Page 84 of The Other Side of Green

“He probably didn’t want to scare you.”

Too right too. My heart hammered loudly.

“I’m not worried about scaring you. I think you are made off sterner stuff than a lot of people give you credit for.”

“Yeah?”

“Totally. I mean, you’ve come back, even with all the gossip and the rumors about why you got your place and the fact that you wouldn’t have got in otherwise.”

Yeah, because I literally had nowhere else to be.

“Yikes, keep it real, Mr. Parks.”

“Shaun. Call me Shaun. It looks like we could be working together for a fair while now.”

My heart sank. “Yeah, I guess it does.”

“Right then. You’d better actually unclip that violin case. It’s not going to do it itself.”

I stared at my nemesis and then with a huffed sigh unclipped the top. Right my old foe, you can’t let me down now.

“What scale should I start with?” I lifted my chin, nestling the worn cradle in its place.

“All of them, Lyra. If you’re going to be on television, then I’m going to make you the very best you can be.”

Television? Sweat prickled my neck.

Pushing down my fear, the monster that lurked in the blank space between what I wanted to play and what came out, I closed my eyes. I let my mind take me back to New Orleans and the man I left behind, hoping with all my heart that one way or another he could feel me play.

“How was it?” Eva lay on her tummy stretched along her bed. She was doing some pretty intense study in the form of a Netflix binge.

I waved my pink-tipped fingers at her. “Shaun Parks thinks I’m going to be a television star.”

“And are you?” She arched an eyebrow and I chuckled.

“I doubt that very much.”

Shutting her laptop, she rolled over to face me better. “Have you heard from home?”

“No,” I replied, my stomach tightening in a not at all comfortable or enjoyable way.

“You coming back to lectures tomorrow?”

I pulled a face. “So everyone can talk about me?”

“Well, the least you should do is make them do it to your face. God, I can’t wait to see Brittany’s face when you walk back in.”

“Are you even in my lectures tomorrow?”

Eva smirked. “Nope, but Alex has promised to record it for me.”

“How’s he doing? I didn’t even get to ask him. He must be taking this hard; his family name being dragged through the mud like this.”

Eva thought for a moment, stretching her hands over her head. “You’d think so wouldn’t you? But really he just seems happy they are gone.”

I snorted gently. I had no doubts at all they would be back. I didn’t think people like the Collins’ took defeat too easily. And they had been defeated now. They’d been outed in front of the whole world by a bunch of kids.

“So you and Alex…?” I wiggled my eyebrows.