“Please.”
Twenty minutes earlier, she had been smiling because she thought she had destroyed my career.
Now hers depended on what happened next.
Mom rushed toward us.
“That’s enough. Claire, tell Ms. Hayes this was just a family argument.”
Eleanor’s expression turned cold.
“Destroying an eighty-thousand-dollar instrument is not a family disagreement.”
Mom immediately fell silent.
Vanessa looked close to panic.
“I’ll pay for it.”
I looked at her.
“With what money?”
She said nothing.
“The investment money?”
The hallway became completely quiet.
Then the stage manager appeared.
“Claire, you’re up.”
I turned toward the stage.
Behind me, Vanessa said something I had never heard from her before.
“I’m begging you.”
I stopped.
Not because I felt sorry for her.
Because I wanted her to understand something.
I looked back.
“You didn’t destroy my future, Vanessa.”
I lifted the Stradivarius slightly.
“You only exposed yours.”
Then I walked onto the stage.
PART 3
The first note filled the auditorium.
And everything else disappeared.
Vanessa.
My mother.
The broken violin backstage.
For the next fourteen minutes, there was only the music.
I thought about every hour Grandpa had spent teaching me.
Every competition I had attended alone because my family claimed they were too busy.
Every family dinner where Vanessa laughed at music and called it my little hobby.
Every time my parents asked when I planned to find a “real career.”
I put all of it into Sibelius.
