I feel a twinge of anger on Ana’s behalf. Why is her mother acting as though her daughter must follow her orders like a puppet?
“Mother, please,” Ana pleads, her voice small. “It’s only been a few days. I just needed some time to—”
“Time?” her mother interrupts. “Time is a luxury you can’t afford, Anastasia. Do you think I spent years arranging tutors and opportunities just for you to throw it away on a whim?”
My feet close the distance between us before my brain catches up. Her fingers are cold when I take her hand, but she doesn’t pull away.
“I’m not throwing anything away,” Ana argues, her voice stronger now. “I’m trying to create something meaningful, something that’s mine.”
“Meaningful?” her mother scoffs. “What’s meaningful is maintaining your position, continuing the legacy we’ve worked so hard to build. Your grandfather didn’t survive the war and rebuild our family’s standing for you to squander it all because you’re feeling… uninspired.”
The pieces start falling into place in my mind. The rigid schedule, the perfectionism, the inability to let loose, the damn bun pulled so tight it looks painful—it all stems from this. Years of pressure, of impossible expectations, of being told that her worth is tied to her performance. My chest tightens at the image of what that treatment would have done to me—my creative spark would have shriveled and died, and I’d probably be riding a desk and thinking of ways to off myself.
“I’m not squandering anything,” Ana says, her voice rising. “I’mworking, Mother. Just because it doesn’t fit your precise schedule doesn’t mean it’s not valuable.”
“Don’t take that tone with me, young lady,” her mother snaps. “I expect you to return to New York by the end of the week. No more of this nonsense. Get back on track! Do you understand me?”
She trembles beside me. I squeeze her hand again, willing her to feel something solid.
“I heard you, Mother,” she says finally, her voice hollow. “Back in New York by the end of the week.”
“Glad to see you’ve come to your senses.” She cuts the call short without waiting for her daughter’s response.
Ana’s hand shakes as she lowers the phone and lets it slip onto the windowsill.
For a moment, neither of us moves. Then, slowly, she meets my gaze, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Hey.” My voice drops as I step in, our hips nearly touching.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers.
“Don’t be sorry,” I murmur. “Be mad.”
Her eyes flash, then flood. I can almost see her armor snap into place, bracing for judgment that isn’t coming. I hold up both hands. “Or be nothing. Let me lend you a spine until yours stops shaking.”
“I have a spine,” she says, but it’s made of glass right now.
“Then let’s harden it.” I snag the flute case and set it beside her. “Play me how that felt.”
“Nyxx, I can’t—”
“You don’t have to be pretty,” I say. “Just be honest.”
We wind up with me on the couch, her standing in front of me. My unplugged hollow-body guitar is perched across my thigh; her flute is unsteady in her hands. She doesn’t look at me when she lifts it. The first note wobbles, then steadies. She throws the next few at the ceiling like rocks at stained glass. I answer with the ugliest, truest three chords I know.
Something cracks open. The room fills with anger, then ache, then that fierce, defiant joy that has nothing to do with pleasing anyone. When her line splinters, I mirror the fracture and feed it back. When mine snarls, she wraps it in light. We don’t talk. We don’t need to.
By the time the last note dies, she’s breathing hard, cheeks flushed, eyes huge. I set the guitar down as if it might spook her.
“Better,” I say.
She nods, a jerky little movement. “Better.”
For a long second, the silence between us vibrates with everything we didn’t say. The echoes are still in the room—our breath, the last shard of music. She looks up at me, flushed and shining, and I feel it again—that pull.
I could close the space between us. I want to.
Instead, I rise and trail two fingers along the base of her throat, feeling the wild canter there.
