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Yang’s always known that that girl had big dreams; the type that takes you far, far away.
Like a dream that spins itself around you, something that dances on light feet and sly smiles. She’s meant for the city, bright spotlights, the world’s eyes - it would be cruel to hold her back. It’s selfish of Yang to keep someone like her just for herself when she has so much to give. Blake’s too good for her, for this place; she’s always known it.
So Yang keeps her for as long as she can, whatever time is left in an overturned dial.
It isn’t fleeting, no; Yang remembers distinctly of pale mornings with the windows open, someone that stirs quietly beside her when they feel a heavy sigh. A hand in her own, she leads her down a dirt path to the sea like a local’s love letter; of that sleepy town by the coast who built their foundations at the roll of a hill. And it's only a reminder that this could never last, Yang feels it as she holds Blake’s hand; soft skin like that couldn’t be deserved by the rough, calloused palms of a sinner.
“Take me to the coast,” Blake says, it's a request that can’t be declined. “Where the water is blue and the sky stretches forever.”
She’s got this voice, something Yang’s said a million times. This voice that’ll fly her out of here on a shiny, white plane in that vast blue ocean in the sky. This guitar that’ll be on every radio, a face that’ll be on every screen; she’s meant for big things, that girl. Big things that’ll take her away.
Away from Yang, from those calloused hands that just closed their sores.
So maybe it is fleeting, as water spills between open fingers; it's good that Blake can leave this town, this dead-end pinpoint on the coast where the locals pool like still water. Everyone knows each other, Yang acknowledges each passerby with a nod when she walks to the harbour every morning. Those thick-skinned hands pull at salt-stained ropes, they make a living and pay their dues.
And Blake watches close by, she’s always perched on a trap or a boat’s side. A father’s daughter, a mismatched product of a blue-collar town; she tows around that guitar and that voice of hers to sing by the seaside in the company of a quiet stranger. Yang’s quick to no longer be a stranger, pulled in by those verses like a sailor to a siren’s song.
The trapper that lives on the harbour has never been one to talk much, she’s always been of the quiet folk; skin tanned under the sun, thick arms to haul the week’s pay. Yang’s always been quiet, she’s never been good with words. And it's a father’s daughter that comes and finds her, tracing rumours of someone who won’t speak unless spoken to.
Found in the usual spot she’s always in, a small corner of the pier where a boat floated at its side. It smelled like sweetgrass from the hill’s side on sunny days, it smelled like salt and kelp from the ocean, like wooden planks and leather. Tucked away behind a storage building whose wood paint was long into the process of bleaching during the summers, chipping away like ticks on the clock; that’s where Blake would find Yang, every day the same routine. This curious girl who no matter what she did couldn’t drive away - maybe that girl just didn’t have anywhere else to go.
Someone to listen to the songs she wrote on diner napkins, ones shiny and new with only a few chords figured out. This trapper doesn’t say a thing, watching as a stranger walks to her pier with a guitar strapped onto her back. She wore a thick jacket too large for her over her shoulders, slouching over on one to let the sun in just an inch. Blake didn’t seem to mind the sun, probably thought the breeze cooled by the water was too chilly for her liking. With this big, thick coat walking with something a little less than bold, it lacked that sour bite of rudeness; she arrived by the entrance to the area, the sound of her boots on the planks sufficient as a knock on an imaginary door to a stranger’s imaginary house- maybe the person was imaginary as well.
Blake says hello, peeking her head around the corner - it's met with a friendly enough presence. Yang nods wearily; the girl invites herself to sit on a wooden crate and she pulls an old, worn-down guitar onto her knee.
“Do you mind if I play?” she asks, under the shade of a rocking boat. “I’ve got some new things, stranger, and my folks are sick of these metal strings.”
The silence stretches for a while, water sloshing on wooden columns and chipped paint. Yang spares a glance as she sets down a box, doesn’t spare so much as an expression above the usual polite demeanour.
“Do as you wish,” she finally answers before looking away.
Yang’s long been used to the smell of water, how soft silence gets filled with the sound of waves on the shore. The sun’s so warm on her back and it cracks a smile every now and then; not quite happiness, not quite sadness either. Some perpetual state of contentment, she doesn’t say much about it, not that anyone’s found their way down to the water to listen.
“You don’t talk much, do you,” Blake says, not knowing if she expects an answer or not.
It’s met with the sound of water, sufficient enough.
So she shrugs to a turned back, tucking a strand of dark hair behind an ear; fingers move to ring out a half-written melody that almost gets lost under the sound of the sea beside them. A chord gets stamped out by the sound of Yang setting down another crate heavily onto the pier’s planks, unloading the boat and stacking them neatly on dry land; Blake looks up at the sound, the gentle chorus pausing. Their eyes meet for a second and Yang’s gaze is first to dart away - she starts to set down the boxes quieter now, or better yet on beat.
The chorus continues, its joined by a voice growing more familiar by the day, the week, the month; Blake shows up every morning like clockwork, Yang wordlessly waits for her arrival all the same. That girl would come walking down the dirt path in that thick coat that shielded her out of the wind - Yang started conveniently stacking some boxes to block some of the air - with a bag slung over her shoulder, the guitar on the other. It brought lunch for two; Blake would hand over a crudely put-together sandwich of butter and brown sugar, Yang says thank you and eats it under the sun.
And Blake would smile; she’d pull out this worn notebook with a pencil stuck through its rings and flip to the latest page. Thank you would be scribbled down on the next line, right after Hello , Good bye , and No thank you .
“If you say a full sentence I bet I could write a song out of it,” Blake says one day, laying on her back in the shade of a boat. Yang had brought a thick, itchy blanket one day for her to rest on, that kept the sand out of her clothes and splinters at bay. “I bet if you gave me one word, I could write a whole song out of it right now. Gosh, where’s my guitar.”
Yang ponders it for a moment, she doesn’t stop the rhythm she’s got going with her work; she pulls a trap out of the boat, four steps cross to the pier’s backside, its set down in rows two by four and three high. She chews around that thought for a good while, she still tastes sugar and butter.
“Stacks,” Yang finally says - she sets down the trap in her hands on top of the last.
“Hmm, let me think.”
Blake pulls herself up off her back, leaning back on the boat behind her as she pulls her guitar onto her lap. Those fingers were dextrous, they’re beautiful as they start to strum out some chords; exploratory, they start to shape out a pattern, a rhythm, some meaning out of the word said from a stranger no longer.
Once she was settled on the progressions, humming started to follow; Yang’s heavy steps were the perfect offset to Blake’s melodic approach to life, contempt with singing her songs and watching the world play out before her. And Yang’s contempt now with these hands picking up these heavy traps, stacking them on top of each other row after row. These calloused, heavy hands that could never play such a delicate thing.
This my excavation and today is kumran
Yang doesn’t turn around as Blake’s voice starts to join the chords, floating over each strum like a buoy on clear waters. She lets her have some privacy, forming something based on a word so crude, as simple as a single observation. Stacking the traps over and over, maybe that was her music too.
Everything that happens is from now on, this is pouring rain, this is paralyzed
Blake didn’t have to think too long between each verse, following the flow of the chords like she was just a passenger this time, so natural like the sun on wood.
I keep throwing it down two-hundred at a time
Her fingers move to strum out the next chord - Yang pulls her gloves on tighter and reaches for the next trap with an outstretched arm. Filling out those salt-stained clothes, maybe she’s just a kid after all. And she gave Blake a song, in between her own verses of wood and water.
Everything that happens is from now on, this pouring rain, this is paralyzed
Yang’s learned to know the rise towards Blake’s choruses, as those chords start to crescendo up against the cool breeze and warm sun. She’s still wearing that thick jacket - these hands protect her against the next trap; she sets it down heavily.
I keep throwing it down two-hundred at a time
It’s hard to find it when you knew it
When your money’s gone, and you’re drunk as hell
So it comes full circle again like the pause Blake takes before the chorus, nice enough to share that voice with someone who can barely manage a greeting and goodbye. Maybe she can talk for the both of them, the sound of Yang’s boots is a confession, a proclamation, an exclamation of their own. Blake’s voice was going to take her far, further than this tucked away nook they’ve occupied long past its due. Further than Yang could lead her, carry her on her back; long past the limits her boat could take her, she’d sail it to the end of the world if she could.
On your back with your racks as the stacks are your load
Yang sets down another trap and her arms start to ache now, a familiar feeling that’s coaxed away by the cool air on her skin.
On your back with your racks as the stacks are your load
In the back and the racks and the stacks of your load
Maybe Blake would stay for her if she just asked her, held out a hand at the end of their shared time - a shy confession from the thick hands of this stranger. Blake’s starting to outgrow that hand-me-down guitar.
In the back with your racks and you’re un-stacking your load .
That was back when they were young - rather, younger than they were now. Yang still isn’t much of a talker, she’s grown into her father’s boots and hauls twice as much. Skin dappled with freckles from so many years under the sun, salt-soaked into her very soul. She’s filled out that husky coat she’s always worn, bought for her by a sister that’s already left her so long ago.
It’s nice sometimes, to be nostalgic, to let herself get caught up in the past. It wasn’t much of a romantic tale, stretched out over a decade of coexistence turned codependence. Blake came down to the harbour for someone to listen to whatever song she was working on at the time, she says goodbye and walks herself back to her house on the hill as the sun starts to set over quiet waters.
And one day, Yang pulls off her gloves and follows her - it's as simple as that. Blake turned around with the melting sun in her eyes to see that familiar face right behind her, fishing boots falling hard on dirt roads.
It’s been so many years that Yang can’t remember the first time they kissed; something awkward as her big hands move clumsily on someone more delicate. She can’t remember when it was, where it was, but she does remember standing in front of a bathroom sink. Scrubbing at those hands, those rough, calloused hands that smell of salt and brine. They don’t suit Blake’s lavender shampoo, the clean smell of soap on her clothes; she’s so clean, so perfect, so mesmerizing like something Yang definitely doesn’t deserve. So she scrubs at her hands until they’re raw, stinking of bar soap and stinging in the cold air. They’re still rough of course, she curses to herself as she slides those hands under Blake’s shirt one night; it's the only words she says for a long while.
Yang buys her a guitar one day, the product of three months worth of savings; she’d kiss her goodnight and creep downstairs, pulling on a coat, some gloves. Where she’d trek to the lumbermill for a few hours to gain some extra coins, hauling around wood and planks, axes and saws and hammers. Blake told her she smelled like sawdust one day, smelling her hair as they read their own books one quiet morning. Tangled in one another on their couch, Blake’s gotten used to the silence after so long.
When Blake opened that box, presented by those hands Yang hated so much, she never saw her happier than that moment. She took in that handsome, stained chestnut wood and those neatly fitted strings and played her a song. Sung with a sweet voice that carried out into the afternoon air. And Yang watched, quietly, as the love of her life smiled at her over the words of the verse. She hates these hands, but they can do work. They can work until they fall off if it means Blake stays smiling like that.
So it's the end of the line now, it's long past its lifetime already.
Blake made it like she’s always dreamed she could, she made it like how Yang was terrified she would. Those songs she sang every day at her harbour were written out in neat ink on crisp white paper, she wore this beautiful dress that complimented the sea and the sky. She hugged Yang and kissed her and cried to no end, clutching at those shoulders she’s watched for so many years. Yang didn’t say much, she couldn’t even though she wanted to. She’s helped her come this far, chase her dreams, become who she needs to be.
It’s cruel that she’s known it was going to end this way all this time, from the first time that girl came walking down that path. When they were both younger with enough fire in them to think that this end could have been bearable. And now Yang stands on this unfamiliar concrete, in this atmosphere she’s not used to; watching silently as Blake stepped onto the shiny white plane that was going to take her away for a long time, maybe forever.
Again, those words choke out in her throat; those wretched hands come up to grasp at her neck, pulling at that invisible rope that was tightening more by the second. Yang left something there that day, leaving without a word, without a sound - a piece of her that couldn’t be fixed.
It’s been sixteen years now, she’s taken over the family business for a long while. These hands still hurt every day but she doesn’t scrub them anymore, the salt won’t come out of her being if it's born into her. The same dirt path that brings her to the water every day, she sets down a radio where Blake used to sit. It would play her songs over its old speakers, she’s made it big now. Blake Belladonna, now that’s a rising star you need to keep your eye on.
Be careful, you’ll fall in love with her with a single song; every once in a while Yang wipes away an ugly tear with the back of her glove. Crouched over on that harbour, she’s alone now a lot; no one comes down to see her and talk to the person that speaks only when spoken to. Ugly tears wiped away with ugly hands she hides away under gloves, she loses something again and again and again.
Until she stops bringing the radio, leaving it to collect dust in that silent house.
Oh, that Yang Xiao Long, she’s a quiet one. She’s dependable, reliable, strong; if you need something carried, you can always ask her. If you need your house repainted, boat moved, lumber cut, call Yang. That quiet one that lives by the harbour that doesn’t ever make a fuss. An honest living paid for by hours under that sun, that bright blue sky that stretches every which way.
No one really talks to her much anymore unless it was for a favour, they think that she just doesn’t want to. It’s out of courtesy, maybe, that Yang’s spent so many years alone. It’s okay now, she’s used to the silence. You get used to a life like this if you’ve lived it long enough, pulled the same rope and walked the same path. There’s no shame in silence, it's in fooling yourself into thinking that you were enough to keep her from leaving.
Blake’s living her dream now, she’s on the west coast with city people and their city talk. With that guitar of three months' pay - no, maybe she’s replaced it with something better now, something newer. Something that doesn’t remind her of that backwash place of a hometown, filled with locals barely worth a penny.
Yang takes a drink from her cup, feels the wood of the table under her arms; she’s never been much of a drinker like her father, coming down to the local bar once a season like clockwork. Wednesdays are open mic days, where young talent take their chance under those warm bar lights. She takes a sip of her drink again, doesn’t say much of a word. Her table was always near the back, hidden in the shadows of the lights. She goes unnoticed most times, spared a greeting by the aging fathers and mothers of her generation. Wednesdays were when Blake came in to sing when they were younger, in front of that small crowd she saw every week.
And Yang would stand at that table in the back every time, watching as that girl with such dazzling talent thought it to be nice and share it with everyone around her.
She’s older now, the water in her cup is replaced with liquor that doesn’t taste any better.
Blake Belladonna, hometown legend has returned to perform at the local bar - the same one she started singing in.
She looks older now, maybe happier; that long black hair is let down over those delicate shoulders and those equally delicate hands move through the notes and chords. Her voice is a bit deeper now, matured and refined without losing herself to any other motive. Everyone came that night and crowded into the room because oh, Blake Belladonna’s back to pay her old friends and family a visit. With that guitar of hers and that sweet voice that pays her dues now.
She plays on that same guitar built from handsome stained chestnut wood, the strings have been changed now; she sings with a smile on her face and she’s happy, she’s so happy. Yang takes another drink and runs her hand over the smoothed surface of the table, the other one comes up to wipe at ugly tears once again.
Because Blake Belladonna plays her guitar with a ring on her finger and she looks so fucking happy.
She doesn’t look in the back corner of the bar, tucked away from the lights, she doesn’t remember to. She doesn’t remember that there was this quiet girl that listened to her songs for so long, still stood by it and watched silently like she’s always done, someone that loves her so much it's hurt for all this time. She doesn’t talk all too much, she’s a quiet one - and maybe that’s why she was so quick to forget.
It’s cold outside, as Yang pushes out of the bar’s door before the last song finishes. She sets down the twine-strung field flowers she brought for the singer on the table and doesn’t say a word about it, they’re the same as the ones she brought the first time, the next time, and now the last. Yang walks herself back to her house on the harbour alone, the sea is quiet now. She turns the water on at her sink and didn’t bother turning the lights on when she walked in slowly. She scrubs at those hands with a bar of soap, those thick-skinned, calloused palms. She thinks of a ring, one that caught the light of those warm bar lights; gold that couldn’t be bought with these hands that were too rough for soft skin like hers anyways.
Yang scrubs at those hands and cries knowing that the love of her life didn’t see her in the back. Standing like a spectator of her own life without so much as a word. She’s never been good with words, she scrubs until it hurts and she misses when the only thing she was scared of was who’s going to love you when I’m not there to.
Blake Belladonna, it's a name that Yang can’t bear to say bitterly; hometown beauty, with that guitar over her back, who loved the harbour and loved the girl who was the only one quiet enough to listen to her songs. She tastes like butter and brown sugar, a thick coat pulled on against the sea’s breeze. She’s got the whole world listening now, she doesn’t need someone whose hands are only good for salt and rope and wood. She’s already found someone to love now, someone that’ll take her to the sea where the water is blue and the sky stretches forever.
And Yang stays scrubbing at those hands she hates so much, trying to wash out the smell of lavender from a lifetime ago.