AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Rainbow reader eyes? I like that, but it might be something different called neuro—”
“It’s getting late,” Landon blurted, cutting her off. His muted expression had given way to a simmering fury. His eyes burned with it as he stared at the mess of empty boxes, papers, and notebooks. “Let’s clean up and get you into bed. It’s been a long day.”
But she couldn’t allow the man to cut short her conversation with Aria.
“Hold on. I want to show one last thing to Aria. It won’t take long.”
She took the girl’s hand and brought her to the wall next to her desk. Her grandfather had installed a floor-to-ceiling magnetic whiteboard. This was where Babs had taught her to read music. Day after day, they’d practiced here, among her trinkets and treasures, using a set of multi-colored circular magnets. And now, this was where Bonbon Barbie taught when she wasn’t stuck in her car in the Vegas heat waiting to be rejected from a porn contest.
She gathered a handful of magnets from her desk drawer, then drew a makeshift musical staff with a curvy treble clef. “Do you know the names of the notes that go on each line?”
Aria’s shoulders slumped. “My music teacher told us to sayevery good boy does fineto rememberE,G,B,D, andF. But not every boy does fine. Jason Huber is super-duper terrible. He’s the opposite of fine.”
“I agree,” Harper said, then pointed to the lines. “I use a different one.Exceptional girls bake delicious fudge. Who doesn’t like fudge? It’s the number two most delicious treat after bonbons.” She thought the kid would get a kick out of her girl power acronym, but she didn’t.
Aria shrugged. “I like that better because it’s about girls, but the notes will still move around. And I don’t like the notes, anyways. I can play anything I hear like my—”
“Aria,” Landon cautioned.
What was up with him? She tried to read the guy. Was it anger? Was he tired?
“I need two more minutes,” she said to her scowling husband, then turned to the child. “If the colored lines helped you read the song about Penny’s stinky sisters, the colored magnets might help the notes stay in one spot.”
Aria had to be a neurodivergent learner. Their similarities were too close to ignore.
She placed five magnets on different spots on the staff, then tapped the board. “Tell me the names of the notes,” she prompted.
Aria concentrated. “Girl, delicious, fudge, exceptional, delicious. G, D, F, E, D?”
She got it.
“That is correct.”
“Do I get fudge?” the kid asked, perking up.
“No,” Landon answered, stepping in. “You get to clean up. And then you get to go to bed.”
Why was he acting like a killjoy? Yes, it was late, but the kid just had a breakthrough.
“We can do more with your rainbow eyes tomorrow,” she said, tossing another look at her sullen heartthrob. “Your uncle is right. It’s getting late.”
“Okay,” the child murmured.
Despite Landon’s cool reception, a spark had ignited within Aria.
And how did she know that?
When she was Aria’s age, once her grandmother had shared these strategies, what Aria called using her rainbow eyes, making music and reading went from being a tedious chore to opening a world without limits.
The child skipped across the room and swiped the notebook off the bed. As she went to toss it into a box, the pages fluttered open, and a photo drifted to the floor. Aria picked it up and frowned. “Who’s that guy with you?” she griped and held out the picture.
“It’s Vance,” she whispered. The image shattered the excitement welling within her. Just seeing her stupid smiling face next to his turned her stomach.
And what was it doing here?
She’d gone out of her way to feed every trace of the man to the paper shredder years ago.
“Was he your boyfriend, Harper?” the kid pressed.
