"It’s yours?" I turned to see Haley standing in the archway of the kitchen, smiling shyly. She nodded. "Would you play for me?"

"It’s not finished yet."

"I don’t care. I’d like to hear what you’ve got."

She hesitated. "Okay." She walked over to the piano, lifting the lid, and sat down on the smooth, wood piano bench.

"Wait, before you start, what is this, exactly? What is Outcome?"

"Well," Haley took a deep breath, then turned around on the bench to face me. "It’s actually about ... us." I looked at her, surprised, and beyond curious. "Tell me if you can recognize the parts of it, okay?" She looked shyly up at me, which was so strange coming from her. She was always so confident about everything she did. This intrigued me even more.

"Okay. I’ll do my best."

She turned on the bench, stretching her fingers a few times, for what seemed like nervousness to me, and then placed them on the keys, and began to play.

The song started out slow, the notes low and staccato. As I listened, my mind began to reel back, and I saw those first days when I had just been Haley’s physics tutor, and distant admirer. Then the music began to get a little louder, a little faster, and suddenly had the feeling of fun. I felt light, a smile coming to my face as I remembered us being crazy and nutty in the middle of the night, our midnight Wal-Mart raid on Haley’s eighteenth birthday.

I reached out, putting my hand on Haley’s shoulder, needing that contact with her as the memories rushed me. Our midnight phone calls and IM sessions.

I was torn from my thoughts and memories when the melody changed again. Suddenly the notes became long, deeper, almost ... what was the word? Yeah, sensual. The feeling of Haley’s body against mine, the heat of the fire next to us as we kissed in my mother’s basement. The sound of our sighs, the nervousness and arousal, all mixing together to create one of the most intense moments of my life.

I closed my eyes as I let the music flow through me, fill me, and make me feel.

My eyes opened when I heard the notes tumbling over each other, falling quietly from the higher notes and getting louder as she progressed down the scale until the last one, low, full, final, was banged on the piano, and held. Just one note, loud, deep, melancholy, and full of pain. I knew what that was. After the note faded, the song began again in another key, which caught my heart, turning it into a lump in my throat.

Haley’s fingers slowed on the keys, her body gently swaying as she played. Looking down, I could see her eyes were closed.

I wondered if this represented how she had felt after that weekend, or was this the time between then and now? The time when we were not even much of a thought in the other’s life, except as just maybe a friend we both once knew.

The song began to almost start over again, but in the same, lower key as the previous long stretch, until finally, suddenly, Haley stopped playing.

I looked down at her, wondering why.

"That’s it," she said, her voice low, quiet, her back still to me as she rested her hands on the keyboard. "What did you see as I played?" Still, Haley kept her back to me.

I took a deep breath, trying to get myself together after being so abruptly taken from my world of the past; the lack of music deafening.

"Well, at first, when it was slow, almost unsure, I felt the beginning, you know, when I was just tutoring you?" She nodded. "Then it got going a bit, faster, fun. I guess that’s the word that immediately came to mind; fun." I smiled at the memory. "I saw us bumming around town, or at the mall, just being nutty. That was when we were friends." Again the nod. "Then," I stopped.

"Then?" Haley slowly closed the lid on the keyboard, and stood, facing me, the piano bench between us.

"Then Spring Break weekend. Intense, heavy, sensual. Then you stopped, suddenly, abruptly, powerfully. That was when you left for school, I’m guessing. Or after that weekend." I ran a hand through my hair, still shaky after the memories. "Then there was a long, almost sad, stretch, a different key for a different time. I took that for either how you felt after the weekend, or the stretch of time between then and now. And finally, the song came full circle. You began to play the first part over again, but still in that different key, as it is a very different time."

Haley smiled, nodding. "Yes. You got it." My stomach suddenly was filled with butterflies, flapping their wings to tickle my insides.

"How does it end? What is the outcome?" I asked, my voice low as I stared into Haley’s eyes. She stared back, steadfast and strong.

"It hasn’t been written yet. I told you it was unfinished." Her voice was equally low, yet the sound sent the butterflies on hyper drive.

As I stared at her, the remnants of "Outcome" still lingering in my head, I felt myself begin to lean just a bit, like a magnet, pulled toward Haley, drawn. My mind and my body, or was that my heart? raged a battled against each other. My eyes darted from hers down to her mouth, then back up again. Closer, closer-

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

"I’ll get that." Haley nearly ran into the kitchen to get the oven, the timer going off.

I took a deep breath, trying to get my racing heart and breathing under control. Oh my god. What did I just almost allow myself to do? Never, ever again.

I literally shook myself to clear my head, running an extremely nervous hand through my hair. Nervous, hell, it was shaking. So was I.

Taking one final breath, I headed toward the kitchen, where Haley was placing a pan on the counter, pan-holder mittens on either hand.

"Need some help?" I asked, grateful that my voice sounded normal. She glanced up briefly from starting to cut up the chicken breast.

"Yeah. Pop the cork in the wine, will you?"

"Sure." She pointed toward a drawer to her left, so I walked over to it, finding the corkscrew, and carrying it, and the wine, over to the table.

Maybe wine hadn’t been such a good idea after all.

Haley began to bring different dishes to the table as I poured our wine. Neither of us said a word. I think we had both needed the distance from each other. I know I did.

"Hungry?" Haley asked, taking a seat opposite mine.

"Yeah." I said enthusiastically as I scooted myself in closer to the table. "This looks so good, Haley." She had made one of my favorite chicken dishes; stuffed chicken, with her own special bread dressing inside. My mouth watered just thinking about it.

As we ate, I thought back to the song again.

"That was truly beautiful, Haley." She looked up at me, bite halfway to her mouth. "Outcome." She smiled.

"Thank you."

"When did you write that? Well, start it, anyway."

"Twelve years ago. After I left for college, I was sitting in my dorm one night, the electric keyboard my parents had bought for me sitting beside me on the bed. The tune popped into my mind, so I grabbed the keyboard, some paper and a pencil, and I began to write." She sipped from her wine. "I only got to the end of the first part, and I put it away. At that time, that’s as far as the story had gotten."

"And the rest?"

"Once I came back. I saw you, and I thought about it. I peck at it after work, sometimes writing things down while I’m at work, then coming home to see if they’ll fit into the existing piece." I grinned.

"Gee, and all this time I thought you were the consummate professional." She glared at me good-naturedly.

"Ha ha." She ate another bite of chicken, followed by a forkful of green beans. We both fell silent as we continued to eat. I wondered where Haley’s thoughts were, because I sure knew where mine were.

I had no idea that our friendship, and the ultimate deterioration of it when we were kids, meant that much to her. I guess I’d always figured she’d seen it as just one of those things. Pretty much how I’d seen it, for the most part. I mean, regardless if Haley would have come back into my life, she would have had a special place in my heart, whether I had realized it or not. She had begun the journey of self-understanding for an ill-equipped, young kid who was trying to walk on wobbly, inexperienced legs.

Through Haley, I had begun to question my true direction in life. Perhaps not my professional direction, but certainly that of my heart.

"So, are you enjoying your breast meat?"

I nodded with a grin. "I’ve always enjoyed breast meat." Haley looked at me, bite halfway to her mouth.


"Oh? Have you had breast meat often?"

"Eh, now and then, sure." Haley grinned, getting into the game.

"Do prefer white meat, or dark meat?"

"White meat, generally." I answered, sipping from my wine.

"Have you ever had dark meat?"

"I have." She looked at me, surprised.

"Really? And how is it different?"

I shrugged, cutting my chicken into smaller pieces.

"Different background, texture, and a different taste." I popped a bite into my mouth.

"Is that so?" I nodded.

"And you? Have you ever had dark meat?"

"No. I prefer white meat."

I looked at Haley for a moment, brows drawn, head low. "Haley, are you dark meat prejudiced?" she chuckled, shaking her head.

"Not at all. Everyone has their preference, right?" I grinned, nodding.

"Indeed." She began to butter a dinner roll, watching the progress of her knife. "So, Andi, who was your first piece of meat?"

I chuckled, cutting some more chicken.

"Well, it was the middle of my sophomore year in undergrad. Her name was Alecia. Alecia Haskell. She was a bit older than I was, and had already graduated from Carlton."