Her soft fingers pressed against the cold piano keys. They made a soft noice as she did. It was sad.

Kreisler’s Liebesled. Love’s Sorrow.

It seemed appropriate. She hummed along to the melody she was playing.

Her tears rolled down her face and into the piano keyboard. But she didn’t stop her playing.

Her fingers moved quickly, urgently, as if in a desperate rush. A desperate rush to finish the song, to finish the heartbreak. To stop the sadness.

Her eyes grew clouded but she knew this piece by memory. She’s played it enough times that it’s engraved in her mind.

She often wondered what Kreisler was thinking when he wrote Love’s Sorrow.

She wondered if he was heartbroken, as she was. She wondered if he cried as he played this, like she was.

She wondered if Kreisler’s heart was crying too.

Her heart was crying.

Hearts didn’t feel emotion. Hearts and emotion had nothing to do together. Emotions didn’t come from the heart. It was all the brain. The brain was logic. The brain was emotions.

The heart’s job was to pump blood. She knew that.

But her heart was in pain. It was her heart, not her brain. It was her heart that seemed broken.

Broken because he said he didn’t love her.

“I don’t love you, Liesel, I’m sorry.”

She knew he had every right not to love her, every right not to return her feelings. It was okay that he didn’t.

She didn’t know that he was standing outside the door, she didn’t know that he was listening to her playing Love’s Sorrow.

Truth be told, he always thought it was overrated. He liked Love’s Joy more.

She didn’t know that his heart was guilty. That his brain wanted to love her, but his heart was stubborn.

She was such a good person. She was so kind, so thoughtful, she was so perfect. He wanted to love her so badly.

But it wouldn’t be fair, not to him, not to her. It wouldn’t be fair.

She didn’t know that he loved her, but he wasn’t in love with her. She didn’t know that he left, a tear running down his cheek.

She was unaware of it all, as her fingers slowed, reaching the last of the song.