Chapter 4
When Max found Melody, she was crouched on the floor, fiddling with the pedal of her electric piano.
Max walked in, saw the screwdriver in her hand, and his expression soured instantly.
"This is what you're eating?" Max said, sounding exasperated.
There was half a tub of instant noodles sitting on the table.
The noodles were soggy and stuck together, with a greasy film floating on the soup.
Melody set the screwdriver down.
"It's just convenient," she said.
Max tossed the groceries he was holding into the kitchen.
"Say that again," Max demanded, his voice tight.
Max was a sound engineer—sharp-tongued, but steady-handed.
She and Melody first met in a basement recording studio, and when they were at their poorest, they'd share a single lunchbox for dinner.
She threw on an apron and started chopping veggies, the knife banging away on the cutting board.
Melody sat on a small stool, watching Max's back as she worked.
All she could hear was the knife hitting the cutting board in her right ear.
Her left ear stayed quiet.
She still wasn't used to this—one side buzzing with life, the other side empty.
Once the food was ready, Max set a plate of cheesy scrambled eggs and buttered toast down in front of her.
"Eat up first. We'll get to the real talk after," Max said.
Melody picked up a piece of egg with her fork.
It was way too salty.
She chewed slowly, feeling the heat sting her throat.
Max saw her like that and swallowed the sharp words she was about to say.
"Leon's digging into Lily," Max said.
Melody froze, her fork paused halfway to her mouth.
Max handed her the phone.
"Lily didn't even bother going to the hospital for a checkup that day. She got someone to mess with her medical records and faked the whole tinnitus thing," Max said.
On the screen were two timelines.
One was the police report from Melody's accident.
The other was Lily's sign-in record at the recording studio.
The timelines matched up exactly—no gaps, no mistakes.
"And that business track you had to pull down?" Max said.
She scrolled down.
"The account that flagged it is the same company Lily's team hired to buy their way onto the trending list."
Melody stared at those screenshots.
She'd always felt something was off.
But every time she mentioned it, Leon would brush her off—"Lily's not the type, she'd never pull something like that."
The girl everyone called timid went and played Melody's unreleased song for the whole audience.
The same so-called timid girl erased Melody's SOS location without a second thought.
Melody handed the phone back to Max.
"Show me the evidence," Melody said.
"Leon's still working on it," Max said.
Max glanced at her.
"He told me to tell you he's sorry."
Melody laughed, just for a second.
Her laugh vanished instantly, like a snapped string.
"Regret doesn't count as evidence," Melody said.
Max didn't argue.
She gently slid the bowl of soup closer to Melody.
"So, what are you going to do now?" Max asked.
"I'm going to write music," Melody said.
She opened her laptop.
On the screen was a small gig she'd just picked up.
It was a low-budget charity short film—nothing fancy, just something simple.
She took off her left ear hearing aid and set it on the corner of the table.
She slipped her studio headphones over her right ear.
The first time through, she missed the noise in the low frequencies.
The second time, she zoomed in on the waveform, checking every detail.
Back then, her ears did all the work.
Now, it was all about her eyes, her hands, and hitting replay again and again.
By three in the morning, Max was passed out at the table, fast asleep.
Melody pulled a jacket over her and kept working on the twelfth track's volume.
As dawn broke, she uploaded her new track to the platform.
She called it Silent Notes.
The first twenty seconds had no melody—just soft breathing and the city's background noise.
Then the piano came in.
One note.
Two notes.
It felt like someone was coming up for air after being underwater for ages.
By noon, the comments section had exploded—thousands of messages flooded in.
Some people said they suddenly felt like crying halfway through.
Others wondered if she'd gone through something herself.
Melody didn't reply.
She withdrew her first donation from the platform and put it toward next month's rent.
A payment confirmation popped up on the screen.
She stared at the confirmation for a moment.
Then she reattached the broken pedal to the piano.
*****
This was the first time Leon ever waited downstairs for someone—and he waited five hours.
Parking was a pain in the old part of town.
He'd left his car at the mouth of the alley, and a bicycle handlebar had scraped a thin line down the side.
The driver kept glancing at the rearview mirror.
"Mr. Walker, should I go up and ask?" the driver asked.
Leon shook his head.
He kept watching the little window glowing on the third floor.
The curtains were thin, and sometimes he could see Melody moving past inside.
She moved more slowly than she used to.
Whenever someone walked by on her left, she'd visibly hesitate, then turn to make sure.
Leon had never paid attention to any of this before.
He remembered Melody was always afraid of the dark.
But after they got married, she always left a light on in the hallway for him, every time he came home.
He always thought it was just a habit.
It wasn't until she left that the villa felt pitch black, like an empty shell.
Six hours in, Melody came downstairs to take out the trash.
She was wearing an old sweater, her hair pulled back in a loose knot, and she carried a bag stuffed with discarded sheet music.
She froze when she saw him.