The symphony echoes from the dark corners of the living room. The rhythm is frantic, frenzied, like an inflamed part of the brain, rambling and violent. Gaining momentum with each passing second, ringing sharply in your ears. The heavy downpour outside the window only accompanies this ball of evil, adding to the gloomy surroundings.

Transferring emotion to music could be good therapy, if it helps in the slightest. No matter how hard you pressed your fingers into the keys, no matter how long you played, the despair boiled over. Even if everything from your hands to your fingertips turned burgundy, it wouldn't calm the emotions that had built up. It wouldn't help soothe that awful feeling after another fight with Tom, always ending with a cold sensation of loneliness across your skin.

Tom's footsteps were almost indistinguishable in this cacophony of sounds, but his touch was palpable. Palm on palm, skin to skin, he tempered the almost animalistic pace, leading the melody in a calm, peaceful direction. Too sensitive to your emotions, he waits out the storm, a still wall of calm.

"What's in your pretty little head?" he asks without stopping playing, going over the notes with you. As if there had been no shouting or scandal.

The playing now sounds melancholy, sadly scratching at the remnants of your heart. Even the rain itself seems to adjust to the mood, filling the remaining empty sound space with the white noise of falling drops and distant rumbles of thunder.

Tom is patient enough to hear your reply, more focused now on solving the little misunderstandings that have arisen in your head. Leaving a kiss on your shoulder, as if healing those heartbreaks, he immerses you in his aura of ever-persistent calm.

In the few years of marriage, he's learnt enough of this skill to deal with your storms.