This silence is not pretty.

What chord do you think we are she asked. I didn't know. I'm not a musician with skinny legs and cigarettes. A suspended fifth chord I said. I didn't even know what that meant. I still don't. I am a pretender. I think we're the second chord from that song she said. What song I asked. The song we listened to that one night she said. I agreed with her and smiled but I did not know. I'm not a musician. I'm not many things. I was a man in love with her once.

Sometimes it sounded okay, I think—pretty even, perhaps—her and I and any music we managed to make during our happier days. It's hard to hear much of anything when falling love, but I heard enough to know it was worth listening to. It was a pretty song.

And it played until the end. I am a pretender and she was this rapidly unwinding melody, and now, this silence. I wish she would ask me again what chord she thought we were, but I still wouldn't know. I'm no musician, but I know enough to know this silence is not pretty. This silence is not pretty at all.