Page 4 of Total Exposure

That’s my story. I don’t need to stick to it because it’s true.

This penthouse was my first purchase. Bought back during the housing crash. I practically stole it from its original owner for a mere three million dollars.

Still, that’s a lot of money. Especially when half of what I earned off the Stradivarius went to taxes and ten percent went to the auction house.

I can’t really afford this Mei Ling recording. But why live if you can’t have one extravagant pleasure to brighten your day?

So fuck it. Just like Dan said. Just fuck it.

I flip the switch on my turntable, pick up the bag, and gently remove the album from its plastic cover.

I stare at it for a moment. Enchanted by the tiny grooves in the vinyl that hold music. It’s a small miracle in my eyes. I place the record on the turntable and make it turn, hesitating before placing the needle onto the edge—holding my breath, hoping I don’t accidentally scratch it—and then exhale and… there is music in my house. In my head. In my heart. In my body. In my fingers. I play the air the way I used to play my instrument, wondering if that joy I used to feel as a child will ever come back to me. Or if I’ll die up here in this tower, alone, empty, sad, and lonely.

What are you afraid of?

The question pops into my mind unwanted.

It’s not a fair question. Not in my mind. I never asked for this fear. I never called to it the way some mad people do. I never courted it, loved it, held it close.

I want more than anything to be the girl I was before they ruined me.

But I can’t.

It’s a sickness.

It’s a disease—not just in my head, but a part of me. Of my brain.

We will conquer your fear together.

No, I don’t think we will, Dr. Chatwell.

Some people are born tall. Some people are born short. Some people are born smart and some not. Some people are born with music in their fingers and some people are born to perform that art in front of people and make millions of dollars.

I’m just not one of those people.

I can’t even show my face in public. Not because of who I am. That’s not really my problem. No one knows who I am anymore. No one cares.

No. The reason I’ve locked myself away in this penthouse is because I cannot stand to be looked at. I cannot stand to be watched. I cannot stand attention.

And isn’t it ironic that my God-given talent—my only talent—is to play the violin? A talent that’s quite useless if there’s no one there to hear it.

I don’t even own a violin. Haven’t even played since I sold the Stradivarius.

So I play the air and wander back in time when it was all real. Before that first performance. When the music didn’t come with watchers. When the performance wasn’t about the money.

When I was a child.

I wish I was still that child.

I go back in time and stay there. I forget who I am, where I’m at, and why I’m even alive at all.

I drift in the blur of my own mind…

Ten hours later I wake up naked in the middle of the living room, the record still turning, the needle stuck at the end, hopping to static. My eyes burn from all the tears that Mei Ling sucked out of me. My body is sore from the sobbing, my heart empty and my head pounding.

I crawl over to my coat, discarded yesterday when I got home, and I pull out that card.

I stare at it for several minutes, wondering what it would be like to conquer my fear with Dr. Lucinda Chatwell.