Unfinished Songs

The studio smelled like rain again.

Not the sharp, angry kind — just the soft kind that soaked into the wooden floor and settled in your lungs like a memory you couldn’t quite name.

El sat at the piano.

He hadn’t touched it in almost a year.

The keys felt colder than he remembered.
Or maybe he was just out of practice.
Maybe it wasn’t the keys that had gone cold — maybe it was him.

Studio, late evening

The lights were dim.
Sofi sat nearby, cross-legged, fiddling with her shoelaces and pretending not to watch him.

“You don’t have to,” she said gently. “Play, I mean.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you?”

El didn’t answer.

Not with words, anyway.

He pressed a key.
Then another.
A soft progression — broken at first, like a sentence unsure of its grammar.
But it grew. Slowly. Like a voice learning to speak again.

FLASH – Past: El and his parents in the living room

His father on the old couch, humming along.

His mother in the kitchen, laughing when he hit the wrong note.

He remembers the sound of their world — warm, cluttered, full of life.

He remembers the song he was writing for them.
He never finished it.

BACK TO PRESENT – Studio

He kept playing.

Sofi said nothing. Just watched — hands clasped, eyes soft.

He didn’t look at her, but he felt her there.

When the last note faded, El sat still.

“That wasn’t in your folder,” Sofi said.

“It isn’t.”

“Old piece?”

“…Unfinished.”

She didn’t press.
Didn’t ask why.

She just stood up, walked over, and sat beside him at the piano.

“You mind if I try something?”

“You can’t even read notes.”

“Exactly. No expectations.”

She tapped a few keys — off-tempo, clumsy, wrong.
Then again, in a rhythm that made no musical sense…
But sounded like her.

He smiled, just barely.

They start recording the new version

El connected the mic. Adjusted levels.
Sofi hummed — low, untrained, raw.

It wasn’t polished. It wasn’t clean.

But it felt real.

Together, they layered his chords with her offbeat humming.
Something new.
Something incomplete.
But alive.

As they record, El hears something strange

A faint sound between Sofi’s breaths.
Not from her.

Not from the mic.

He isolates the track.

Underneath the hum…
A faint voice.

His own.

Gasping.
Calling out.
Sofi’s sister’s name.

El freezes

“No… that can’t be.”

He rewinds. Plays it again. Louder.

Sofi doesn’t notice — she’s laughing at something she just played.

But El…
He can’t breathe.

“Why is my voice… on her tape?”

El saves the session, but says nothing

“Let’s take a break,” he mutters.

Sofi shrugs, still smiling.

She walks out to get drinks.

El stays behind.
Headphones on.
Eyes on the waveform.
Finger on the rewind button.