Free Broken Serenade by Dorina Stanciu

his body’s needs anytime, but that was not what he was longing for. He wanted love ; he wanted something he had never had. He desired to be the dearest person in the whole universe for someone. And if tomorrow he would lose his house, his business, even his mind, he wanted to have the certainty that that particular person would stand by him, with unaltered love and faith. He wanted his half; he had been searching for her like a mad man for years. So far, he had been unsuccessful, but he would not give up. He refused to lose hope.  SHE exists – I just know it in my heart . She had to be out there, somewhere in the labyrinth of life, waiting for him to find her and bring her home. He just needed to look more carefully…
        Whom are you trying to delude? You know damn well where you’re heading right now, he told himself.
        In less than half an hour, he stood before her house. He noticed the same car he had seen her drive earlier that day. She always parked it in front of the garage.
        Only one car! So she’s single , he quickly concluded.
        The windows were covered, but he could distinguish lights on inside the house. For sure, the woman was playing the piano again. In the cold silence of that late night, harmonious classical accords reverberated faintly.
        Curiosity pushed him to inch closer. He took a few steps toward the first window that faced the street. The sound of the music increased immediately with a few decibels. He sat comfortably on one of the huge decorating stones that rested peacefully in the beautifully manicured garden. In the pale light of the street lamps, the red camellias boldly exposed their blood-red petals among a generous variety of evergreens. For a while, he just stayed there, fascinated by the harmony of musical notes and by the vague aroma of cinnamon and vanilla that escaped in stronger and stronger waves from behind those walls.  
        Suddenly the music ceased, abruptly, right in the middle of a divine waltz that seemed to caress his soul. A few seconds later, he heard muffled curses and trays being slammed and dropped. A reek of burned cinnamon rolls accompanied the following silence.
        “That’s my girl!” Timothy laughed amused, guessing what had happened. No dialogue reached his ears. That consolidated his earlier belief that the woman was living alone.
        An extravagant thought nestled daringly inside his mind – just as a pet anxious to be coddled that slinks up onto your lap and would not leave until it is completely contented. Baron St. Fontanel’s quote from the famous movie Sabrina ventured to drive that beautiful thought away: A woman happily in love, she burns the soufflé. A woman unhappily in love, she forgets to turn on the oven. Nevertheless, the bold idea would not leave Timothy alone. It pushed him insistently until he got up and started back home at a very fast pace. What do I have to lose? He asked himself. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. For his peace of mind, he needed to give it a try.   
        Timothy crossed the street and began to run on the empty sidewalks. From an open window of a white house, the high-pitched voice of a boy startled him.
        “She’s a piano teacher, you know?” 
        “Thanks for the info,” Timothy answered smiling.
        “Don’t bother! You know something else?”
        “What?”
        “I took a picture of you. I used my night vision camera. If something happens to her, I’ll send it to the police,” the kid threatened in a very serious tone.
        Timothy burst into laughter.
        “Fair enough for me,” he said, waiving to the boy at the window without interrupting his run.
        If she has fans of this age, chances are she’s young and beautiful , he deduced.
        Half an hour later, he returned to the area. This time, he drove his car. Only a few yards from her house, he spotted a place that was engulfed in darkness. He elected to park there. He