Chapter 2
11 years old
I t was hatred at first sight.
Every Wednesday at 2:00 p.m., the front bell would ring.
Every Wednesday at 2:01 p.m., I’d take my place at the top of the stairs and watch her go inside my mother’s music studio.
It was bad enough that my mom treated her like the child she wished she had, greeting her with the smiles she never shared with me. But she’d also spend hours in her precious music sanctuary—a place she guarded with the ferocity of a dragon protecting its hoard—again with Dalia. And I wasn’t even allowed to touch a single instrument or set foot inside.
At 3:59 p.m., she’d exit the music studio.
Her —with her snow-white hair adorned with those ridiculous ribbons. Why did she have them on every time? She was probably tucked into her bed every night, her family reminding her how much of a blessing her existence was. She didn’t know anything about the real world. Her skin was soft—not a single scratch, like one of a doll. Mine was full of them.
I despised everything about her. From the violin cradled in her pale hands—a reminder that I hated music—to the way she never failed to notice my presence and smile at me each time. As if the world wasn’t an ugly place. As if she was genuinely thrilled to see me. And the way those huge green eyes of hers stared at me without a hint of pity or fear. I’d never seen that look before on anyone, at least not aimed at me. She was like a relentless pop-up ad, refusing to be closed. And that annoying greeting—
“Hello,” she said for the hundredth time.
You’d think she’d catch on, but nope.
Though she was probably around my age, she didn’t act like the kids from my school. That made her worse than any of them because her presence tugged at something inside my chest. It was new and not pleasurable—like an itch I couldn’t scratch, but deeper like it was eating at me from the inside.
My stepfather. The people from that shitty town. Humans in general. They were all ugly because kindness didn’t exist.
That was why I was watching her. I wanted to watch her until she revealed her layers to me. I usually needed less than a minute to make people show their real, horrible selves, but she never once did.
“What are you always doing up there?” the girl asked, coming up the stairs.
Why didn’t she leave? I wanted her gone. Why was she always trying to talk to me?
I stood and hid the miniaturized motherboard that I had optimized after removing it from my stepdad’s computer. It was either that or playing chess alone. Butterflies didn’t come in winter.
“You can talk to me, I—” She took another step closer.
“Dalia.” My stepfather, Patrice, didn’t want me close to her. She was the daughter of his boss, and I was me . “Your father is waiting for you in the car.”
“Thank you, Sir,” she said, always so polite.
I snorted. Then she turned to me and smiled again like it was all she knew how to do. She took a bag of candy out of her bag and offered it to me.
“This is for you. They remind me of you.”
I froze, my muscles stiffening like I was caged in my own body. I had to force myself to keep my expression blank, trapping my thoughts along with my ability to pretend to be normal. Needless to say, I didn’t take the candies, so she placed them on the stairs.
“I’ll see you next Wednesday?” Her cheeks turned red, and she lowered her voice, “I hope you’ll watch me again.”
After she left, I snatched the candies, studying the bag to guess what was inside. On this day at school, kids exchanged candies with their friends. I tore open the bag, but they were all black licorice.
No one likes licorice.
It was the one candy everyone avoided like the plague. Like me. It was ridiculous. My mother came into my field of vision, and I dropped the candies. I crushed them under my foot, some scattering on the hardwood floors. But nothing. She ignored me again.
Before I could even get to the stairs that next Wednesday, Dalia left me a note asking to be friends.
I ripped it apart.
But on the next one, she purposely didn’t close the door of the music room so I’d hear her play from the stairs for the first time.
The melody of her instrument hit me like a stab in the heart.
And at that moment, I loathed her even more for a whole new reason.