Chapter 2
At night, after my shower, I curled up on the couch with my phone. The algorithm struck with cruel accuracy.
After showering, I lay on the sofa scrolling through my phone, and data accurately pushed this video with millions of likes to my feed.
The title was incredibly jarring: [The Runaway Piano Prince Returns After Ten Years.]
I felt my stomach drop as I tapped on it.
With trembling hands, I tapped to open the video.
The footage was shaky. Crowds everywhere. But the man at the piano was perfectly clear.
My husband. The same man who claimed music made him sick. The man who avoided melodies like they were poison.
He was wearing the white shirt I ironed by hand this morning, and his back was perfectly straight.
The hands that couldn't even lift a bag of rice in front of me were now dancing gracefully on the black and white keys.
His expression was focused and deeply emotional, as if he were conversing with the entire world through the piano keys.
Every highly praised comment was like a knife, accurately piercing my heart.
[Oh my god! It's TR. It's Tristan Rook. He finally came out. I thought he would never touch a piano again in his life!]
[I'm dying. This 'Castle in the Sky' he's playing is Aurora Lane's favorite version. They won an international gold medal by performing this piece together back then.]
[Where have you been. Aurora is coming back next month for her solo comeback. Tristan is obviously sending her a message. The Golden Couple lives again.]
The Golden Couple. The perfect match. The duo everyone worshipped.
Aurora Lane.
Of course I knew that name.
Shw was an internationally renowned young pianist, the darling of major music festivals.
I opened the old videos fans posted.
Ten years ago, Tristan was a star who could set stages on fire. Back then people called him TR. He wore a perfectly tailored tailcoat and unleashed Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto like a storm.
His playing was wild and furious, full of raw life, like some untamed creature sprinting across open plains.
By the time he finished, the entire Golden Hall was on its feet. But he didn't bow. He walked straight to the side of the stage and pulled a girl in a white chiffon dress into his arms.
That was Aurora.
He held her tight, turned to the audience and the cameras, and shouted, loud and proud for the whole world to hear, "She's my muse. Every note I play is for her."
In the video, his eyes were fervent, like a burning flame.
But whenever he looked at me, his expression was always polite, distant, lukewarm.
I turned off my phone and looked at the man sleeping beside me.
His brows were drawn tight, like even his dreams couldn't give him peace.
I slowly reached out my hand, wanting to smooth the creases between his brows, but my fingertips stopped one centimeter from his skin.
I suddenly realized.
His hands weren't too weak to carry groceries. He just didn't feel like carrying them for me.
His joints weren't "injured." He was simply saving all his strength to play the world for someone else.
Our three-year marriage, tucked neatly inside the lies he'd spun, looked like one enormous joke.
I sat awake till dawn.
Watching the man I'd shared a bed with for three years, I felt my stomach twist like something rotten.
I used to think he was stiff, honest, just another overworked office guy. It turned out, that was nothing but a carefully crafted mask to protect those precious "pianist hands."
He wasn't incapable of doing chores. He just didn't want to.
He wasn't clueless about romance. He just didn't want to be romantic with me.
My palm drifted over the slight swell of my belly. The tears dried out of my eyes, replaced by a coldness I'd never felt before.
If you loved acting so much, Tristan, then I would give you a show.
You want to be TR, the beloved piano prince?
Dream on.