LEO’S POV
I sat at the old piano in Studio B, staring at the keys like they held the answers to all my problems. My right hand rested on middle C, my left hand hovering just above the bass notes. It had been months since I'd tried to play with both hands.
Maybe it was time.
I pressed down on the keys slowly, feeling the familiar resistance under my fingers. The notes rang out clear and true, and for a moment I forgot about everything else. My left hand joined in, tentative at first, then with growing confidence.
Bach's Prelude in C major. Elena's favorite piece.
The memory hit me like a physical blow, but I kept playing. I could see her face so clearly—the way she'd close her eyes when I played, the small smile that would cross her lips during her favorite passages. She'd sit in that old armchair by the window, her dark hair catching the afternoon light.
"Play it again," she'd always say when I finished. "Just once more."
My fingers moved across the keys with increasing confidence, muscle memory taking over where conscious thought failed. For the first time in three years, I was really playing again. Not just demonstrating scales for students or picking out simple melodies with one hand. This was music.
Then Elena's face flashed across my vision again, bright and vivid and impossibly real. Her laugh, the way she'd tease me about being too serious, the ring I'd given her just two weeks before the accident.
I jerked upright so violently that the piano bench scraped against the floor. My hands shot out to grip the edges of the chair, and immediately I felt the sharp protest from my injured wrist. The doctor had warned me about putting too much sudden weight on the joint.
"Damn it," I muttered, flexing my fingers and trying to work out the ache.
Finally, I let go of the chair and stood up. "Damn it all."
This was exactly why I'd stopped playing. Every time I sat at a piano, every time I let myself really feel the music, she was there. Elena's memory, bright and painful and impossible to escape.
Three years since the accident that took her life and nearly took the use of my right hand. Three years of physical therapy and guilt and the slow, crushing realization that some things could never be fixed.
I'd been driving that night. We were coming back from a concert in the city, and I was tired. So damn tired. Elena had offered to drive, but I'd insisted I was fine. Always had to be in control, always had to be the strong one.
Elena died instantly. She never felt any pain. But I'd lived, trapped in the wreckage for two hours with my right hand crushed and the woman I loved dead beside me.
The only way I could live with myself afterward was to stop doing what I loved most. No more concerts, no more recordings, no more late nights at the piano losing myself in music. Teaching was punishment enough—being surrounded by music every day but never truly being able to create it again.
Each time I tried to play, really play, Elena's face would appear. Her smile, her laugh, the way she'd hum along when I practiced. The guilt would crash over me like a wave, and I'd have to stop.
My hand had healed, mostly. Five months in a cast, and more than a of physical therapy, and it was functional again. But it would never be what it was before. The doctors said I was lucky to have any use of it at all.
Lucky. What a joke.
I cursed under my breath again and headed for the door. I needed to get back to my office, maybe review some lesson plans or grade papers. Anything to get my mind off the memories.
I was almost to my office when I heard the voices in the hallway. Raised voices, clearly arguing.
I recognized them immediately. Zoe and Marcus.
I stopped walking and frowned. Why were they always fighting? Every time I saw them together, they seemed to be in the middle of some heated discussion. It was starting to become a pattern.
I knew Marcus could be difficult. We'd been friends once, a long time ago, and I'd seen firsthand how controlling he could be. He always had to have his way, always had to be right. His ideas were the only ones that mattered, and anyone who disagreed with him was either stupid or not worth his time.
But Zoe was different from most people. She'd managed to break through the walls I'd built around myself, made me care about teaching again, made me remember why I'd loved music in the first place. If anyone could handle Marcus's difficult personality, it should be her.
Which meant the problem was definitely Marcus.
I moved closer to hear what they were arguing about, staying just out of sight around the corner. Marcus's voice was sharp and angry, the way it got when someone challenged his authority.
"You're being unreasonable, Zoe," he was saying. "This isn't a discussion."
"Everything is a discussion," she shot back. "I'm an adult, Marcus. I can make my own decisions."
"Not about this. Not about him."
Him? Were they talking about me?
I decided I should leave. This was clearly a family matter, and I had no business eavesdropping on their private conversation. I'd rescued Zoe from Marcus's controlling behavior once before, right before her recital, but I couldn't keep interfering in their relationship.
I turned to go, when I caught sight of Marcus's hand raised high.
"Don't you dare," I growled, lunging forward and grabbing Marcus's wrist with my right hand.
The movement sent a bolt of pain up my arm, but I didn't care. The rage burning in my chest was stronger than any physical discomfort.
Marcus's eyes went wide with surprise, then narrowed with recognition and something that looked like fear.