Forbidden Strings

Violet's POV

My fingertip pressed on the A string, knuckles stiff from the cold.

There weren't many people at the street corner. The streetlight stretched my shadow long. A few coins and a wrinkled one-dollar bill lay in the open violin case. Wind poured into my collar, and I shrank my neck.

Suddenly, I heard an engine.

I looked up instinctively.

The headlight was already in my face. My pupils contracted, and my whole body was knocked flying, rolling several times.

Blood trickled down from my calf. The edge of my white sock quickly bloomed red.

I tried to stand up, but my knee buckled and gave out. Cold sweat instantly broke out across my back.

The sparse passersby around me slowed their steps, but not one person came over. Like watching someone else embarrass themselves, secretly relieved it wasn't them who fell.

My mood was absolutely terrible. I looked up and found the motorcycle stopped half a step away from me.

The man removed his helmet and shook his hair—dark brown, messy from the helmet. The streetlight showed his prominent brow bone, light brown eyes squinting.

It was actually Ethan.

My boyfriend of three years?!

"How come it's you?" His voice was lazy.

My ears were buzzing because I saw the person behind him.

Long blonde hair, short skirt, long legs.

Sienna Hall.

That Sienna everyone on campus was talking about.

Her arms wrapped around Ethan's waist, chin resting in the hollow of his shoulder, like a cat that just stole a whole fish.

"Oh, Violet." She said, "Playing violin on the street in this weather? God, just looking at it is tiring."

My gaze locked on Ethan, desperately steadying my breathing.

"This is the 'important thing' you were talking about?"

This morning he texted saying "not meeting today, got something going on."

I looked for a long time and kept playing.

I was already good at making excuses for him.

Training's tiring, season pressure's high, he'll make it up another day.

I'd even already thought about it—another day we'd go eat at that new Italian restaurant. My treat.

"Yeah." Ethan said.

He reached out and pulled Sienna's waist close, naturally, like he'd done it a thousand times.

"Sienna is my most important thing."

Then he lowered his head.

Right in front of me.

He kissed her!

Something exploded in my brain, a fire burning until my scalp went numb!

Without even thinking, I rushed forward, reaching out to grab Sienna's arm—

But before I got there, Ethan pushed me away with one hand.

I stumbled back two steps. The wound on my knee tore open wider, blood gushed out directly, flowing down my calf into my shoe.

The pain made me grunt, biting my lip.

He didn't look at me. He looked down at Sienna, thumb wiping the lipstick smudged at the corner of her mouth, the motion gentle.

"What do you want for dinner?"

"Japanese food."

"Okay."

The motorcycle started, the roar making my teeth ache.

Sienna turned her head and smiled at me, triumph in every corner of her eyes and brows.

The motorcycle turned the corner, taillights disappearing into the night.

Ethan never looked at me again from start to finish.

I stood there, no bow in my hand, blood from my knee already pooling on the ground. Wind blew over, pouring into that layer of torn skin, like someone taking needles, stabbing them in one by one, pulling them out, stabbing them in again.

I slowly crouched down. When my fingers touched the broken bridge, tears crashed down.

Big drops, falling on the strings.

I desperately tried to steady my breathing.

I couldn't.

I slumped to the ground, hugging my knees to my chest, tears overflowing through my fingers.

God, I said in my heart.

Can you tell me why all of this is happening.

Me and Ethan Archer.

From the sports department next door, one year ahead of me.

His father owned three car dealerships in this state, and I had to rely on loans even for tuition.

Two people like us shouldn't have had any connection.

But after he saw me at a mixer, he chased me like crazy for an entire semester.

The night he confessed.

The motorcycle stopped under the dorm building, roses covering the ground, half the building's windows opened.

He held flowers, looking up and shouting at my window: "Violet Kane, be my girlfriend."

My roommate pushed me downstairs, pushed and pushed.

Without a word, he lifted me up and spun me around several times.

The brothers from the sports department whistled and cheered from the side. The whole parking lot was full of cheering and engine sounds.

I was so embarrassed my face turned red.

That night back in the room, my roommate looked at me, eyes bright.

"Someone like Ethan Archer, with so many girls throwing themselves at him, he chased you like this. Violet, he's really serious about you."

I believed it.

God, I believed it.

After we got together, he was really good to me.

Once I got mad and said we should break up. He drank all night, found me, held me tightly in his arms.

"Violet, if you leave, I'm really done for."

His friends all said they'd never seen Ethan this serious about anyone.

He used to change girlfriends more often than he changed sneakers, until he met me.

But later he changed.

I said I wanted to go see a movie, he said he was tired from training. I said let's go to the cafeteria together, he said he was meeting his brothers. Later I saw chat records with other girls on his phone, he said they were just friends, said I was overthinking.

I told myself it was just a rough patch, told myself every relationship goes through this phase, once it passes everything will be fine.

So I doubled down on being good to him.

He liked hearing me play violin, so I practiced songs he liked.

He liked motorcycles, so I stood on street corners playing violin to save money to buy him a helmet.

The student loan wasn't even paid off yet, but I just wanted him to wear that helmet.

Thinking about it now, I was that fool on stage taking a bow to an empty audience.

I slowly exhaled, shaking those images out of my head.

I put the violin back in the case and limped to the side of the road to hail a car.

I didn't go back to Ethan's apartment.

That apartment with floor-to-ceiling windows, where my clothes were still in the closet, the orange juice I bought still in the fridge, my toothbrush still in the bathroom.

But I didn't want to go back anymore.

I went back to the old apartment with six hundred dollar monthly rent.

Before I moved in with Ethan during junior year, I lived here for two years.

Peeling wallpaper, water heater that worked sometimes and didn't other times, the neighbors always fighting and baby always crying, day and night.

It couldn't compare to Ethan's apartment.

But that was my place.

That was where Violet Kane was supposed to be.

I felt under the doormat for the key and opened the door.

Inside was a stuffy smell of dust. I pushed open the window and sat on the edge of the hard bed, rolling up my pant leg.

The wound and fabric were stuck together. I took a deep breath and tore.

"Hiss..."

The pain brought tears to my eyes again.

No iodine.

I dug out half a bottle of expired hydrogen peroxide from the drawer, unscrewed the cap, and poured it directly on my knee.

White foam bubbled up, the pain making my whole leg shake.

I bit my lip hard, not letting myself cry out.

The doorbell rang.

I thought it was the landlord coming to collect rent, since I still owed two hundred from last month.

I wiped my face casually and limped to open the door.

The door opened. The light in the hallway was blocked.

Completely blocked.

I looked up, breath catching in my throat.

He was too tall.

His shoulders almost filled the entire doorframe.

Ash-gray suit, prominent brow bone, straight nose bridge, thin lips slightly pressed together, light gray eyes appearing especially deep in the dim hallway light.

Not young handsome, but a kind of composure polished by years and power together.

Just standing there, the entire hallway seemed to shrink a size.

"You, you are..."

"I'm Ethan's adoptive father."

The man's voice was low, like the bass string of a cello, resonating in the corridor.

I froze.

Adoptive father?

Ethan never mentioned he had an adoptive father.

I looked him up and down. He didn't look like a "father." Too young.

Or rather, too... I didn't know how to describe it.

He looked down at me, those light gray eyes showing no emotion.

"I'm here to apologize to you on his behalf."

He pulled out a business card from inside his suit.

Two slender fingers holding it, extending it toward me.

I stared at this card somewhat awkwardly, not knowing whether to take it or not.

"About Ethan's matter." He said, "Are you sure you want to hear it standing in the doorway?"

I gripped the doorknob tighter.

My heartbeat went off rhythm.