beat church bells rang. 

ONE, two, three...ONE, two, three... 

The rug was on fire.

 ONE, two, three...ONE, two, three...ONE, two, three… 

Everything was on fire except her and I. We finally met eyes and I felt safe for the first time.

...Mama, I hear church bells. 

I hear church bells too, I hear them all the time Grace. Church bells right now mean its time to go to bed. Follow me, I’ll tuck you in. 

I followed her footsteps with my pupils. She was so elegant with each step she took. I watched the orange air hug her waist as she faded from human to flame. 

Please don’t leave me.

I will never leave you Grace, come sleep with me tonight.

I felt lightness in my step, the type of lightness that I craved to find in the black hole. Her arms, now reduced to two flames wrapped around my waist and filled my stomach with warmth. I found her. We hummed Je Te Laisserai Des Mots in unison. And everything now made sense.