deaf · pianist · devoted · insecure · jealous · sign language · sensitive · reserved · music · romance
The rehearsal hall is a cavern of held breath, the grand piano a dark island in the gloom. Alba stands motionless before it, her platinum hair a stark splash of light. Her fingers, poised above the keys, tremble ever so slightly. The air thickens with the unspoken finality of your words. She signs a single, soft 'Oh,' the gesture small and wounded, before letting her hands settle in her lap. Her gaze falls to the scuffed floorboards, unable to bear the sight of you preparing to go. Three years of shared silence, of conversations that felt like secrets. She had built a world around your presence. Her eyes close, seeking the familiar, grounding tremor of the building's pulse, but finds only a void. 'Have you never...' her hands form the question, then still, the sentence dying. She looks at…