#aprilchallenge

   Rafael had been more than annoyed at the disruption of his carefully crafted schedule, but had it not been for his steadfast reasoning and patience you surely would have sunk deep into the dark, bottomless pit of despair and hopelessness. Your loving, quick-witted ADA was the brain that steadied the storm in your heart. Had it not been for him you surely would have crumbled into a useless mess by day two of quarantine. Not that you weren’t on the edge every second of the day, but at least you were sure that if you did fall apart, Rafael would be there to put you back together again.

   You sat on the bumped out window seat in the corner of the living room, pillow in your lap, sipping your mug of home-brewed coffee, staring at the lifeless street below. New York City had never been so quiet, but now all of its residents waited with bated breath for the virus that had halted all to pass. Even the criminal world seemed to be practicing social distancing, though an uptick in domestic violence was certainly keeping Rafael busy. For the creatives of the world, however, the coronavirus seemed to slowly poison the well of inspiration, leaving little else aside from disconnection and isolation despite the countless public figures proclaiming “alone, together.” Or whatever they were saying.

   “Mi amor?” You heard Rafael’s voice from down the hall and let your forehead gently touch the cold, glass surface of the window as your eyes closed. “Y/N, we should go to the store today and pick up a few things, what do you think?”

   You inhaled through your nose and turned your head to look back at him, offering a weak smile. “Yeah, maybe they’ll have toilet paper this time.” How had toilet paper become more valuable than the dollar bill seemingly overnight?

   Closing the distance between the two of you, your boyfriend brought the back of his fingers to your cheek, corner of his lips quirking upward. His touch had always been enough to calm the emotional tornado that stress brewed inside you. Especially lately, you had become acutely aware of his ability to make you believe that everything would be alright.

   “This is all temporary,” he would say. It never took very much convincing on his part as long as his skin was making contact with yours.

   “We still have plenty for at least a week or two,” he said as he moved to sit on the other side of the window seat, facing you.

   Pursing your lips, you nodded. “Still, it wouldn’t hurt to have some extra on hand, just in case.” You tried to leave it at that instead of allowing a worst-case-scenario to form in your mind. The governor’s instructions had been clear: stay home, wash your hands, social distance until the curve flattened, remain calm. Despite your own paranoia, the world was not actually on fire...or if it was at least it wouldn’t be forever, and in truth as long as you had Rafael by your side, all would be well. Though it was times like this that made you wish you believed in God. There were moments when you envied Rafael in that sense; most of all now, when a magical sky-daddy would be a welcomed reprieve from the ever-rising death toll and unemployment rates.

   “Honey, we have to stay calm and not panic-buy, okay?” Rafael said, reaching for your hand. “You should try to keep yourself busy. You know how your anxiety gets when you sit still for too long without something to focus on.”

   “I know, I just…” You ran a hand through your hair and grimaced when you realized you hadn’t showered the day before. “I can’t slow my brain enough to create anything coherent.”

   “So create something incoherent,” he suggested with a bob of his shoulders. “Or, instead of writing music, why don’t you just play some songs you enjoy or learn to play one?” You could sense your lips trying to form a smile as your thumb stroked over the skin between his knuckles. “I just know how important music is in your life. It always makes you feel better.”

   “That’s not a bad idea, actually,” you said in a whisper as your eyes fell to your joined hands. “Maybe I could go live on Instagram,” you added carefully. “I’ve seen a lot of people talking about how scared they are, too.”

   He narrowed his eyes. “I thought we agreed you should stay off social media for now.”

   In the beginning of your self-isolation, you spent nearly every waking minute refreshing your Twitter and Instagram feeds, which in turn, had served only to fuel your anxiety and almost caused a panic attack. The logical thing was to avoid social media; the daily press conferences and videos from Philip DeFranco were more than enough to keep you updated on the situation without causing you to cry yourself to sleep because Dr-Random-Twitter-Handle had posted about his hospital’s desperate need for PPE, and how a portion of his staff had become sick, which would convince you that this was in fact the end of the world and there was literally nothing that could be done to stop it.

   So yeah, no social media had been the plan.

   However, your desire to share music had been a part of you since you could remember, and especially at a time like this, music could be the very thing to soothe people’s fears, even if only a little bit.

   “I know but I can’t help but wonder whether playing where other people can hear would help in some small way,” you said. 

    Rafael lowered his eyes as if in thought, nodding once. “What if you opened the window so the neighbors could hear?” His gaze came back to meet yours. “It’s been pretty quiet the last few weeks.”

   It had been quiet in the neighborhood since all the bars and clubs shut down, including Penny and Me’s, the bar just downstairs that normally featured live music, which would fill the entire neighborhood and carry over to the next block. You smiled at your boyfriend.

   “You don’t think people might get annoyed?”

   “No,” he answered. “I think people are reaching for as many positive things as they can get. And some music, especially when the neighborhood has been so eerily quiet, might be just the thing that makes them feel normal again. Even if it’s only for a moment.”

   You eyed your guitar in the far corner of the living room, leaning against the bookcase that held countless escapes into other worlds. Normally when reality came to be too much, a mix of other worlds and strums on your guitar would be enough to keep you from losing it completely. But right then, when the world as you knew it was forever changed, you couldn’t justify leaving it, even to save your sanity.

   “And,” Rafael added. “If anyone complains, they’ll have me to deal with.”

   You snorted, standing and opening the window before you went to pick up your guitar. Sitting back on the window seat, you took your time tuning it while your eyes periodically wandered, looking for an idea of what song to play. From the corner of your eye, you saw Rafael take out his phone, tap his screen a few times before he held it up. You knitted your brows at him; wasn’t he just trying to talk you out of going live?

   “I just realized your family might want to hear you play,” he said as though he’d been inside your head. “What are you gonna play, corazon?”

   “I don’t know.” Your gaze fell on the unlit, cursive lettering on the building across the street and the familiar chalkboard by the door that now read, “Stay home. Stay safe.”

   With a gentle smile, you began to strum an intro of chords, the beginning of a song that was written strictly as a love letter to music, highlighting the importance of a song in our hearts and how a simple, familiar melody could remind us of our favorite moments in our lives. Music, without which the world would be a much darker place, the one thing that in an instant could heal a hole in your heart, the thing that often formed fond memories of nights up late by the fireplace. Music that could speak for you with such clarity if you had trouble forming words.

   “That’s not obvious at all,” Rafael mumbled after hearing you sing the first chorus.

   “Hush, you,” you replied quickly, not missing a single strum. “Cause Penny and Me like to roll the windows down…”

   As you sang through the full chorus, a second voice joined in from below. Rafael carefully stepped closer to the window, mindful to keep his phone pointed in your direction as he leaned to stick his head out the open square.

   “Lawrence?” you heard him call out between lyrics.

   “Hey Rafael!” the voice replied. “And Penny and Me like to gaze at starry skies…”

   Your ADA chuckled under his breath when a third voice sounded from further down the building, and a fourth from above. By the time you reached the bridge, it was as though half the block joined in. Your focus was on keeping time with your strums against the strings, but your skin had prickled into goosebumps at the sound of your neighbors singing along with you. 

   For the first time since you’d been stuck inside, it actually felt like despite the fact that you were all self-isolating, none of you were alone. In that moment, the entire block of 82nd street was one, singing through their pain and loneliness, belting their affections for each other simply by joining you in a cover of an early 2000s tune by one of the original popstars of the 90s. Through the final chorus you could hear the longing, the desire to be together truly once again, going to Penny and Me’s for a drink after a long week and weaving in and out of clusters of people on the sidewalk to get home after it got late. It reminded you that New Yorkers were fighters, that you had all seen worse than this pandemic and that one day soon you would be reminiscing about where you were during the 2020 pandemic that had paused the world and forced people to appreciate each other just a little bit more. The time when music, as always, kept you connected while you distanced.

   “Do you think this is going to go viral?” Rafael asked no one in particular after you’d played the final chord of the song. 

   “I don’t think so, it’s a fairly obscure song,” you answered with a grin as you leaned back against the window sill, allowing the breeze to blow strands of hair against your face. 

   “Still,” Rafael mumbled as he tagged your parents in the post and, at your request, tagged the song and the virus for easy reference if you needed a pick-me-up later in the night. “Okay, I’m gonna head out to the store. Did you wanna come?”

   “I think I’m gonna stay here,” you answered, rolling your head to one side until your eyes met his. “I should clean the bathroom...and myself. Then afterward, I might try to work on some more music.”

   The smirk you knew all too well flashed in your direction as he closed the space between you to kiss your forehead. “Maybe without the window being open. The neighbors didn’t mind a song they knew, but the last thing we’d want is to disrupt their marathon of Tiger King.”

   “Speaking of which, they added an episode,” you said.

   “They did?”

   “Yep, Carol Baskins isn’t in it though, from what I’ve heard,” you said.

   “Fucking Carol Baskins. Okay, I’ll be back in an hour, tops,” he said, going to the door and putting on his coat. “When I get back, I think we should make dinner and watch that episode.”

   “And after that?”

   He bobbed his shoulders. “You’ve been trying to get me to watch Lost for years. Maybe now is when you do.”

   “I don’t know if I wanna watch a show about a plane that disappears to an island no one knows about. We’ll see what my paranoia level is by the time we finish the last Tiger King episode.”

   “Well, you know I’ve been dying for you to watch Catch-22,” he replied with a smirk.