Chapter 3
The Decision
Jenna
When Killian leaves, I’m sure of my answer. There’s no way I’m doing this.
After five years of scrambling through life, trying not to let the flashbacks choke me and trying to accept that I can never pursue my lifelong dream, I have finally found some kind of peace. It’s not happiness and it’s not fulfillment, but it’s mine.
Since that night, it has been one long struggle to steer my life onto a new track that offered a bit of hope.
After changing schools and spending two hours a day commuting to one that I hated, but didn’t have Killian, I finally broke free from my mom, the misery of my childhood home, and her drinking.
I got a job and a flat in a different part of the city and started seeing a therapist. It’s taken me a long time to find a way to live with the things Killian did to me, and I’m not sure I’ll ever truly recover, but I’ve found some inner strength and new purpose in life.
My goal is to leave this city altogether, start over somewhere new, and become a paralegal. If everything goes to plan, I’ll be able to afford moving and tuition in two years.
There’s no way I’m letting Killian back into my life so he can destroy everything I’ve built.
But as the day wears on and the shock of seeing him again fades, new hope sparks. I’ve been dreaming about playing in front of a crowd again—living and breathing music instead of just playing to myself whenever it doesn’t hurt too much to confront my crushed dreams.
At the age of twenty-one, my chances of getting into a music college are fading fast. After not having had a single lesson in five years, I need the best piano teacher I can get if I want any chance at all. That teacher is Ian Ashcroft.
The first thing I do when I get home in the evening is look up the address on the backside of the sheet music. Chills cascade down my spine when I see that it’s the same house where I saw Killian the last time. His father’s house. The place of my nightmares.
The idea of going back there kills my resolve anew.
But as I lie in bed at night, unable to sleep, my mind keeps drifting to the new sheet music that I shoved beneath the pile beside my digital piano.
I know the piece well. I’ve heard it so many times, both the orchestral version and the four-hand piano transcription.
I can clearly hear it in my inner ear. The first trickle of notes mimics two springs blending together in a rapid cascade of notes, which finally becomes the river Moldau in a soaring, magnificent melody.
I know why Killian gave me that piece. To manipulate me. I won’t let myself fall for it. I refuse. But despite my many attempts at remaining steadfast, the music keeps calling to me. It’s two A.M. when I slip out of bed to go sit at the piano, put on headphones, and begin learning the music.
I tell myself it’s just that one time, but when I get back from work the next day, I can’t stay away from the piano even though I’m bone-tired.
Over the next two weeks, I keep making excuses, telling myself I’m only learning the music for my own enjoyment and there is no way I’m ever going near Killian again.
But as my deadline approaches and I have learned the first three pages fluently, my thoughts start to shift as I realize what this opportunity might mean for me.
Honing my skills, playing in front of an audience, and maybe—just maybe—getting back on track to pursuing the dream I’ve had since I learned my very first piano piece.
Dread fills me whenever I consider going back there, into the wolf’s den, but the anxiety is even more suffocating when I consider giving up and walking away from this opportunity that may never come again.
I know taking it is reckless, stupid, and dangerous, but I also know not taking it will mean that I’ll remain stuck on this deadbeat, unfulfilling path I’m on for the rest of my life.
Maybe confronting Killian and my fears will even grant me some much-needed closure and strength. Or maybe it will do the opposite and he’ll find ways to break me even more.
My thoughts keep flickering back and forth like this right up until the point where I’m standing in my flat, fully dressed and ready to leave, on Sunday at noon, an hour before the time scribbled on the back of the sheet music.
I still haven’t decided, and I don’t think I will before I’m there, in front of that house.