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Her melody was a testament to human endurance—one that no one could imagine a fifteen-year old would be capable of conveying, least of all understanding.
Tears coated her lashes as she gave herself to the music, drawing everything from deep within her.
She didn't dare to look at the audience, afraid she would be harshly judged for the truth she'd revealed.
But what she didn't know was that the audience wasn't judging. It was feeling. Every tear Noelle shed, everyone else shed it too.
And when the piece came to an end, an eerie stillness descended upon the auditorium. No one dared move, no one made a sound.
Almost as if they'd been locked in a trance, no one wanted to wake up.
On trembling legs, Noelle rose from the piano, walking slowly to the front of the stage and doing her obligatory bow.
Yet just as she bent to greet the audience, she was met with a standing ovation—one that shook her to her core.
People stood up. Some were still crying. Some were so overwhelmed they couldn't move.
And Noelle… Noelle feltseen.
7Noelle
"Didn't I tell you she'd win?" Cisco sported a smug expression as he playfully teased his wife. Yuyu simply shook her head at him, a smile playing at her lips.
Noelle blushed, her cheeks turning a deep shade of red as she looked down.
Never in her wildest dreams would she have imagined she would, indeed, win after her piece had been stolen. She couldn't even remember most of what had happened on the stage.
It was like she'd lost herself to the music.
For the first time in her life, she'd truly been one with the music.
"We saw the recording," Yuyu commented, taking Noelle's hands in her own and giving them a comforting squeeze. "You were spectacular. Truly, I felt the emotion and I wasn't even there."
They were celebrating at a restaurant in the city, and Noelle felt a little flustered at being invited to such a fancy establishment.
Though her family was rich, she'd never felt it. Her mother had always been the one in charge of her budget, and she could get a little stingy with money, especially when it came to all the items Noelle wanted but Elena disapproved of.
It had only been after her twelfth birthday that Cisco had intervened, personally handing Noelle an allowance—a sum that increased yearly as her needs increased, too.
Noelle bought only strict necessities, but the rest of the money she saved up, knowing she would at one point need it. As such, she'd never been used to riches, or the finer things in life.
Yes, their house was big, they had guards and servants. But to her it was all the same.
More than anything, because she'd always been seen as a pest—and a delinquent one at that—she'd never been out with her mother or her friends. And as Noelle had no friends of her own…well, she just never went out.
She tried to keep to a minimum the way she kept looking around in awe, the entire place was more luxurious than what she was used to. Then there was the food. Noelle didn't think she'd ever eaten finer food in her life.
"Thank you," Noelle murmured in a soft voice.
She hadn't anticipated the response to her improvisation would be so intense.
Even her mother, who usually had something to criticize, had been dead quiet as she'd taken one look at Noelle and given her a sharp nod before leaving.
Her mother, quiet? That in itself was unheard of.
But though her performance had been received extremely well, Noelle couldn't help but feel self-conscious about it. In her mind, she'd shown too much to the world and she wished she could bury her head in the sand every time she encountered someone who'd heard her play.
Then there had been her meeting with Ann Marie after she'd finished her performance.
