Chapter 96
Chapter Ninety-Six
Private Message | EchoZone Internal Chat
From: DeadStrings
Subject: Cooking lessons
I will keep you updated about those lessons.
You’re a piano teacher, huh?
You mention Allegra, I wonder if she’ll be able to get along with Otis. Will she be okay with a goofy, very chaotic, and loving dog? I’m not rushing things, but I’d like them to meet each other at some point. After all, you helped me name Otis.
I know, I know—we haven’t even crossed state lines together and I’m already imagining a cat-dog summit. But I think about things like that now. It’s strange. I used to avoid the idea of “someday.” Now I find myself planning for it in small ways.
Like how Otis might behave around a piano. Or if Allegra would judge my poor egg-boiling technique with one of those long, feline stares.
And yeah, a piano teacher. That explains a lot. The precision in your words, the rhythm in how you build a sentence. There’s a patience in your messages I didn’t recognize at first. Now I do.
Maybe one day we’ll meet, and you’ll play the piano while I play the guitar—unless you choose another instrument. I hope we can make that possible, I really do.
It’s nice, you know? Thinking about the future without it feeling like a punishment. I used to look ahead and only see everything I’d already ruined. Now, I see maybe . . . a possibility. That’s because of you.
Also, Beth Orton? You’re trying to wreck me. That voice feels like being handed your own heart in a soft-spoken melody.
Want to trade songs again? I’m sending you “Dead Man Walking” by David Bowie. Not because it matches your mood, but because there’s something quietly electric in how it moves. Like someone crawling back toward life one riff at a time. Seems fitting.