Chapter 2
The day Melody left the hospital, her left ear was still covered with gauze.
The doctor told her it would take a long time to recover.
He also said some of the damage might never get better.
She folded up the diagnosis report and slipped it into the front pocket of her suitcase.
The villa's passcode hadn't been changed yet.
As soon as she opened the door, the sound of a piano drifted out from the living room.
It wasn't the usual business music Leon played.
It was her song, Echoes.
Melody stood by the shoe cabinet for a few seconds.
That song had an odd pause in the seventh measure, where the left hand was supposed to rest for a beat.
Lily played it wrong.
She didn't pause at all.
She played right through it, as if trying to cover someone else's wound with gold dust.
Melody changed her shoes and walked into the living room.
Lily was sitting at her piano, wearing her pajamas.
They were light gray silk, with a pearl button at the collar.
Melody had bought them for herself on her birthday last year.
Leon never cared about those little things.
Lily stopped playing and turned to look at her.
"Melody, you're back."
Her voice was soft, but her eyes kept flicking to Melody's ear.
"I didn't know these were yours. Leon said the guest room was cold and told me to just take whatever I wanted."
Melody didn't say a word.
She walked over and snapped the piano lid shut.
Lily's fingers nearly got pinched, and her face instantly went pale.
"Melody, what are you doing?"
"Take them off." Melody said.
Lily bit her lip.
"I was just borrowing them. It's not like you can change right now anyway, can you?"
Melody stared at her.
"I said, take them off."
Lily stood up from the piano bench and leaned in close to Melody's ear.
She deliberately went for the left ear.
Her voice was barely a whisper, thin as a thread.
Lily whispered, "Can you hear me now?"
Melody rested her hand on the piano lid.
Her fingertips felt the cold lacquer, still vibrating from Lily's mistake.
Lily gave a quiet laugh.
"Even if you can't hear it properly, it doesn't matter. This song belongs to me now."
Footsteps sounded at the doorway.
When Leon walked in, the first thing he noticed was Lily by the piano, her eyes were red.
Only then did he spot the gauze on Melody's ear.
He frowned.
"You just got out of the hospital. What's all this drama?" Leon said.
Melody pulled the diagnosis report from the side compartment of her suitcase and handed it to him.
The edges of the paper were creased from how tightly she'd been holding it.
Leon took it, his eyes fixing on the diagnosis.
Damage to the ossicles in the left ear.
Her hearing took a big hit—conductive loss, pretty severe.
Recovery's up in the air.
His fingers froze.
"The driver said you already had the surgery," Leon said.
Melody nodded.
"Yeah."
She looked up at him.
"While you were with Lily recording that night, I was in the ER, signing the surgery papers alone."
Lily shrank back a little.
"Melody, I really did have tinnitus that night. I didn't expect things to go this way," Lily said.
Melody looked at her.
"You didn't expect my location to just disappear, did you?"
Lily's expression stiffened for a moment, then her eyes quickly reddened again.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Lily said.
Leon gripped the diagnosis report tightly in his hand.
"Melody, I'll find out what happened with your location," Leon said.
"No need," Melody said.
She walked past him and headed upstairs.
Even the master bedroom felt different now.
Someone had rifled through her sheet music folder by the bed, the earplug case in the drawer was open, and a bottle of Lily's signature perfume now sat on the dressing table.
The air was cloyingly sweet.
Melody shoved her clothes into the suitcase, one by one.
Leon stood in the doorway, his voice dropping low.
"Where are you going?"
"Divorce," Melody said.
Once she said it, the room went dead silent—only the sound of her suitcase zipper broke the quiet.
Leon took a step closer.
"So you're divorcing me just because I didn't go to the hospital?" Leon said, almost in disbelief.
Melody looked up at him.
She almost wanted to laugh at how clueless he was.
It wasn't just about him missing one hospital visit.
It was the night she was curled up on the floor with stomach pain, while he was busy fixing up Lily's resume.
It was when she was burning up with a fever, and he was only worried about how nervous Lily would be for her first performance.
It was their first wedding anniversary—she'd bought two concert tickets, but he left her to go with Lily to meet a producer instead.
Did he ever notice?
Did he ever come back?
Melody laid her marriage certificate on the edge of the bed.
A faint scratch marred the paper—a mark left by the shattered glass from the accident that day.
"Leon, I'm not asking you to make up for that day," Melody said.
She grabbed her suitcase.
"I just don't want you anymore."