Michelle's Story

She looked over her shoulder and waved at her friends to go on without her.

"How have you been?" she asked, turning back and looking at my hands.

"I hurt everyday," I told her honestly.

Somewhere in the years between, I lost the need to smile around her. A faint sheen of tears covered her eyes as I got up to leave.

-----

She had something to say and regardless of my not wanting to see her, Michelle was not going to let it go. She was in my dorm floor lounge every day or at the cafeteria when I had breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

"He sang a song for me once," I heard her tell her friends when they asked why she was pursuing me when I was obviously not interested.

She had more patience than I did, and finally made it into my room.

"Do you blame me?" she asked sitting on my bed.

"No, Michelle," I said. "I don't blame you, I don't even blame them anymore. Something bad happened; I have to live with it for the rest of my life."

"I was glad you got even," she said ferociously.

I nodded.

"Do you know how sorry I am?" she asked softly. I nodded again; I knew exactly how sorry everyone was.

"I couldn't stay away from you back then," she said. "I wanted what I saw in your eyes too much to care that I was doing something wrong by trying to be with you."

"There was nothing wrong with what happened between us," I said wearily.

"It caused that," she said angrily, pointing at my hands.

I nodded.

"Do they hurt?" she asked with concern in her eyes.

"They ache in room temperature," I replied. "If I hold a cold glass for too long, they hurt."

The tears rolled down her cheeks. I closed my eyes to steel myself against them.

"You looked at her, and you looked at me," she said softly. "And you chose me."

I opened my eyes and stared into her.

"Nobody ever did that," she said. "I was never someone's choice when Samantha was around."

I didn't know what to say.

"You gave me something she wanted, probably more than anything else in her entire life because you didn't want to give it to HER," she said. "Professor Smith said you played and sang beautifully, but she didn't get it. You made me feel beautiful, more beautiful than every other woman there."

"They weren't my words, Michelle."

"No, Miguel," she said. "But you meant every one, even the ones you didn't understand, and you sang them all to me."

I looked away.

"Everyone in that auditorium felt it," she said. "With your voice and guitar, you were better than most of us could be at anything. We weren't angry though. Someday, we would be able to say we were there at Miguel Sanchez's first public performance. 'You think he's good now, you should have seen him then. Young, innocent, and so pure when he sang that first time.'"

"I had a recording contract," I told her.

"What?" she gasped.

"A Spanish album," I said with tears in my eyes. "Professor Smith and her sister got me the audition a couple of weeks before the Winter Recital. It was all women when I walked into the room. I thought about you when I sang for them."

We never told anyone.

"No!"

"They were looking for the right songs," I said closing my hands in pained fists.

She hugged me tight and sobbed into my shirt. We were skin-to-skin moments later.

I was on top of her like our first time; it was only my second.

I waited for her body to warm as we kissed. She was the one who led my dick to her. I pushed in slowly, and her pussy welcomed me. She was like the warmth from a cup on my hands; the pain fell away.

I pulled back and thrust into her fully. She wrapped her legs around my waist. I pulled back and fucked into my lost dream. She had been waiting those years too. It felt like her body heated and then released all of it into me. I loved the pressure her pussy surrounded me with and the sound of Michelle's pleasure.

She kissed my hands before she fell asleep.

There was no music, no laughter, but plenty of tears.

-----

I woke up as the sun hit the window of my dorm room. They had given me a single because I needed to keep the room warmer than most people liked. Michelle was still asleep beside me. I climbed out of bed and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

I opened my closet door and pulled out my guitar case when I came back. My father had commissioned my new guitar. There were tears in his eyes the first time he heard me on it. I pulled the chair out to the middle of the room and turned my back to the sleeping woman in my bed.

The guitar, the music, and me held back the pain as long as we could. It always won in the end though.

I couldn't touch the strings like I had before. The music sounded off, stilted, over-precise, and hesitant. The weakness in it grew with each passing minute until I gasped as the pain became too intense. I put the guitar back in the case and looked out my window.

"I thought you couldn't play anymore," Michelle asked.

"I can play now," I said. "Pero no puedo tocar. (But I can't touch, play a musical instrument)"

"It's the same thing," she said.

I turned to her in surprise.

"I took a lot of Spanish classes in between those requirements for medical school," she explained.

"Do you remember when I sang to you?" I asked her.

"I remember every night," she answered.

"Did you think I was playing?"

-----

"Forgive me, father, for I have sinned. It has been two days since my last confession."

"And a good two days those were, Miguelito," he replied.

We were sitting face to face like the new confessional rules said we should; I preferred the screen.

"At least, there were forty-eight hours for you to do something young and foolish," he said with a sigh.

I went to confession every day after the judge announced in open court that he would not imprison someone who had been failed so grievously by the justice system because of a game. My mother had prayed even though we were only as religious as going to church every Sunday made us. I found some comfort afterward in the silence of confession and the prayers that our priest set as punishment.

"So exactly what is it that you've done, Miguelito?" he asked.

"I lied to a woman," I confessed.

He was silent for a moment before nodding.

"She asked me if I blamed her for my broken hands; I told her I didn't," I said quietly. "I told her I didn't even blame those boys."

"Why did you say that, Miguel?"

"Because I thought it would make her think I was a better man than I am," I replied.

He nodded and looked away.

"Do you blame her?"

"Yes."

"But you want her to think you're a good man?" he asked.

"I know I'm wrong," I said. "How much I blame her is nothing compared to those boys or myself."

"And God, of course," he finished for me.

I bit my lip.

"It's what you've never said. What you've never asked since you started coming here every day, Miguel."

I bit harder until the pain in my lip matched what I felt when my hands touched guitar strings for too long.

"You've been coming here hoping I would tell you why God did this to you," he said.

I shook my head.

"Don't lie to me, Miguel," he warned. "You're not good at it, and I've been in here with the best."

I smiled at him.

"I prayed for Michelle. I remember lying in bed, and saying 'God, if you give her to me, I'll be happy.'"

"And you think, he gave her to you and took away the guitar."

"He gave me a gift, and I spit on it because I wanted her."

"That's not the way God does things, Miguel."

I was silent.

"You're going to have to bring this girl to Mass," he said suddenly. "I like her. She makes you feel and that's good for you. She's good for you."

I looked at him angrily.

"False piousness isn't going to make God give you your hands back,mi hijo (my son)."

"Then what is, Father?" I asked desperately.

He looked at me sadly.

"Todavía puedes cantar, (You can still sing)," he said.

"I don't want to sing, I want my guitar back."

"God gave you a gift, Miguel."

"TAKING MY HANDS IS NOT A GIFT!" I screamed at him.

He closed his eyes and shook his head.

"Your mother's going to like this girl too," he said finally.

I looked at the floor.

"She cried these last three years, and she cries every time you come home," he said.

I raised my eyes to him.

"Your father and her stand outside your room when you sing, and she cries," he said looking at me in wonder. "She knows the pain in your voice, not as your mother, but as someone that has suffered it and other pains. God gave you a gift, Miguel."

I shook my head.

"You don't want to blame Michelle, do you?"

I stared at him in surprise.

"I was there when you sang to her; your mother invited me. I know who Michelle is."

"No, I don't want to blame her anymore."

"Then let it go, Miguelito," he said. "That's the gift, I'm talking about. God brought her back to you because with her you don't need to come here everyday."

We sat in silence for fifteen minutes.

I got up and shook his hand. I turned to walk out of his office.

"Que vas hacer (What are you going to do), Miguel?" he asked.

"I can only play for a half-hour before the pain is too much. She was in my bed this morning, and I played for forty-five minutes."

"A woman that makes intolerable pain half-again as bearable. She is a gift," he said. "But let's not talk about what she was doing in your bed."

I turned to look at him.

"Intolerable pain bearable, I didn't know you were a poet,Padre (Father)," I said.

"When you're ready to stop singing Alejandro's songs, and start singing your own, come back. I didn't always want to be a priest."

I nodded slowly and turned around.

"You didn't tell me what you're going to do now, Miguel."

I opened the door and looked into the church.

"Voy a cantar... a llorar... tocar mi guitarra y mi mujer. Lo demás se lo dejo a Dios. (I'm going to sing, cry, play my guitar and touch my woman. The rest, I leave to God.)"

=====

"May I see them?" one of Michelle's colleagues asked.

He was the twelfth that night so my hands were on the way to his before he finished the question. He held them gently, turning them this way and that to study Michelle's work.

"Seven?" he asked Michelle who was standing next to me.

"Four to the left hand, and three to the right hand," she told him. "Miguel's left required more delicate work than I originally thought so I needed the extra operation."

"Wonderful work," he said nodding his head proudly. "You are an artist, Dr. Sanchez!"

"Thank you," she said beaming at his praise.

"And you, young man," he said looking at me. "An excellent performance."

I smiled and nodded. The artists at our little celebration did their praising in the reverse order of the doctors: my performance and then my wife's surgical skills.

"Here he comes," Michelle said looking over my shoulder.

I turned to see our son, with his grandmothers in hot pursuit, weaving through the crowd dragging one of my guitars behind him.

"I hope that critic likes kids," Michelle winced as the guitar clipped one of our guests.

"Papa!" my son yelled, running around behind us to place bodies between him and his grandmothers. Michelle's mother looked at us expectantly, while mine continued the chase.

"Michael!" Michelle warned, bringing our son to a guilty halt.

"I want to play!" he complained.

"Lo tienes que pedir bien! (You have to ask politely)," my mother admonished before picking him up.

"Please, daddy!" he pleaded reaching out for me. I took him out of my mother's arms and picked up the guitar.

"You're spoiling him, Miguel!" Michelle said.

"Oh yeah, I'm the one that spoils him," I said raising an eyebrow.

She blushed, but didn't say anything else. I carried Michael to a nearby chair and sat with him in my lap. I placed the guitar carefully so he could reach the strings.

"Para mi mama (For my mother)," Michael declared before beginning the first song I had taught him. Michelle's love, tears of joy, and kisses were his only rewards for playing well.

I understood why it was enough.

THE END