Dominik spent the whole day carting me through the city. We would stop every so often to take in some inspirational moment. A vine snaking up a wall, a statue lingering in the sun, or a lone sneaker in an alleyway.

But even as we absorbed each moment, I found something else inspiring me more.

He was an enigma to me. I barely knew anything about him, yet I was drawn to him in a way I couldn't explain.

It was as if he was the sun and I was Earth. Gravity pulled me toward him, but my fear of getting burned kept me at a distance. All I could do was take in his magnificent beauty from afar, but I could never stare too long without having to face the consequences.

"So what inspires you?" I found myself asking as we removed our shoes and let our feet sink into the cooling sand of the beach. The sun was starting to set, and the orange backdrop against the water looked magnificent as the soft shush of ocean waves danced before us.

"Do you want the nice answer or the true one?" he asked softly as his eyes scanned over the city.

"True," I said.

Letting his cool blue eyes meet mine briefly, he told me, "Pain."

I felt my eyebrows draw together slightly as I looked down at the sand. It wasn't the answer I had expected, and it only seemed to raise more questions in my mind.

"What kind of pain?"

Dominik stopped walking and allowed his eyes to latch onto a small beach fire a few yards away. A few teenagers were crowded around it, laughing and talking amongst themselves.

Without removing his gaze, Dominik softly asked me, "What do you see when you look into the flames?"

I sighed, but having played this game all day, I told him.

"The fire twists and turns through the air as if it is dancing. It spits sparks and smoke into the sky and crackles, almost like it's laughing, as it burns the wood beneath it. It gives off heat. A savior if it wants to be, but also a deadly viper, ready to lunge out and bite you if you get too close."

"Would you like to know what I see?" he asked in a distant voice.

I studied the side of his face for a few moments before slowly nodding my head.

"Yes."

It took him a while to answer, but when he did, goosebumps brushed over my skin.

"Trust."

"Trust?" I asked confusedly.

"When most people see a flame, they think it is unpredictable. It shakes, it sputters, and it is difficult to control. But you can always trust a fire to destroy. You can always trust it to burn. To heat. To light. To kill. It's what it does best."

As he spoke, we continued walking again, the fire disappearing behind us as the stars bloomed in the darkened sky.

"Fire was the only thing I could trust growing up."

"What do you mean?" I asked with concern in my tone.

"I spent the first ten years of my life in Russia. I was born addicted to heroin. My mother was an addict, and since she decided she wasn't going to keep me, I spent most of my childhood in a low end orphanage in Moscow. They treated us like dogs, but there was always a fire in the hearth, and it was the only thing that did not betray me."

I felt my lips tugging downwards as I listened to his story. I had no idea he went through so much.

"When I was ten, I was adopted by a nice Australian family, Jimmy and Jane Darling. Jim was a composer, and a conductor at the local university. Jane was a cellist in his alumni orchestra."

"Is that how you learned to play?" I asked curiously.

Dominik blinked and glanced at me before facing forward and continuing his story.

"Not exactly. Whatever drugs my mother took while she was pregnant with me did something to my brain. I barely understand basic math. Fractions are about as far as I got in school. Science was a little better, but still not great. But for some reason, when I laid my fingers on the ivory keys of a grand piano for the first time, it felt as though I'd been playing my whole life."

He paused for a few moments, probably remembering the exact moments he spoke of.

"They called me a prodigy. It didn't matter what instrument they handed me. As soon as I was shown which angle to hold the bow, or which buttons to press to make a sound, I played as if the instrument had been with me my whole life. Language and writing were the same way for me, and the doctors called it some sort of variation of Savant Syndrome. Something isn't quite right with the left side of my brain. That's the more technical, or analytical side. But somehow, my brain overcompensated with the right side. Even though I never finished high school, Juilliard offered me a full ride to study music and art, so when I turned eighteen, I moved to America. Now I'm here."

"That's..." I trailed off, searching for the right word, "amazing. You're amazing."

Dom looked up at me with a weak smile, before looking back down at his feet as they scuffed across the sand.

"Are you okay?" I asked worriedly as I saw him for the first time in a new light. He was vulnerable now. He wasn't a stone faced mystery.

"It's just... hard sometimes. To remember."

"Well, if you want to forget, I'm totally up for getting drunk off our asses," I said softly yet casually with a mischievous grin on my face.

Glancing up at me with a curious glint in his eye, he smirked and said, "That sounds pretty good, actually."