Page 1 of Love & Notes

PROLOGUE

ELLISE

Breathe, Ellise.

I’ve told myself that far too many times already today, yet it is becoming less effective each time.

I’ve performed in public since I was six years old. Recitals, competitions, auditions, masterclasses, all in front of people whose opinions could end careers before they had even begun. I know what it is like to stand under lights with a hundred pairs of eyes on you and feel the particular weight of expectation pressing down on your shoulders.

I’m used to the pressure.

I’m not used to him.

His arms are folded, and he is slouched in the velvet seat with the look of someone who is mildly bored. Around him, every other face is angled towards the stage with the specific focus of people who understand exactly what is at stake in this building. It is the nervous anxiety of people who have worked their lives to get to this exact moment and are not about to waste a single second of it.

But not him.

He isn't trying to show that he is remotely interested in the class. He's completely out of place in the auditorium, in this building, in the sterile institution of Belrose Academy’s first performance review of the year—a hall full of people trying desperately hard.

He’s not just out of place because of his attitude but every visible detail of him—starting with the leather jacket. Everyone else in this auditorium looks like ‘Belrose.’ They fit the part. The other guys are in chinos, pastel shirts and boat shoes—always boat shoes. They look like they belong here. They look like they are designed for rooms exactly like this one.

And then there is him.

He's dressed in all black. The leather jacket, the t-shirt underneath, the jeans.

It’s as though he's wandered in from somewhere else entirely, and couldn’t care less if he stayed or not.

The Belrose main auditorium is extraordinary, even now, with only a first year performance review occupying it. It's the kind of space that does not need a full audience to feel significant. The seats rise in curved burgundy tiers, climbing upward from the stage—the type of space that was designed to make sure every single person in the audience can see and hear everything that is happening on this stage. For a performer, there is nowhere to hide when you are up here.

Above it all, a chandelier of commanding scale hangs suspended over the centre of the hall. It throws light over the burgundy seats below in long warm bars, making them glow, and the wood panelling shine. It’s the specific light that lands on a stage and tells you that something monumental happens here.

I have stood on a lot of stages, but none of them have felt like this.

This is a dream come true.

I’ll stand on this stage again in just over a year and play as though my life depends on it in the Spring Showcase, which without a doubt will be the most significant performance of my entire academic career. Everything over the next year, including this first performance review, is in preparation for that exact moment.

The scouts from New York to London will be in the seats before me and will determine the trajectory of everything I have worked for since I was six years old. My absolute dream would be an offer to play with the New York Philharmonic.

It's all building towards that moment.

But that is not now.

Now, there is only him and those eyes.

The thing about them is that I can’t quite look away. They are dark, almost black in the auditorium light, the specific shade of dark that does not give you anything to read. Most people’s eyes show many things—warmth, coldness, empathy, maybe even judgement. Not his. They are the eyes of someone who sees everything and reveals nothing. And right now, they are fixed on me.

My violin is ready at my collarbone. My fingers are trembling in a way I cannot fully control as they hold my violin bow.

I’m supposed to be completely focused on the music. On Vivaldi’s Winter. The opening phrases should be running through my head right now. I’ve lost track of how many times I've played this piece. I could play it in my sleep, but I’m only focused on one thing, and that is the fact the guy in the leather jacket has not taken his eyes off me since the moment I stepped up here.

I’m not thinking about Vivaldi.

I’m only thinking about this guy and his effortlessly captivating eyes.

Focus, Ellise.

Overall, it's a bad day.