Chapter 15 I Was a Prodigy Too
On Monday I woke before the alarm.
I opened my closet and stared at the clothes hanging inside. Everything I owned was loose, shapeless. Washed-out greys. Soft beiges. Faded blacks.
After a minute of digging, I found a tunic top that actually fit and a pair of black leggings. Simple, clean, presentable. I dressed, then stepped in front of the mirror and forced my spine straight.
Shoulders back. Chin up.
In my last life, I’d hunched without realizing it. Years of trying to fold myself smaller, make my height less offensive.
At 5’10, I was all limbs, long lines. A model’s frame really, though my mother called it “unfeminine.”
I held my own gaze in the mirror until I saw the difference.
Until I felt it.
Then I headed downstairs and out the door without saying goodbye. School was fifteen minutes away by foot. I’d always walked alone. Apple’s morning routine took so long that Mom insisted on driving her.
Apple always arrived with perfect hair, perfect clothes, perfect violin case in hand.
The prodigy.
The miracle child.
Whenever I thought about her violin, about all the recitals, the standing ovations, the scholarships people whispered about when she was only fourteen, a sharp twist pressed under my ribs.
Not jealousy.
Something older. Deeper.
Ghost pain.
As I walked, I glanced down at my left hand, flexing fingers that never quite obeyed the way they used to. They never moved fast enough, never with the precision they once had. The thin white scars across my palm caught the early light.
I had been a prodigy too, once.
Piano.
That part of my life felt distant now, like a story someone else had lived, but the memory always came sharp when I allowed it.
I’d been eleven. Washing dishes as punishment. I couldn’t even remember what Apple had done to cause the argument, just that I ended up blamed for it, as always.
I stood at the sink, hands buried in warm suds, steam fogging the window, when the crash came behind me.
I spun around, startled.
Apple stood by the counter, staring down at the remains of a plate scattered across the tiles. Her eyes were wide and filled with tears.
“Sorry!” she squeaked.
I only sighed and set the dish I’d been rinsing aside. “I’ll get it.”
She didn’t move. Just nodded, small and pitiful. So I fetched the broom, swept the shards into the dustpan, and dumped the pieces into the trash.
It took barely a minute.
When I turned back, the bubbles in the sink had settled, the water a murky white film hiding everything underneath.
Without thinking, I plunged my hand back in.
The pain was immediate and blinding. A deep, slicing agony ripped through my palm, up my wrist.
I screamed and jerked my hand out, blood already spilling down my arm in streams.
Apple shrieked even louder.
Then she rushed to me with a dishtowel, her face pale, eyes huge, the perfect image of a horrified sister.
She pressed the towel over my wound. So hard it felt like something tore deeper under her grip.
But the pain fogged my mind, and all I could do was choke on sharp breaths while she cried for our parents.
I actually remember feeling guilty for bleeding on her favourite shirt.
At the hospital, no one asked what actually happened.
My father only leaned forward, impatience etched into every line of his face as he looked at the doctor.
“Will she still be able to play? She’s gifted.”
The surgeon gave him a look that was somehow both clinical and regretful.
“The flexor tendons in her palm are severed. That’s why she can’t bend her fingers. We need to operate tonight if we want to preserve function.”
My father cut him off.
“She has the Youth Showcase audition next month. Important instructors will be there.”
The surgeon looked at me with a gentleness that almost made me cry.
“The glass severed multiple flexor tendons,” he said. “We need to take her to surgery tonight. Recovery will be long. Months of therapy. Fine motor control may not return fully…”
My stomach dropped.
Months. Maybe years. Maybe never.
Everything I had trained for, every hour, every sacrifice. Gone.
My father just exhaled sharply.
“What a waste.”
My mother pinched the bridge of her nose, the way she always did when disappointed. “Ashley, honestly. Why can’t you be more careful? Why can’t you be more like your sister?”
And Apple, sweet, perfect Apple, dabbed at her tears like she was the real victim.
“It wasn’t her fault,” she whispered. “She didn’t mean to ruin her future.”
At the time I believed she was comforting me. I believed she loved me. As if she were defending me. As if she hadn’t been the one to break the glass.
Back then, I didn’t see it.
But now I remembered the way her mouth twitched, just barely, when the doctor said I might never play at that level again.
She’d probably still been stewing about whatever stupid argument we’d had, wanting a little revenge, a little payback she thought would sting and then fade. She could never have imagined what she’d actually done.
The result was beyond her wildest dreams.
She was finally the only prodigy in the family.
I shoved my scarred hand into my pocket and kept walking.
At school, at my locker, a familiar voice cut through the noise.
“ASH!”
Payton threw her arms around me so hard I staggered. I hugged her back, my chest tightening painfully. The last time I’d seen her, in my first life, she’d been screaming at me, calling me things that still echoed in my bones.
And then she died.
Seeing her alive now… it felt like relief and grief twisted together.
“I missed you,” she said, pulling back with a grin. “Aspen was amazing. But I swear, my family almost killed each other. What’d I miss?”
Too much. And I couldn’t say any of it.
The words burned at the back of my throat:
You believed the worst of me.
You didn’t even let me explain.
How could you?
But I swallowed them.
“That’s great,” I said instead. “Glad you had fun.”
She kept talking. Something about the slopes. The food. Her dad falling off a lift.
I nodded in the right places, but it all blurred together.
All I could think about was how different our friendship felt now.
I wasn’t angry.
Not anymore.
Just… changed.
The version of Ashley she had loved didn’t exist anymore.
At some point she mentioned, “Oh, Nick’s already back at college. He left last night.”
My heart clenched.
Tight. Painful.
Nick.
My first love.
My deepest heartbreak.
The man who didn’t believe me either. The man who hadn’t believed the baby was his. The man who turned away from me when I shattered, then slept with Apple.
A faint nausea curled through me.
“Cool,” I said quietly. “Good for him.”
At least I wouldn’t have to see him. His campus was three hours away, and he only came home for holidays.
I had time to breathe.