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My hands freeze an inch above the keys as the final notes hang in the air, and an awkward silence crashes down on the room.

I stare blankly at the keys, watching my fingers hovering uselessly above them as my chest rises and falls in absolute defeat.

“Mr Thorne,” Bartlett begins. “I see you still haven’t completed your composition?”

I don’t look up. I keep my eyes focused on the black and white keys in front of me.

Why can’t I just finish this fucking piece?

I know why.

Finishing it would mean that everything is final, and I am not ready for that. I’m not ready to let it go. It means too much.

Get a damn grip, Julian.

“It’s not ready,” I say aloud, my voice devoid of the usual arrogance.

“Yes, clearly… I can hear that.” Bartlett replies. Sarcastic prick.

I slide off the bench without another word, ignoring him completely as I walk back to my chair. As I move through the room, I look over at Josh, who doesn’t have the smug look the rest of the class is sporting. Instead, he looks at me and smiles. There’s a faint trace of pity in it, which pisses me off even more. He knows me too well. He knows what this piece means to me. I ignore him. I don’t have it in me for sympathetic smiles today.

I need to get out of here. Right now.

I grab my jacket from the back of the chair and leave the room—the door slamming shut behind me, cutting the room off entirely. Bartlett shouts something as the door closes. I don't listen to him.

Less than ten minutes in class—that has to be an all time record.

Fuck sake.

Ellise Vance had the balls to face her ghost today. She played Winter until she conquered the very thing that broke her.

And me? I’m still standing in the dark, trapped inside a melody I don’t even know how to finish.

11

Ellise

Maddie finds me at 4:49PM.

I know this because I have been watching the clock on my phone all day, the dread setting in for the six o’clock rehearsal with Julian Thorne.

Sitting in a cramped alcove outside the student lounge, I’ve become hyperaware of every minute between now and then. I am not looking forward to it, but I can’t stop thinking about it anyway.

I have to spend the evening with the most insufferable person at Belrose, who will spend the entire time picking about my technique, because apparently he knows better.

The thing about Julian Thorne is that he is very difficult to look away from when he is at a piano.

The music is a problem in itself—he’s such a talented musician—but that’s not why. It’s him. The way he sits with ease, the way his hands move across the keys with a fluidity that has no business existing in someone who is so awful in every other respect.

Those hands.

He is so freaking hot.

He is also such a prick.

The coexistence of those two facts is one of the more inconvenient things that has ever happened to me. I can’t seem to escape them.

Maddie drops down on the bench beside me without announcement.