Chapter 2

When I walked into the living room, both Victoria and Adrien were there.

Seeing me, Victoria immediately began mouthing her words. She moved her lips in exaggerated, slow motions, as if teaching a toddler.

"Adrien's studio is being remodeled. He's going to stay with us for a while."

I looked at her face---a face I once loved, but now felt entirely foreign. I gave a slow, vacant nod.

Being deaf for three years had made her think of me as nothing but a brainless, compliant ghost.

Adrien dragged his suitcase inside. As he brushed past me, his nose wrinkled in open disgust.

Right in front of my face, he typed something on Victoria's phone and tilted the screen so I could see.

*Julian smells like cheap medicine. It's disgusting.*

Those words felt like a physical slap.

Victoria just laughed, her eyes crinkling.

"He takes a lot of pills. Just bear with it, sweetie."

I stood rooted to the spot, unable to move.

To them, I was just a smelly piece of broken furniture.

That night, Victoria told me to clear out of the master bedroom.

"Adrien needs absolute quiet to compose. Go sleep in the guest room."

I gathered my blanket and pillows. I made trip after trip to the cramped guest room down the hall.

Victoria just leaned against the doorframe, watching me. She didn't lift a single finger to help.

When I passed her, she instinctively took a step back, terrified she might catch the "smell of medicine" from my clothes.

That tiny movement cut deep.

I had watched her make that same movement for three years. Only today did I realize it was pure disgust.

That night, lying on the narrow guest bed, I stared at the ceiling.

My heartbeat thudded loudly in my new implant. It was a brutal reminder:

*You can hear now.*

*But all you can hear is how much your wife loathes you.*

The next morning, I was in the kitchen making breakfast.

Suddenly, the beautiful sound of a grand piano echoed from the living room.

Ever since my ears and hands were ruined three years ago, no one had touched my Steinway.

Adrien was sitting at the bench. He was playing the exact Chopin piece that had won me the International Gold Medal years ago.

He missed three notes in the first verse. Each mistake grated on my ears like nails on a chalkboard.

My hand shook violently. The chef's knife slipped, slicing deep into my index finger.

Blood gushed out, staining the cutting board a bright, sickening red.

But the physical pain was nothing compared to the ache in my chest.

Adrien spun around. Seeing my bleeding finger, a smirk played on his lips. He turned back and kept playing, deliberately missing another note.

It was a silent, arrogant boast.

He was mocking me. He was playing with the one thing I used to be proud of, treating it like garbage.

Victoria came downstairs. Seeing the blood on the counter, her face instantly fell into a scowl.

"There's blood everywhere. How filthy."

She didn't walk over. She didn't ask if I was okay.

Instead, she walked straight to the piano. She took Adrien's hands off the keys, cradling them gently.

"Stop playing," she murmured, her voice dripping with maternal sweetness. "The keys are cold. Don't ruin your precious hands."

She examined his fingers with absolute devotion.

I stood by the kitchen door, wrapping my bleeding finger in a dirty apron. The blood soaked through the fabric, cold and sticky.

Three years ago, the day my hand was crushed, Victoria was supposedly on a business trip.

I had called her seventeen times.

She didn't answer once.

Now I finally understood. Her tenderness was never meant for me.

I clamped my jaw shut, turned around, and finished making their breakfast.

That afternoon, I went to the clinic for a follow-up on my implant.

As I was walking out, someone called my name.

"Julian?"

I turned.

It was Clara Montgomery.

Three years ago, before my accident, she was the conductor who contracted me the most. She was a rising star in the orchestral world.

After my accident, my social circle vanished overnight.

Only Clara had visited me in the hospital.

Back then, when I couldn't hear, she wrote a note on a piece of scrap paper:

*The stage will always be waiting for you. Just get better.*

But after my hand was declared permanently ruined, I was too ashamed to ever face her again.

"I heard you got the implant," Clara said, stepping closer. "Can you hear me?"

I stared at her.

For three years, the first person to ask if I could hear wasn't my wife.

It was Clara.

"Yes," I said, my voice cracking slightly. "I can hear."

She glanced at my bandaged finger but didn't pry.

Instead, she looked me in the eye. "Julian, the contracts Victoria has been signing under your name these past three years... they're highly illegal. I have some evidence. Do you want to take back what's yours?"

I gripped the strap of my bag.

The wound on my finger throbbed.

But compared to those seventeen unanswered calls, this pain was nothing.

"Yes," I said.

It was the first real word of defiance I had spoken since regaining my hearing.