Page 36 of Love & Notes

It isn’t the most eloquent apology, but for someone who hasn’t muttered the word sorry in over ten years, it takes a ridiculous amount of effort to force it out.

Her mouth parts slightly, a tiny stunned breath escaping her lips. She stares at me from behind her music stand. Both her eyebrows are raised in surprise, her blue eyes wide and totally unguarded.

The silence stretches between us, heavy and thick enough to taste. I don’t look up. My fingers trace the edge of the ivory C-sharp, waiting for her to either snap at me with the usual venom or walk out entirely.

“Umm… it’s fine, Thorne,” she says, her voice a little breathless as she shifts her weight from one foot to the other. She looks down at her violin, her fingers tracing the edge of the curved wood. “It’s okay. Really. It was just a… a really bad day.”

“Aren’t they all?” I respond, offering a brief shrug that feels a hell of a lot more casual than I actually feel inside.

I expect her to fire back with a biting remark about my attitude or to lift her bow and force us back into the safety of the music, but she just stands there, her shoulders dropping a fraction of an inch as she lets out a long exhale.

Then, without a single shred of warning, she drops her shield entirely.

“My dad passed away five years ago yesterday.”

The words don’t cut through the tension, they entirely deflate the room. I freeze on the piano bench, my hands still hovering over the keys. I’m not entirely sure if this is a deliberate invitation into her grief or a reflex from the sheer physical exhaustion, but it hits me deep in my chest.

They violently drag me back to my own living hell with Mum.

The silence stretches as the rain outside continues its erratic thudding against the glass wall. She isn’t looking at me anymore. She’s staring at the fine tuners of her violin, her fingers absolutely still. Her bottom lip tucked tight between her teeth, as if she’s trying to swallow the words back down her throat.

Looking at her now, I feel like an absolute monster. There is so much more to her than I had ever allowed myself to realise—so many layers buried below that rigid pristine armour.

“I’m sorry,” I say. This time, I really mean it. It’s all I have to give her. I slide slightly on the leather of the bench, leaning forward as my voice drops. “I… damn, Vance. I know the feeling. Truly.”

She flinches slightly at that, her eyes flicker up finally catching mine. There is a search in her gaze. It’s a silent demand to know if I’m mocking her, or if I actually just admitted to a shared secret.

“You do?” she whispers, the words completely fragile.

I set myself up for this. I walked right into the line of fire, and there’s no backing out now.

“My Mum,” I mutter, the words scraping against my throat. It’s a piece of myself I never, ever give away to anyone. It’s certainly not a vulnerability I would ever speak about to the competitive vultures at Belrose and definitely not to her.

What the hell am I doing?

Every survival mechanism I own is screaming at me to shut up, but I can’t stop myself. I can’t stop the words from pouring out of my mouth. It feels terrifying to acknowledge it out loud after keeping it locked away in the dark for so long.

“Ten years ago. Breast cancer. It’s… yeah. The anniversaries are a special kind of hell.”

I reach up and scratch the back of my neck—a forced habit I drop into whenever things get too heavy, and I don’t know how to react. My throat feels tight, like it’s closing up on me as I try to speak through the pain.

“So yeah, I get it… I get it completely.”

She doesn’t say, “I’m sorry.”

She doesn’t offer the usual empty words people use when they want to escape an awkward conversation, and I find myself admiring her for it. I’ve heard enough of those useless, pitying words over the years. Instead, she nods once—a tiny, jerky movement of her chin that acknowledges the raw weight without saying a word.

We don’t say another word on the topic. We don’t need to.

I reach out, my fingers hovering above the ivory keys again. Not because I want to force her back to the practice, but because the silence is suddenly too loud to handle. I smirk as the realisation hits me—I am turning to the music as an escape for once. Not her. Me.

“The Doppio section. Let’s take it from the transition. Slow tempo,” I command softly, breaking the spell.

She doesn’t argue. She doesn’t drop an icy, sarcastic comment to put me back in my place. She just lifts the instrument back to her shoulder, her movements a little slower now, a little more human as she looks at me and offers a fragile smile.

“From the transition,” she repeats softly.

I drop my wrists, and this time, when the sound of the piano fills the room, it doesn’t feel like a declaration of war.