I watched in disgust as my twin sister tongue kissed Joseph. She begged me to come with her to his house because mom wouldn't let her go by herself. You would think with the amount of time we spent there that Mr. and Mrs. Coronado would charge my sister and I for rent.
Bored with watching Ella and Joseph swallow each other's saliva, I walked into the next room. There was a tall tattooed man sitting on a stool playing the piano. His head rolled around to the pace and melody of the music. I stood at the doorway and couldn't help but be fascinated by his dramatic beat that brought tears to my eyes after the first couple of notes.

The melody streamed through my body and pounded its rythm in my heart. I closed my eyes and began to hum a tune that matched the beat perfectly. To my suprise, I was now singing
"dfsdfadkgdlkfsjdflsdjfsdlfkjfsldsdklfsdjflsdkfj"
I opened my eyes I saw the piano man staring at me with a confused look. I ran back to the living room and pretended like I had not just experienced the most embarrassing incident of my life. I plopped onto the couch and just sat there, tense.
After two days we were back at Joseph's house. My mother knew his parents from church. She trusted Mr. and Mrs. Coronado to keep an eye on us all. If mom knew half the stuff Ella and Joseph did, she would die, come back to life, kill us both, and then die again. I'm more than sure Ella and Joseph...you know...did the nasty.
My father left my mom and sent letters to me and Ella every 4 years or so. When dad left, mom cried for months and even to this day she never dated again. My mom said that our father left us because he couldn't handle the stress of having twin babies. The heartbreak protection field I spent so many years building was unraveling slowly, but surely, agianst my will.
Not a day went by that the melody the tattooed man had played on the piano didn't flow through my veins. I had written down the lyrics I had sung and now knew them by heart.
Ella and I were over Joseph's house again when I finally decided I wanted to introduce the song I wrote to the tattooed piano man.
After asking Joseph, I found out that the piano man was his older brother whose name was Beloved and he was a song producer. Joseph said he and Beloved had a studio in their guest house. They produced songs for neighborhood artists.

Knowing this made me even more determined to meet him. After i helped Ella sneak Joseph into our house last night, he agreed to set up a session between Beloved and I at the studio.

The session with Beloved was great. He didn't even ask about that incident with me secretly watching him in his room. When I was singing he bobbed his head the same way he did to his piano music. He attentively starred at me the whole session; but I didn't mind. He was cute and tattooed.
When he asked for my cell phone number at the end of the seesion I knew what I was thinking and feeling wasn't imaginary.
He called my cell phone the minute I gave him my number.
''Just callling to make sure you weren't trying to play me," he said
''Yeah call me,'' I replied with a huge grin.
Beloved texted me that night.
Beloved: ''Hey studio gurl.''

I picked up my phone in shock that he texted me that night; that he texted me at all. I wondered if he'd texted me out of sympathy. He had to be twenty something years old. So why was he texting me; I was only 16. I decided to reply so i could know what he had to say about my song and lyrics.
Me: ''Hey producer boi.'' I flirted. ''So wat did u think bout da song.''
Beloved: ''Yeah, it was gud.''
Me: ''Oh! it waz gud? :(
I had worked too hard on that song for someone to say it was just "good."
Beloved: ''Bella, ur song waz beautiful. I want chu 2 write me more songs. u kno...work 4 me.''
I stood there shaking. i reread it. He wanted me to work for him. For the simple reason that I doubted the text I saw was true, I didn't reply.
He texted me the next morning
Beloved:'' Come in 4 a session tom k?''
Me: ''k ''I agreed. Now I just had to bribe Ella into convincing mom to let us go over Joseph's house.
There was a part of me that felt our mom enjoyed getting rid of Ella and I for several hours while we were over the Coronado's. She never heistated to allow us to go. I was glad that she finally trusted us, but with the rate things were going; one of us was going to get pregnant.
This session was even better than the last. Instead of singing in the microphone I sang along with the piano. Trying to impress him, I used by best vocalization. Then I cracked a note. In that moment I stopped, gasped, and held my mouth. I was so embarrased and anxious to hear his response.The confidence drained out of my body and I didn't want to sing anymore.
He stared straight into my hazel eyes and said ''It's okay, It happens all the time.''
He didn't laugh, didn't even crack a smile.''Keep going,'' he said with pure encouragement. Reluctantly, I continued to sing. After the song Beloved gently grabbed my hand and kissed it. I wasn't sure how to react, so I just smiled to make this less awkward.
He pulled me closer to his body and that's when I just snapped. There was no other solution I could think of but to just leave the room.
He texted me that night saying he was sorry and didn't mean to upset me. I had spent hours crying after that incident.
I was in disbelief and denial. All i kept thinking about was how he could possibly try to kiss me. On that day, I was just wearing sweat pants and an oversized t-shirt. Even after hours of crying and intense thinking I couldn't figure out his motive.
I replied to the ''I'm sorry text'' against my better judgement. I felt somewhat responsible for leading him on. I shouldn't have looked back into his eyes, maybe then he wouldn't have pursued me.
After long nights of comforting Ella after her break ups, I had built up this force field of not letting guys get too emotionally attached.